Monday night’s ratings saw both
Nine and Seven with five programs each in the top ten most-watched
programs nationally – but thanks to Desperate Housewives, Seven won from Nine in a tough night of television, while Ten was once again squeezed lower.

Nine did get closer to Seven thanks to the success of the new program Super Nanny USA – which is doing far better than Joey,Two and a half men, or even Friends did last year.

The ABC was also down on previous Monday nights – traditionally its best night of the week with a strong line up starting with Australian Story, Four Corners and then Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope.
The Denton program did well last night with 986,000 viewers and was the
third most watched show on the national broadcaster after the 7pm News and Australian Story. The 7.30 Report (without Kerry O’Brien who is on a two week break) finished 1,000 viewers behind Denton.

For Ten, another night of misery with X-Factor, down 215,000 viewers from the Sunday night performance episode. Elimination episodes of Big Brother and Australian Idol usually work well, but not so X-Factor . The 691,000 people watching was close to the lowest of audience figure so far! Law and Order pottered over the million viewer mark and Ten News was again down on 885,000 viewers.

It was a miserable night overall for Ten and well-reflected in the
17.7% share – well behind Nine in second place with 29.3% and Seven
first with 31.7%. The ABC was down on 15.3% (it has been as high as 17%
to 18% in Survey One) with SBS on 6.1%, high because of the success of
the program Mythbusters, which attracted 588,000 people.

Seven lost in Sydney for the first time on a Monday in ratings this
year, a sign that will encourage Willoughby, but it won in Melbourne,
Brisbane, Adelaide and very easily in Perth, which was enough to get it
home.

Today Tonight easily beat A Current Affair by more
than 200,000 viewers nationally and won well in Sydney, while Nine’s
news worries continued with Seven winning by 100,000 viewers, and most
of that happening in Sydney where it was a clear winner.

Helping Seven again was the success of Deal or No Deal and the under-performance of Nine’s The Price is Right which is heading for the junkyard. Eddie McGuire’s Millionaire hopped up and added more than 150,000 viewers compared with recent Mondays to end at 1.22 million.

Housewives ended with 2.156 million, down on the 2.36 million of a week earlier. Super Nanny grabbed 1.632 million, and came with 50,000 or so of beating Housewives in Sydney.

Cold Case also lifted its audience, but Seven’s quartet of Home and Away, Seven News, Today Tonight and The Great Outdoors did the trick. Seven’s Crossing Jordan was watched by a million viewers, but its performance has faded noticeably in recent weeks.