Kyle and Jackie O cross the line, even for them: FM radio hosts Jackie O and Kyle Sandilands got to talking about dead people’s phones this morning. During the discussion, Jackie asks Kyle if he had a dead person’s number in their phone. Kyle piped up to say he knew someone who died and the RTA tried to give his licence back. Then Producer Tom weighed in, saying he had recently deceased former West Coast champion Chris Mainwaring’s number in his phone. The team then thought it would be a good idea to play Mainwaring’s voice mail message. On air. Bad taste even for the new hosts of Big Brother? You decide. — Sophie Black

John and Pete: ratings poison? John Howard and Peter Costello are the kiss of death, judging by the ratings for Today Tonight last night. It averaged 1.310 million and was well beaten by A Current Affair which averaged 1.420 million. There was a turnoff of 123,000 from Seven News (1.433 million) to TT. Kevin Rudd was a ratings booster in comparison. 1.368 million watched with his pre-recorded effort on Sunday’s Rove in the metro markets plus another 473,800 viewers in the regions. So upwards of 1.8 million people watched Rove across the country. — Glenn Dyer

Jeff Browne removed from Sky News board. Jeff Browne continues to be pushed further away from the levers of power at the Nine Network/PBL Media. Browne now runs GTV 9 for PBL Media, where he’s back close to his mate Eddie McGuire, but he has been replaced on the board of Sky News Australia by Ian Law, the man who runs PBL Media. The Sky board changed a bit in recent months. Seven boss, David “Chaser” Leckie, is no longer a director, replaced by Seven’s Sydney news director, Chris Willis, and Sam Chisholm has also left the board. Chisholm was once chairman at Sky, but now it’s a revolving chairmanship and today News Ltd’s John Hartigan will be in the chair. — Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: City Homicide finished the year on top with 1.763 million while Surf Patrol had its biggest audience with 1.687 million. Border Security averaged 1.685 million (its audiences have been easing lower as the year has gone on). Seven News was next with 1.433 million, followed by Nine News (a strong 1.421 million), A Current Affair (1.420 million), Home And Away (1.360 million), Today Tonight (1.310 million), the 7pm ABC News (1.171 million), Criminal Minds (1.156 million), Who Wants To be A Millionaire (1.154 million) and Nine’s movie, What Women Want (1.009 million). Enough Rope had 808,000, Mythbusters averaged 445,000 and the Test cricket on Nine had 567,000.

The Losers: Ten from go to woe last night: no Idol, no audience. Ten’s audience peaked from 5pm to 6pm with the news (834,000) but that’s out of primetime. Neighbours was the next highest with 833,000. The ABC also had a weak night compared to Monday nights over the past few months.

News & CA: Seven News needed the 125,000 margin in Perth to win nationally after big losses in Sydney and Melbourne. TT was beaten by ACA, only winning in Perth. The cricket is helping Nine’s audience from 6pm to 7pm. Ten News averaged 834,000; the Late News/Sports Tonight, 354,000. The 7.30 Report, 869,000; Lateline, 358,000; Lateline Business, 136,000. SBS News, 166,000 at 6.30pm; 177,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise, 449,000; 7am Today, 309,000.

The Stats: Seven won with 34.3% (32.2%) from Nine with 28.3% (23.5%), Ten with 17.0% (19.9%), the ABC with 14.3% (18.5%) and SBS with 6.1% (5.9%). Seven won all five markets but Nine leads the week 29.3% to 28.7%. In regional areas a solid win to Seven with prime/7Qld on 34.2%, WIN/NBN for Nine with 28.3%, Southern Cross on 16.3% for Ten, the ABC on 13.3% and SBS on 7.9%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: For the first time in months Nine leads after Monday night. That is a mark of how poorly Seven did on Sunday night and how well Nine did last night with the influence of Mel Gibson’s What Women Want. It averaged more than a million viewers for a couple of hours and boosted Nine’s share from around 22%-23% to more than 28% last night. There was also a 15% lift in the audience for the longer version of Who Wants To be A Millionaire which helped the movie. Seven’s City Homicide killed the night with a very solid final ep and very good ratings. Unlike Nine’s very expensive and highly promoted Sea Patrol, City Homicide has built its audience, which is always the mark of a good drama. Last night was its best audience of the year. Nine can only hope that Canal Road can reach those numbers next year. Nine News, ACA and Today all had solid performances yesterday.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports