The Winners: Seven News was tops with 1.610 million, with Today Tonight second with 1.453 million and Home and Away third with 1.297 million (and we haven’t seen that top three order very much this year!). Getaway averaged 1.229 million at 7.30 pm for Nine and Nine News was 5th with 1.191 million. Seven started the new series of The Amazing Race at 7.30pm and it finished 6th with 1.190 million. Nine’s repeat of Two and a Half Men averaged 1.146 million and Ten’s Rush averaged 1.145 million at 8.30pm. It is an almost impossible to believe program. But it won the 8.30pm timeslot. A Current Affair averaged 1.118 million for 9th and 20 to 1 on Nine averaged 1.103 million. Double Take on Seven at 7.30pm debuted with an OK 1.084 million and TV Burp averaged 1.007 at 8pm and 12th spot. Both will weaken next week. Ten’s Law and Order CI at 9.30pm averaged 919,000. Inspector Rex‘s repeat at 7.30pm on SBS, 392,000.

The Losers: Nothing really: not the most outstanding of nights, but no disasters like Dance Your Ass Off and Australia’s Perfect Couple from Tuesday and Wednesday nights. The Footy Shows, 906,000 from 9.30pm. 175,000 for the NRL show in Sydney and 143,000 for the NRL program in Brisbane. The 377,000 for the AFL program in Melbourne meant the program overall got better figures than it deserved and held Nine up for the night.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Today Tonight lost Melbourne to ACA, which lost Brisbane to TT by a surprisingly large 133,000 viewers, Odd. The 7pm ABC News averaged 986,000, The 7.30 Report, 796,000. Lateline, 233,000, Lateline Business, 141,000. Q&A at 9.30pm, 464,000. Ten News averaged 910,000, The late News/Sports Tonight, Ten News, 461,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 179,000, the 9.30pm edition, 137,000. 7am Sunrise. 383,000, 7am Today, 318,000.

The Stats: Nine and Seven tied with 27.7% share (23.7% and 28.9% a week ago respectively. Seven claimed victory in All People, 16 to 39, 18 to 49 and 25 to 54. Ten also claimed victory in 16 to 39. It was one of those nights that gave everyone something they wanted, so long as they set the parameters the right way in their ratings analysis. Ten was third with 22.8% (27.3%). Then came the ABC with 15.4% (12.7%) and SBS on 6.2% (7.4%). In regional areas Nine won clearly with WIN/NBN getting a 29.4% share from Prime/7Qld with 25.0%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 22.3%, the ABC with 16.6% and SBS on 6.7%.

Glenn Dyer’s Media Maul: Crikey introduces our newest weekly section where our TV-expert-in-residence Glenn Dyer dissects the TV ratings using nifty graphs!

Ten’s The 7pm Project fell to 806,000. Not good, but it still has promise. Nine has canned Dance Your Ass Off from the 7.30pm Tuesday slot (anyone could have told them that it wouldn’t work, but they didn’t listen) and they are sticking with Australia’s Perfect Couple at 7.30pm Wednesdays (and starting Farmer Wants a Wife on Monday week).

Ten will keep The 7pm Project there and work on it, because it has nothing else to put in the slot except Simpsons repeats. Nine is replacing Dance Your Ass Off with more Two and a Half Men.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven started Double Take and TV Burp from 7.30pm to 8.30pm. They were moderately funny first up and remind me of Comedy Inc and countless skit shoes. TV Burp has a bit more promise because it is taking aim at TV itself, including Seven. I wonder how long that will last because there are some precious souls on some of Seven’s programs and in Seven programming. The skit about Sunrise duo, Mel Doyle and David Koch was effective because they captured Koch very well, better than anyone else who has tried, though he did look like finance journo Robert Gottliebsen a bit, which was a big worry.

Q&A returned and talked mostly about health. I would have liked it all about health, because despite the lack of a worthwhile contribution from Nick Minchin and Julian Morrow, the others and the audience actually had a very realistic discussion going. In comments by Sydney brain surgeon, Charlie Teo, there’s a very good TV series there that would be very confronting, but needs to be made. Are we spending too much keeping people alive and do Australians (and the media understand anything about the cost of health, except that it has to be free a or cheap for them and expensive for others?).

On the Sydney news broadcasts last night, one story was about an attack on a 15 year old disabled girl in a respite home on the NSW South Coast. (A photo was in the Tele yesterday). It was a horrid attack; the claimed attacker is a intellectually disabled older man. How can anyone be charged over that? And yet, the 15 year old girl’s [picture was shown, despite the fact she’s a minor.

There’s also supposed to be a law barring identifying under age people in NSW in anyway. If charges are laid, those pictures can’t be shown. But why were they shown in the first place (they were disturbing because of the damage done to someone who is defenceless). Would a 15 year old person who is able and not in a home be identified on camera and in newspapers in the same situation?

TONIGHT: AFL, NRL on Seven and Nine. Trial and Retribution on the ABC, Seven has Better Homes everywhere and movies in Sydney and Brisbane, Nine has other programming in the South. Ten has The 7pm Project, then take your chances. It will be a grim night for Ten tonight without MasterChef.

SATURDAY: A certain bike race up Mont Ventoux from around 10pm. See grown men break and sob, feel the lash of a bike chain and the crash of gears. Ten has AFL in some markets at varying times and movies in others. Nine has hours and hours of movies, but that won’t save it from third place for the week, Seven has four movies in a row. That’s bean counter TV at its worst. The ABC starts series two of East of Everything. Be warned; take a book if you watch this.

SUNDAY: AFL and NRL and talk and interviews during the day. Highlights at night: Seven has Dancing With The Stars (going solo, should be interesting), two hours of Bones (fresh and repeat). Nine has movies from 8.30pm, starting with Oceans 13 (Oceans 11 follows).

Seven has Las Vegas at 10.3 pm, which will be just as unwatchable as Oceans 13. Ten has Merlin at 6.30pm and the movie, Night At The Museum from 7.30pm. The ABC has not much at all and SBS has the finish of the Tour de France for another year.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports