The Winners: Nine News was tops, boosted by the fact that Nine bailed out of the one day game against Pakistan three balls short of the end of the Australian innings (in Sydney and Melbourne). The news averaged 1.315 million. Seven’s Today Tonight was second with 1.184 million and Seven News was next with 1.154 million. Seven’s tennis from 7.30pm averaged 1.152 million until 10.30pm and clearly beat Nine’s evening session of the cricket with Pakistan batting. It averaged 1.088 million from 6.30pm (It pre-empted ACA). Home and Away averaged 838,000 at 7 pm on Seven and Ten’s NCIS repeat averaged 838,000 at 8.30pm.

The Losers: Actually, anyone who doesn’t like high performance sport. The performances of Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Roger Federer among the men and Justine Henin and the Williams sisters in the women, justify broadcasting hours and hours of the game, as did Lleyton Hewitt’s graceful loss on Monday night. Likewise the performance of the Australian cricket team with a group of mostly no names (at this stage) last night.

News & CA: Nine News won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Seven News won Adelaide and Perth. the 7pm ABC News averaged 749,000, The 7.30 Report’s summer edition, 679,000. Ten News, 634,000, the Late News/Sports Tonight, 311,000. SBS News at 6.30pm, 131,000, 127,000 for the late edition. 7am Sunrise on Seven, 303,000, 7 am Today on Nine, 231,000.

The Stats: Seven won with a combined overnight share in All People 6 pm to midnight with 34.2%, from Nine with 30.9%, Ten with 17.5%, the ABC with 12.4% and SBS with 5.1%. Seven won everywhere on a combined and main channel basis, bar Adelaide where Nine won.

Including Pay TV, Seven won with a combined overnight share of 28.0%, from Nine with 25.3%, Pay TV with 15.5%, Ten with 14.3%, the ABC, 10.20% and SBS with 4.2%. Free To Air TV had a combined share of 84.5% for its 11 channels, Pay TV’s 15.5% was combined from its 83 measured channels and a further 20 or so more lumped up in ‘other Pay TV channels’.

Regionally, cricket did it for WIN/NBN last night which won easily with 33.6% from Prime/7Qld with 28.1%, the Southern Cross (Ten) was on 18.0%, the ABC, 14.0% and SBS was on 6.4%.

Digitally: Last night Nine’s GO finished with 3.7% (Nine’s main channel, 27.1%) from 7TWO with 3.1% (Seven’s main channel, 31.1%), ABC2, 1.4% (ABC3, 0.5% and ABC1, 10.5%). Ten’s One, 0.7%, (Ten’s main channel), 16.8%, SBS TWO was on 0.5%, SBS ONE with 4.6%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Seven easily won Monday night with Lleyton Hewitt playing Roger Federer. Seven won regional areas as well on Monday night.

Tennis won last night, with no Australians playing. More disconcerting was Nine’s decision to ditch the cricket in Sydney (at least) with only 2 or 3 balls to go in the Australian innings. That was just as inexcusable as the night before when Seven abandoned Sam Stosur’s match with Serena Williams. In Nine’s case the news could have started a minute or so late. On Monday night the news and Today Tonight would have started late, Home and Away was resuming for the year and the Hewitt match was down to start at 7.30pm.

TONIGHT: Tennis on Seven, Inspector Rex on SBS, Cold Case on Nine at 8.30pm or The 7pm Project on Ten.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports