The Glenn Dyer breakdown: ODI cricket (which, thankfully for Nine, ran its full time allotment, after Friday’s training run for Australia) meant Nine won the last Sunday night of summer ratings. But Ten sprang a surprise as Lucy Lui’s Elementary popped up with a solid 1.23 million viewers metro viewers and over 1.7 million national viewers. Now that is the sort of program that can help Ten get its mojo back.

But will it be like Homeland which started 2012 with a bang, only to fade away as the year went on? Next Sunday sees the pace stepped up with Downton Abbey back on Seven at 8.30pm and a new series of Midsomer Murders on ABC1.

The ABC played a bit of a commercial game late last week, switching the final episode of Upstairs Downstairs from next Sunday to last night to run straight after the 8.30pm. That change was done late in the week and the guides were caught out.

Tonight: Nine steps up the ratings pressure with the start of The Block All Stars. It will either do well, or it will do moderately and bore viewers who want to see the 2013 edition of the real thing. Will it go the way of the various MasterChef spin-offs for Ten (OK to start, and then downhill), or will it go solidly and lay the ground for the 2013 series? The latter is Nine’s aim.

Ten has more MasterChef: The Professionals. Seven has My Kitchen Rules and returns Revenge to the screen for 2013 around 8.45pm. A big night, made bigger by the ABC returning its Monday night stalwarts in Four Corners, Media Watch, Australian Story and Q&A.

Last Week: An easy win for Seven thanks to the men’s tennis final on Sunday night and then the starting episodes of My Kitchen Rules. Seven won metro and regionally markets. The ABC beat Ten in All People, but Ten did OK in its target demos of 16 to 49. The ABC’s new Friday night program, The Dr Blake Mysteries started well with 1.176 million metro viewers and 1.72 million nationally. It was the most watched program across the country.

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

  1. Nine News — 2.351 million,
  2. Elementary (Ten) — 1.742 million
  3. One Day International cricket session two (Nine) — 1.733 million.
  4. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.733 million.
  5. Seven News — 1.646 million.
  6. MasterChef Pro (Ten) — 1.559 million
  7. Border Security (Seven) — 1.489 million.
  8. The Force (Seven) — 1.415 million.
  9. One Day International cricket session one (Nine) — 1.405 million.
  10. ABC1 News — 1.209 million.

The Metro Winners: Seven did better where the time delay was an hour of more (Brisbane and Perth, which was a normal night seeing it was a day match in the west).

  1. Nine News — 1.611 million
  2. Elementary (Ten, 8.30pm) — 1.230 million.
  3. Seven News — 1.144 million.
  4. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.133 million.
  5. MasterChef: The Professionals (Ten, 7.30pm) — 1.124 million.
  6. One Day International cricket session two (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.088 million.
  7. Border Security (Seven (around 7.40 – 8.10 pm) — 1.007 million.

The Losers: More choice last night, so there shouldn’t be any complaints.

Metro News & CA:

  1. Nine News (6pm) — 1.611 million.
  2. Seven News (6pm) — 1.144 million.
  3. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.132 million.
  4. ABC1 News (7pm) — 833,000.
  5. Ten News (Ten, 5pm) — 523,000.
  6. SBS ONE News (6.30pm) — 147,000.

In the morning: Insiders returned at 9am — dull, as normal — Inside Business returned at 10am — dull, as normal. Offsiders returned at 10.30am, and was the most entertaining, even if it was all about sport. At least the conversation was animated. And, by the way, where was the vision of Gerard Whateley’s girlfriend, Black Caviar’s training gallop at Caulfield on Saturday?

Landline returned at midday on ABC1 and had an excellent interview with the Governor General during her visit to the Queensland flood sites last week.

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven, 8am) — 323,000.
  2. Weekend Today (Nine, 8am) — 265,000.
  3. Landline (ABC1, noon) — 189,000.
  4. Insiders (ABC1, 9am) — 172,000 + 72,000 on News 24. *
  5. Offsiders (ABC1, 10.30am) — 139,000.
  6. Inside Business (ABC1, 10am) — 130,000.

Metro FTA: Nine (three channels) won with a share of 29.3% from Seven (three) on 26.5%, Ten (three) on 22.6%, the ABC (four) on 16.0% and SBS (three) on 5.5%. Main Channels: Nine won with a share of 24.6% from Seven on 20.5%, Ten on 18.3%, ABC1 was on 12.7% and SBS ONE ended with 4.7%.

Metro Digital: Viewing on the 11 channels was unusually low. They had a total share last night of 19.3%. Plus, 7mate won with 3.3%, from 7TWO on 2.8,with GO on 2.7%. ONE and Eleven were on 2.2%, Gem and ABC2 ended with 2.0% each, News 24 was on 0.7%, ABC3, 0.6%, SBS TWO, 0.5% and NITV, 0.3%.

Metro including Pay TV: Nine (three channels) won with a share of 24.4% from Seven (three) on 22.1%, Ten (three) on 18.9%, the ABC (four) on 13.3% and SBS (three) on 4.6%. The 16 FTA channels had a viewing share last night of 85.5%, with the 11 digital channels on a low total of 16.1%, the five main channels on a high 69.4% and the 200 plus channels on Foxtel giving pay TV a moderate share last night of 14.5%.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. TV1 — 2.4%.
  2. Fox8 — 2.3%.
  3. LifeStyle, Foxtel Movie Premiere – — 2.1%.
  4. Fox Sports 1 – 1.8%.
  5. Nickelodeon, 111 Hits — 1.6%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. A League: Adelaide v/ West Sydney (Fox Sports 2) — 82,000.
  2. Modern Family (Fox8 ) — 70,000.
  3. Last Man Standing (Fox8) — 66,000.
  4. The Simpsons (Fox8) — 64,000.
  5. The Simpsons (Fox8) — 61,000.

Regional: WIN/NBN (three channels) won with a share of 33.2% from Prime/7Qld (three) on 29.1%, SC Ten (three) on 18.4%, the ABC (four) on 14.0% and SBS (three) on 5.3%. WIN/NBN won the main channels with a share of 25.5% from Prime/7Qld on 20.2%, SC Ten was third with 13.6% and ABC1 was on 10.0%. 7mate won the digitals with 5.9% from Gem on 3.9% and GO on 3.7%. The 100 digital channels had an FTA share last night of 25.4%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. Nine News — 740,000.
  2. ODI Cricket Session 2 — 647,000.
  3. Sunday Night — 599,000.
  4. Elementary — 513,000.
  5. Seven News — 504,000

Major Metro Markets: Nine won (overall and the main channels) in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Seven won (overall and main channels) in Brisbane and Perth, where Ten pushed Nine back to third in both. 7mate won Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. GO won Sydney, 7TWO won Melbourne

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data