Glenn Dyer's TV ratings: welcome to Zombie summer season

Night five of the summer zombie TV show is coming up, so beware of what undead shows you might be watching on the box tonight.

The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven won a quiet night of viewing for the Zombie summer season of 2012-13. Only one program with a million or more viewers in metro markets: Nine News.

And there’s not much better ahead tonight.

Seven used first-run programming again last night and did well, but as well as it could? In regional markets it did a lot better and produced a sizeable winning margin that Seven management would have been looking for in the metro markets (around 9.5 share points against 4.1 points in the metro markets). But at least Seven used original programming (as did the ABC with A Moody Christmas at 8.30pm, but not QI at 9.30pm). Ten’s The Wedding Band had 647,000 metro and 855,000 viewers at 7.30pm.

In Perth, Nine was so weak that it finished fourth overall in the main channels, a vast difference to its performance in other markets where it was mostly second. Ten had a good night in Melbourne in that it won the main channels and in Sydney it finally had a solid win in that it finished third, in front of the ABC and ABC1 in fourth. That was the first third in that market for a while.

The bottom line for Seven that it didn’t do better because of another weak performance in Melbourne where Nine won. Seven News and TT started the night behind Nine News and ACA (well behind).

The 7pm ABC1 News with 281,000 viewers had more viewers than Seven News (229,000). Nine News had 341,000 viewers and was the most watched program around the nation last night. But Nine’s repeat of Howzat averaged 407,000 metro and 602,000 nationally. That went for two hours and managed to outlast programs on the other networks and helped keep Nine in the hunt.

The final episode of A Moody Christmas was good — 624,000 metro and 911,000 national viewers enjoyed the finale which saw grannie die with a drink in her hand and then slide in her wheelchair into the newly finished pool after being comforted by okker grandson Sean. And the series ended on an aw gee moment, as Dan and Cora finally sorted out their relationship in the queue at the international terminal at Sydney Airport.

Tonight: Night five of the summer zombie TV show, so beware of what you might be watching tonight. A repeat of Inspector Morse on 7TWO, a repeat of The Big Bang Theory and Person of Interest on Nine, not to mention the Walking Dead AKA Getaway. Ten has more of Jamie’s 15 and 30-Minute Meals (the latter a repeated repeat). Law and Order is a repeat and White Collar‘s return at 9.30pm might with new eps, but the program died a long time ago so far as Ten viewers are concerned.

Seven has the golf during the day, and a repeated movie at 8.30 called Perfect Catch (Not Perfect Match, repeat not Perfect Match). Better Homes at 7pm and Once Upon a Time are at least fresh, though the latter is sliding towards life among the undead (much like its storylines). On ABC1 Kitchen Cabinet is a repeat (of a repeat actually), but the final episode of Redfern Now stands out like a lonely beacon, unlike the repeat of QI straight after. SBS has a mixed of fresh and repeats in its foodie programs from 7.30pm on SBS ONE.

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

Seven News — 1.549 million.
Dynamo: Magician Impossible (Seven) — 1.510 million.
Nine News — 1.467 million.
A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.295 million.
7pm ABC1 News — 1.243 million.
Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.178 million.
QI (ABC1) — 1.143 million.
7.30 Summer (ABC1) — 1.082 million.
Better Homes and Gardens (Seven) — 1.063 million.
Grimm (Seven) — 1.055 million.

The Metro Winners:

Nine 6pm News — 1.016 million.

The Losers: Those of you who didn’t watch A Moody Christmas (you know who you are).Metro News & CA: Nine News won Sydney, Melbourne (by a mile or 112,000 people ) and Brisbane. TT was beaten by more than 100,000 in Melbourne.

Nine 6pm News — 1.016 million.
Seven 6pm News — 982,000.
7pm ABC1 News — 861,000.
A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 854,000.
Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30pm) — 776,000.
7.30 (ABC 1, 7.30pm) — 738,000.
Ten News (Ten, 5pm) — 655,000.
The Project (Ten, 6.30pm) — 521,000.
Ten Late News (Ten, 10.30pm) — 186,000.
ABC Late News (ABC1, 10.30pm) –181,000.
SBS ONE News (6.30pm) — 156,000.
The Drum (News 24, 10, 10.45pm, repeat) — 66,000.
SBS ONE Late News (10.30pm) — 66,000.

In the morning:

Sunrise (Seven, 7am) — 374,000.
Today (Nine, 7am) — 323,000.
The Morning Show (Seven, 9am) — 160,000.
Mornings Summer (Nine, 9am) — 107,000.
News Breakfast (ABC 1, 7pm) — 43,000 + 36,000 on News 24.

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 28.8%, from Nine (three) on 24.7%, Ten (three) was on 22.6%, the ABC (four) ended on 18.8% and SBS (2two) on 5.2%. Seven and Nine now lead the week on 27.4% each. Ten is on 21.1% and the ABC is on 18.9%. Main Channels: Seven won with a share of 20.8%, from Nine on 17.0%, Ten was on 16.0%, ABC1 was on 12.9% and SBS ONE ended with 4.2%. Nine leads the week with 19.8% from Seven on 19.6%, Ten on 14.2% and ABC1 on 13.3%.

Metro Digital: Gem won with a share of 4.6%, from 7mate on 4.3%, Eleven was on 4.0%, 7TWO ended with 3.7%, ABC2 and GO were on 3.1% each, News 24 was on 1.6%, ABC3, 1.1% and SBS TWO ended with 1.0%. That’s an FTA total of 29.0% last night for the 10 channels. 7mate leads the week with 4.0%, from Gem on 3.9%, Eleven and 7TWO on 3.7% each and GO on 3.6%.

Metro including pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 22.8%, from Nine (three) on 19.5%, Ten (three) was on 17.8%, the ABC (four) ended on 14.8% and SBS (two) on 4.1%. The 15 FTA channels had a low viewing share of 81.5% (the 210 digital channels share was 22.9%, the five main channels share was 58.6%) after pay TV’s share of 18.5%, based on the 200 plus channels on Foxtel.

The top five pay TV channels were:

Fox8 — 3.3%.
TV1 — 2.5%.
LifeStyle — 2.4%.
Fox Classics — 2.1%.
A&E — 2.0%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

Sons of Anarchy (showcase) — 69,000.
Location, Location, Location (LifeStyle) — 68,000.
Duel At Diablo (Fox Classics) — 67,000.
Coronation St. (UKTV) — 63,000.
Family Guy (Fox8) — 60,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 35.6%, from WIN/NBN (three) on 26.1%, Ten (three) was on 17.8%, the ABC (four) ended on 15.6% and SBS (two) on 5.0%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with a share of 25.1% from WIN/NBN on 15.5%, SC Ten was on 11.2% and ABC 1 was on 10.2%. 7mate and Gem won the digital with 5.8%, with GO on 4.8% and 7TWO on 4.7%. The 10 digital channels had a very high FTA share of 33.8%. Prime/7Qld lead the week with 31.8% from WIN/NBN on 28.8%, SC Ten on 17.8% and the ABC on 17.0%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

Dynamo: Magician Impossible — 611,000.
Seven News — 566,000.
Nine News — 450,000.
ACA — 446,000.
Today Tonight — 401,000.

Major Metro Markets: Seven won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth (overall and the main channels) with Nine second and Ten third. In Melbourne, while Seven won overall, Seven, Ten won the main channels, with Nine second and Seven third! In Perth Ten was second to Seven and the ABC/ABC1 were third, and Nine was fourth! In the digitals 7TWO won Sydney and Perth. Gem won Adelaide, 7mate won Melbourne and GO won Brisbane. Nine leads Seven and the ABC in Sydney and Seven and Ten in Melbourne. Elsewhere, Seven leads Nine and Ten.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data