The Nine Network’s ratings problems are deepening. The Network may
have
won
Wednesday night from Seven, but the margin has narrowed to only
1.2%
after
Seven News and Today Tonight blitzed Nine’s offerings nationally.

Wednesday used to be Nine’s second biggest night of the week after
Sunday,
and
Seven has been slowly narrowing the gap on the back of
improving efforts
from Blue Heelers and Border Security, with News and Today Tonight helping earlier in the night.

That’s what happened last night but Nine won with a 30.7% share to
Seven
on
29.5%. Ten was weak on 18.4% and remains under pressure. It didn’t have
one program in
the
Top 10 nationally or in the important Sydney market.

Nine’s CSI Miami was the most watched nationally with McLeod’s Daughters and
Without a Trace also doing well.

Seven’s Today Tonight was second nationally but Nine’s A Current Affair
was
nowhere to be seen. Seven News finished 6th nationally with 1.307 million
viewers compared with Nine News in
10th place, with 1.216 million. In Sydney
Seven News was 7th, while Nine News didn’t make it,
another
blow to the
underperforming news operation that used to
dominate the country’s
biggest
market.

Seven’s slow improver, Border Security again did well, popping up at
4th spot
on the national list and 1st in Sydney,
beating CSI Miami,
McLeod’s Daughters
and Without a Trace. Even though it’s not strictly
head to head with those
three being a less than
hour program, it did
beat the first 40 minutes of
Without a Trace from 9.30pm to 10.10pm. Now that was
a big result for Seven.


Blue Heelers was another strong performer for Seven, finishing 7th
nationally
but second in
Sydney. Seven won Sydney with a 32.3% share to
Nine on 29.8%. It
lost Melbourne
narrowly, by a big margin in Brisbane
and Adelaide, but won in
Perth.

The ABC’s New Inventors program finished 9th nationally.