The Winners
 Nine oh so narrowly, by 0.1% over Seven in a very even night’s
viewing. So what did well? Seven News was the most popular program with 1.532
million and Home and Away was second with 1.492 million. A Current Affair was
third for Nine, with Grey’s Anatomy fifth for Seven (1.440 million). The ABC was
a big winner, a high share and good audiences for the ABC 7pm News 1.238
million, Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope with 1.22 million (which meant it won the
9.30pm battle), while Australian Story and the 7.30 Report also had audiences
of more than a million. Ten’s Numb3rs also had a million plus audience, as did
the verdict episode of Idol which continues to perform like a glitzy version of
X-Factor.
The Losers

Ten, share under 20% again and beaten by the ABC Ten
only had two programs going moderately well and a battle to stay competitive in
its target 16 to 39 age group where Seven did well last night. Neighbours
had more than a million people at 6.30pm and did well, of course, among the
tweenies and twenties. Nine’s TheAlice was neither a winner or loser with just over
a million viewers. But seeing how that was up on a week earlier, it was a
positive.
News & CA Well, Seven News did win nationally and in Sydney, but also in
Adelaide and Perth. Helping though was the enormous audience for Deal or No Deal
at 5.30pm: 1.09 million, compared to the 456,500 for Nine’s The Price is
Right. But within an hour ACA had edged past Today Tonight, even
accounting for the big margin for Seven in Perth. Seven News was around 114,000
ahead of Nine, but ACA had picked up enough viewers to edge in front on averages: 1,492,229 to 1,491,431. A
tiny margin. And while the ABC 7pm News, the 7.30 Report and Denton did well,
so too did Four Corners and Media Watch with 887,828 viewers and 903,769 viewers
respectively.
The Stats Nine, 26.7% to Seven on 26.6% with the ABC third with
19.6% and Ten fourth on 19.4%. SBS was on 7.7% thanks to a good outing by Mythbusters at 7.30pm (932,000). Seven won Sydney from Nine with the ABC third
and Ten 4th. In Melbourne it was a similar line-up, in Brisbane it was Nine,
Seven, Ten and then the ABC and that was also the ranking in Adelaide. But in
Perth it was Seven first, the ABC second, Ten third and Nine in fourth spot. A
very topsy turvy night.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments		 Eighteen programs with a million or more viewers on a very,
very competitive night’s viewing. With Desperate Housewives now just a memory
for this year and a gleam in Seven’s eye for 2006, viewers have distributed
themselves across the networks on Monday nights. The ABC did very well last
night and even though it claims not to be interested in ratings, will be chuffed
at the drawing power of the 7pm News, 7.30 report, Australian Story and Enough Rope. Ten will put on a brave face and say “we’re in it for the 16 to 39s,”
but Idol is not doing well. The best sign of the intense
competition was that the most watched program was at 6pm with the Seven
News. As the night went on the audiences spread across the networks.
Tonight is Seven’s with the return of Dancing with the
Stars.