Nine is boasting about the success of Temptation at 7pm, but its 5pm to 6pm timeslot is looking really ill with Seven’s
repeats of M*A*S*H plus Deal or No Deal absolutely creaming the opposition.

Deal or No Deal pulled more than a million people at 5:30pm for
the second night in a row and came within 30,000 viewers of topping Ten’s
News (which starts at 5pm). Nine’s ploy of dropping repeats of Frasier into 5:30pm has
failed.

The umpteenth repeat of M*A*S*H at 5pm on Seven beat Nine’s
The Price is Right. That’s a game show that’s well passed its use by date, but
all of Nine’s game show bucks have been punted on revamping Sale of the Century into Temptation.

Temptation did 1.548 million viewers, but that was down 70,000
or so on its opening night. It did well in Brisbane and Melbourne, but
eased
noticeably in Sydney and Seven’s Home and Away may catch it later in the
week, which would be a blow to the Network’s ambitions. It’s not going to be a long term answer to Nine’s problems.

As with Monday night, Nine’s problems between 5pm and 6pm didn’t stop Nine News from doing well last night and being the most
watched program. That should undermine all those bleats from Nine that the poor
News lead-in wasn’t helping. It still isn’t and Nine News is doing well.

In Sydney Nine News continued to be beaten by Seven, as
was A Current Affair, beaten again by Today Tonight.

The national wins do not matter very much, just bragging
rights. As I have said before on many occasions, Sydney is where it matters and
Sam Chisholm has made that point to the people running Sydney News and A Current Affair in a “rev up” or two he’s administered since taking power three
weeks ago.

Nine won the night easily with a 32.5% share to Nine on
25,4%, Ten on 22.1%, the ABC on 14.2% and SBS on 5.8%