The Glenn Dyer breakdown: A weakish night, but local content again trumped the downloaders and fans of overseas content, especially from the US and especially on Ten.

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab on ABC1 (set in Melbourne in the late 19th century) wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the Jack Irish telemovies, but still did 826,000 metro and over 1.2 million national viewers. House Husbands on Nine won the 8.30pm slot with just overall million metro and more than 1.5 million national viewers. That’s over 2.7 million people watching two locally-made programs versus just over 2 million watching the US programs on Seven and Ten.

Seven’s Bones at 8.30pm (fresh from the US) averaged 830,000 metro and around 1.22 million national viewers, but Ten’s Homeland slipped back to 618,000 metro and 855,000 national viewers. Sunday Night was the star with more than 2 million national viewers and top spot in metro and regional markets.

Seven and Nine were tight at the top of the leader board and Ten again finished third overall because of the strength of its digital channels (with the Grand Prix on ONE) and fourth in the main channels as its US/UK line up of Merlin, The New Normal and Homeland failed to fire again for the Super Sunday night line up. Only Modern Family with more than a million metro and over 1.4 million national viewers again showed the way for Ten. The Australian moto GP yesterday afternoon had 681,000 metro and more than a million national viewers for Ten as Casey Stoner won his sixth in a row, and his last.

60 Minutes had a good break with the exclusive about jockey Darren Beadman being forced to retire because of crippling injury. But the program didn’t endear itself with another mindless “bromance” report from Karl Stefanovic about James Packer’s Sydney casino project. In fact it was a repeat of that interview back in May that Karl slavered over. Why is it that supposedly smart journos suspend their critical judgment when confronted with rich, ambitious people? If this is the standard of 60 Minutes reporting under new executive producer Tom Malone then the program will lose more credibility in 2013. Sharpen up, the viewers expect it.

Tonight: The news and current affairs line up from ABC1 will again be worth a look, especially Australian Story at 8pm which looks at the struggles of the Australian print media and especially one journalist, Malcolm Brown, a legend. Seven has The X Factor and returns Castle to 8.45pm. Ten hasn’t much apart from Can of Worms, which isn’t all that good. And Nine has Big Brother and then The Mentalist.

Last week: Seven won the metro and regional areas from Nine, the ABC and Ten. GO won the digitals in metro markets. Only a few weeks ago to the end of the year and everyone will be relieved, none more so than Ten.

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

  1. Sunday Night (Seven) — 2.023 million.
  2. Seven News — 1.741 million.
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.635 million.
  4. Air Ways (Seven) — 1.541 million.
  5. House Husbands (Nine) — 1.538 million.
  6. Border Security (Seven) — 1.481 million.
  7. Nine News — 1.435 million.
  8. Modern Family (Ten) — 1.427 million.
  9. David Attenborough: Kingdom of Plants (ABC1) — 1.470 million.
  10. The Making of Kingdom of Plants (ABC1) — 1.350 million.

The Metro Winners:

  1. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.335 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.196 million.
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine, 7.30pm) — 1.155 million.
  4. House Husbands (Nine, 8.30pm) — 1.045 million.
  5. Air Ways (Seven, 8pm) — 1.043 million.
  6. Modern Family (Ten, 8pm) — 1.034 million.

The Losers: Ten, again. It’s Sunday night line up doesn’t have local content, so viewers won’t watch. Vegas had 268,000 metro and 360,000 national viewers which is close to the worst rating US program of the year on these figures. Killing Time, the Seven re-broadcast of the pay TV series at 10.30pm averaged 462,000 metro and 571,000 national viewers . That was a winning performance for the 10.30pm slot, but it is a program that Seven should have really made for itself, or Ten. Nine’s Big Brother Live Eviction from 6.30 to 7.30pm, 925,000 (and 1.243 million nationally). While that was a bit better than last week, the reality is that it is not very good. It might have had a lot of viewers from the right demos watching, but less than a million metro viewers watching the set piece program each week of Big Brother tells us this one is on the nose with its core audience. In TV terms it is no longer a marquee attraction, it’s just a peg propping up part of the Nine tent on a Sunday evening.Metro News & CA:

  1. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.366 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.186 million.
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine, 7.30pm) — 1.155 million.
  4. Nine News (6pm) — 990,000.
  5. ABC1 News (7pm) — 860,000.
  6. Ten News (5pm) — 621,000.
  7. The Project (Ten, 6pm) — 363,000.
  8. SBS News (6.30pm) — 172,000.

In the morning: Inside Business saw a big fall in audience and it is starting to look very weak. The Bolt Report had a solid morning as it spoke to the true believers watching.

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven, 8am) — 342,000.
  2. Weekend Today (Nine, 8am) — 300,000.
  3. Landline (ABC1, 12pm) — 174,000.
  4. Insiders (ABC1, 9am) — + 50,000 on News 24
  5. The Bolt Report (Ten, 10am) — 161,000
  6. Insiders (ABC1, 9am) — 135,000.
  7. Offsiders (ABC1, 10.30am) — 133,000.
  8. Meet The Press (Ten, 10.30am) — 127,000.
  9. The Bolt Report (Ten, 4.30pm, repeat) — 102,000.
  10. Inside Business (ABC1, 10am) — 77,000

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 29.3% from Nine (3) on 28.2%, Ten (3) was third with 19.6%, the ABC (4) was on 18.1% and SBS (2) ended with 4.1%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 31.7% from Nine on 21.3%, ABC1 was third with 14.9%, Ten was on 12.3% and SBS ONE ended on 3.0%.

Metro Digital: ONE with its GP F1 coverage won with 4.7%, from GO with 4.4% and 7mate on 4.0%. 7TWO was on 3.7%, Eleven was on 2.6%, Gem was on 2.4% and ABC 2 was on 2.2%. SBS TWO ended with 1.2%, ABC 3, 1.0% and News 24, 0.8%. The 10 digital channels had a total viewing FTA share last night of 27.0%.

Metro including Pay TV: Seven (3 channels) won with a share of 24.2% from Nine (3) on 23.3%, Ten (3) was on 18.2%, the ABC (4) was on 15.5% and SBS (2) on 3.4%. The 15 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of 85.0%. The five main channels share was 62.7%, the 10 digital channels share totalled 24.3%. The 200 plus channels on Foxtel gave a Pay TV share of 15.0% last night.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. TV1 — 3.0%.
  2. Fox 8 — 2.8%.
  3. Fox Sports — 2.7%.
  4. Fox Sports 2 — 2.5%.
  5. LifeStyle — 1.9%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. Modern Family (Fox 8 ) — 159,000.
  2. Modern Family (Fox 8 ) — 135,000.
  3. A League: Sydney v. Perth (Fox Sports 1) — 100,000.
  4. Cricket One Day (Fox Sports 2) — 81,000.
  5. The Simpsons (Fox 8 ) — 62,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 31.3%, from WIN/NBN (3) on 27.5, the ABC (4) was on 19.1%, SC Ten (3) ended on 18.3% and SBS (2) was on 3.8%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 22.0% from WIN/NBN on 19.7%, ABC 1 on 14.9% and SC Ten on 11.3%. 7TWO won the digitals with 5.0% from GO on 5.0% and 7mate on 4.3%. The 10 digital channels had an FTA viewing share last night of 29.0%. (The top five figures now include for the first time viewing data from regional WA).

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. Sunday Night — 688,000.
  2. Seven News — 545,000.
  3. Air Ways — 496,000
  4. House Husbands — 493,000.
  5. 60 Minutes — 480,000.

Major Metro Markets: Nine won Sydney and Melbourne overall and the main channels, from Seven. Ten was third overall. Seven won Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth (overall and the main channels) with Nine second and Ten third in Adelaide and Perth. In the main channels it was Nine second and ABC1 third. In Perth it was Seven from the ABC/ABC1 with Nine a weak third and Ten a very weak fourth. ONE won the digitals in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. GO won Sydney and Perth.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data