The Winners: The third and deciding State of Origin rugby league game from Brisbane simply dominated. Only MasterChef got a look in. The Block and Home and Away before Origin III started were again solid.

  1. State of Origin III (Nine) (8.10pm) — 2.468 million
  2. State of Origin III (post-match) (Nine) (10pm) — 2.190 million
  3. MasterChef Australia (Ten) (7.30pm) — 1.701 million
  4. State of Origin III (pre-match) (Nine) (7.30pm) — 1.542 million
  5. Seven News (6pm) — 1.391 million
  6. The Block (Nine) (7pm) — 1.380 million.
  7. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.268 million
  8. Nine News (6pm) — 1.249 million
  9. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.151 million
  10. Home and Away (Seven) (7pm) — 1.051 million

The Losers: None. The State of Origin’s final game for this series distorted the night. The 391,000 for Angry Boys on the ABC at 9pm can’t be blamed solely on Origin III though.

News & CA: Seven News won Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine won Brisbane. ACA won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, lost Adelaide and Perth by the usual big margins which allowed TT to win nationally.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.391 million
  2. Today Tonight (Seven) (6.30pm) — 1.268 million
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.249 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) (6.30pm) — 1.151 million
  5. ABC News (7pm) — 977,000
  6. The 7pm Project (Ten) (7pm) — 748,000
  7. Ten News (Ten) (5pm) — 676,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) (7.30pm) – 576,000
  9. 6.30 with George Negus (Ten) (6.30pm) — 490,000
  10. Lateline (ABC) (10.30pm) — 268,000
  11. SBS News (6.30pm) — 165,000
  12. 6.30 With George Negus (Ten) (10.30pm) — 144,000
  13. SBS News (9.30pm) — 128,000
  14. Late News/Sports Tonight (Ten) (11pm) — 120,000
  15. Lateline Business (ABC) (11.05pm) — 95,000

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) (7am) — 369,000
  2. Today (Nine) (7am) — 296,000

The Stats:

  • FTA: Nine (3 channels) won with 36.9% from Ten (3) on 23.2%, Seven (3) on 23.0%, the ABC (4) was on 11.8% and SBS (2) was on 5.2%. Nine leads the week with 29.4% from Seven on 29.3% and Ten on 22.4%.
  • Main Channel: Nine of course won here as well. it’s share was 33.2%, with Ten on 18.2%, Seven on 16.0%, ABC 1 on 8.8% and SBS One on 4.7%. Nine leads the week now with 23.6% from Seven on 22.1% with Ten on 17.0%
  • Digital: 7TWO won with 3.9%, from Eleven on 3.4%, 7mate on 3.1%, GO on 2.1%, ABC 2 on 2.0%, ONE and Gem on 1.6% each, ABC 3 on 0.6% and News 24 and SBS TWO on 0.5%. the 10 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 19.3%, 7TWO leads the week with 3.8% from Eleven, GO and 7mate on 3.5%.
  • Pay TV: Nine (3 channels) won with a share of 31.8% from Ten (3) on 20.0%, Seven (3) was on 19.8%, Pay TV (100 plus channels) was on 11.0%, the ABC (4) was on 10.2% and SBS (2) ended with 4.5%. The 15 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of 89.0%. The 10 digitals had 16.5%, the five main channels totalled 72.5%. one of the highest this year and thanks to the Origin game and MasterChef.
  • Regional: WIN/NBN (3 channels) won with a share of 43.1% from Prime/7Qld (3) on 23.7%, SC Ten (3) was on 17.8%, the ABC (4) was on 10.6% and SBS (2) ended with 4.7%. WIN/NBN of course won the main channels easily with a share of 39.0% from Prime/7Qld on 16.1% and SC Ten on 12.9%. The digitals was won by 7TWO on 4.3%, from Eleven on 3.6% and 7mate on 3.3%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 21.3%. WIN/NBN now lead the week on 32.2% from Prime/7Qld on 30.1% and will go on to win the week.

Major Markets: Nine won overall and the main channels in Sydney and Brisbane because of the Origin broadcast. Seven and Ten shared the minors. Seven won Adelaide overall and in the main channels. Nine was a weak third, again. Ten won Melbourne and Adelaide with Seven and Nine second and third. 7TWO won the digitals everywhere bar Adelaide where Eleven won. Seven leads Nine and Ten in Brisbane and Sydney. Seven leads Nine and Ten in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Glenn Dyer’s comments: A BIG State of Origin game meant Nine won easily. Nothing else, apart from MasterChef, mattered and got swamped anyway. Interestingly, Origin III had a bigger impact last night on Nine’s two digital channels, GO and Gem, than Seven’s duo, 7Mate and 7TWO or Ten’s Eleven channel and ABC 2. Ten’s ONE also lost more viewers than Eleven and the Seven duo did. Pay TV was of course hit as well, registering a low share of 11% for prime time last night.

Another 2 million plus audience last night in the five metro markets meaning all three Origin games had audiences of more than 2 million. That’s a first. Principally, the audience came from three markets, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne where the game went live. It was on delay in Adelaide and Perth.

The 2.468 million was a record last night since OzTAM started (and was vastly larger than that because of the people watching in pubs and clubs).

The 1.087 million for Sydney was the first time there have been 1 million plus audiences for the game in that market. Brisbane’s 899,000 was an all time record, after the previous record in game 1 of 820,000. Melbourne’s 338,000 last night was the best for this series and the third best since the current ratings system started.

With 1.243 million watching in regional areas (the first time the audience has topped 1.23 million for all three games), the national measured audience was a massive 3.713 million viewers. The AFL final will struggle to match or top that figure.

The regional audience was larger collectively than in Sydney. That’s the missing part of the NRL TV rights valuation at the moment. The NRL is not properly priced in regional NSW and QLD. WIN get’s it cheap from Nine through their affiliation agreement. The AFL is not as popular in regional Australia.

And MasterChef‘s strong performance was underlined by a national audience of 2.139 million viewers with 438,000 in regional areas and 1.7 million people in the metros.

The Block‘s national audience was a solid 1.824 million with 444,000 regional viewers and 1.38 million metro watchers.

TONIGHT: The Footy Shows on Nine at 9.30 pm (watch for the full QLD gloat on the NRL program in Sydney and Brisbane).

The Block is the highlight at 7pm though. Seven has The Vicar of Dibley at 7.30pm for an hour and 10 minutes because of Better Homes and Gardens being shown in Melbourne instead of tomorrow night because the AFL game starts at 7.30pm. Grey’s Anatomy at 8.40pm is the final episode for now.

The ABC has the documentary on the Tampa called Leaky Boat, then a Q&A straight after.

Ten has MasterChef. SBS had the Tour de France.

Source: OzTAM, TV Networks reports