The Glenn Dyer breakdown: Seven’s night again, in metro and regional markets. The room reveal on The Block All Stars topped viewing in the metro markets, with more than 1.4 million people and 2.1 million nationally. Seven, though, won all people with more consistency, with Downton Abbey averaging more than 1.3 million and 1.9 million viewers in metro and nationally respectively. Seven News, Sunday Night, The Force and Border Security all had million-plus metro audiences and more than 1.5 million nationally. Nine’s other million-plus performers were the news and 60 Minutes (both more than 1.6 million nationally). That absence of a fourth program in these ranks meant the difference between winning and running second for Nine, but The Block again did very well in the demographics for Nine. Nine’s overall performance was boosted by the solid showing for the movie Inception on GO at 8.30pm, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. That pushed GO to a clean sweep in the digitals last night.

Ten was third, in front of the ABC. But for the first time on a Sunday night, MasterChef: The Professionals failed to crack the million-viewer level in metro markets — 852,000. Elementary dipped under 800,000 to 756,000 metro and 1.054 million national viewers. Midsomer Murders at 8.30pm on ABC1 had 756,000 metro and 1.176 million national viewers. Seven’s telecast of the new-look V8 cars in the Clipsal 500 race from Adelaide yesterday afternoon averaged 1.056 million from 3pm. That was the first race of the year for the new-look cars and contract. Good figures.

In the morning chats The Bolt Report returned to Ten at 10am with no fanfare. Bolt’s efforts averaged 133,000 in metro markets. That helped Meet the Press rise by around 25,000 to 101,000 in metro markets from 10.30am. It didn’t deserve the help. The 4.30pm repeat of Meet the Press averaged 123,000. That used to be the timeslot for the repeats of The Bolt Report. If Bolt isn’t repeated, appear, its total Sunday audience will halve, which will be a blow to the ego and the battle with Insiders on ABC1 at 9am, which averaged 254,000 viewers in metro markets (150,000 on ABC1 and 84,000 on News 24).

Meet the Press is tragic and needs all the help it can get after what can only be described as a flat, boring bunch of talking heads yesterday. It’s cheapskate TV. After three editions News Ltd shows the contempt that newspaper journalists and executives have for TV news and current affairs.

Tonight: The ABC’s hours of news and current affairs. Australian Story looks to be worth a look. Q&A will be full of western Sydney. Seven has My Kitchen Rules and Revenge. Nine has The Block All Stars. Ten has MasterChef: The Professionals.

Last week: Seven won the third week of ratings thanks to MKR, Revenge, Packed To the Rafters and Bones. Nine was second, the ABC third and Ten fourth, again. And that’s also the way they finished in regional markets. Seven had 12 of the top 13 programs, Nine had one (The Block All Stars). Seven dominated regional areas as well through Prime/7Qld.

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

  1. The Block All Stars (Nine) — 2.136 million.
  2. Seven News — 1.951 million.
  3. Downton Abbey (Seven) — 1.951 million.
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.807 million.
  5. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.789 million.
  6. The Force (Seven) — 1.651 million.
  7. Nine News — 1.649 million.
  8. Border Security (Seven) — 1.561 million.
  9. Kevin McLeod’s Man Made (ABC1) — 1.211 million.
  10. MasterChef: The Professionals (Ten) — 1.200 million.

The metro winners:

  1. The Block All Stars (Nine, 6.30pm) — 1.444 million.
  2. Downton Abbey (Seven, 8.40pm) — 1.306 million.
  3. Seven News (6pm) — 1.261 million.
  4. 60 Minutes (Nine, 7.30pm) — 1.179 million.
  5. Nine News (6pm) — 1.156 million.
  6. The Force (Seven, 8pm) — 1.130 million.
  7. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.110 million.
  8. Border Security (Seven, 7.30pm) — 1.053 million.

The losers: No one really, well, just viewers of Meet the Press on Ten at 10.30am and the repeat at 4.30pm. Very disappointing. Giving it three weeks to settle down was enough. Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.261 million.
  2. 60 Minutes (Nine, 7.30pm) — 1.179 million.
  3. Nine News (6pm) — 1.156 million.
  4. Sunday Night (Seven, 6.30pm) — 1.110 million.
  5. ABC1 News (7pm) — 787,000.
  6. Ten News (5pm) — 537,000.
  7. SBS ONE News (6.30pm) — 177,000.

 In the morning:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven, 8am) — 353,000.
  2. Weekend Today (Nine, 8am) — 314,000.
  3. Landline (ABC1, noon) — 183,000.
  4. Insiders (ABC1, 9am) — 170,000 + 84,000 on News 24.
  5. Offsiders (ABC1, 10.30am) — 146,000.
  6. The Bolt Report (Ten, 10am, returning) — 133,000.
  7. Meet the Press (Ten, 4.30pm, rot) — 123,000.
  8. Inside Business (ABC1, 10am) — 122,000.
  9. Meet The Press (Ten, 10.30am) — 101,000.

Metro free to air: Seven (three channels) won with  30.9% from Nine (three) on 29.2%, Ten (three) on 19.5%, the ABC (four) on 15.8% and SBS (three) on 4.6%.

Main channels: Seven won with a share of 24.1%, from Nine on 21.0%, Ten on 13.3%, ABC 1 on 12.4% and SBS ONE with 3.9%.

Metro Digital: GO won with a share of 4.8%, from ONE with 3.6%, 7mate on 3.5%, Gem on 3.4%, 7TWO on 3.3%, Eleven on 2.6%, ABC 2 on 1.9%, News 24 was on 0.9%, ABC 3 and SBS TWO were on 0.6% each and NITV ended with 0.1%. The 11 digital channels had a free-to-air share of 25.3%.

Metro including pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 25.9% from Nine (three) on 24.5%, Ten (three) was on 16.4%, the ABC (four) was on 13.2% and SBS (three) ended with 3.8%. The 16 free-to-air channels had a viewing share last night of 86.2%, with the 11 digitals totalling 21.2% and the five main channels on 65.0%. Foxtel’s 200-plus channels gave pay TV a share last night of 13.8%, helped by the Test cricket on Fox Sports 3 (FS3).

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Fox Sports 3 — 4.1%.
  2. Fox Footy — 3.1%.
  3. TV 1 — 2.6%.
  4. Foxtel Movies Premiere — 2.3%.
  5. Fox 8 — 1.8%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. AFL: Nab Cup, West Coast v Collingwood (FF ) — 152,000.
  2. Cricket: 2nd Test, India v Aust. (FS3, 2.50- 5 pm) — 150,000.
  3. AFL: Nab Cup, St Kilda v Sydney (FF) — 117,000.
  4. Cricket: 2nd Test, India v Aust. (FS3, 5.40 – 10.30 pm) — 106,000.
  5. Cricket: World Series Classics (FS3) — 101,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 33.1%, from WIN/NBN on 30.5%, SC Ten was on 16.7%, the ABC (four) was on 15.8% and SBS was on 3.9%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 25.0% from WIN/NBN on 21.3%, ABC1 was next with 12.7% and SC Ten was 4th with 10.6%. GO won the digitals with 5.2%, from 7mate on 4.4% and ONE on 4.3%. The 11 digital channels had a moderate share of free-to-air viewing last night of 27.8%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. The Block All Stars — 691,000.
  2. Seven News — 690,000.
  3. Sunday Night — 679,000.
  4. 60 Minutes — 628,000.
  5. Downton Abbey — 598,000.

Major metro markets: No sweep for Seven. It won Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth overall and in the main channels, but lost Brisbane overall (but won the main channels). In Perth Ten was pushed back to fourth in the main channels by ABC1. GO won the digitals in all five markets thanks to the movie Inception.

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

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data