Nine won the night with the finals  bits of The Block. The old motel tower in inner Melbourne ended up looking not half bad, as did Nine’s ratings — 3.951 million national/ 2.808 million/ 1.143 million regional viewers  for the winner’s announcement. The auctions part averaged 3.637 million national/ 2.606 million metro/ 1.031 million regional viewers, while the bits leading up to this averaged 2.993 million national/ 2.132 million metro/ 861,000 regional viewers. All excellent figures. The average for the three parts of the one broadcast from 7pm to 8.30pm was 3.524 million national/ 2.515 million metro/ 1.009 million regional viewers — very tasty, indeed decorative, and Nine can boast. Nine also won big in the regional markets.

Now that was better than The Voice’s grand final efforts in mid-June, which rated 3.308 million national/ 2307 million metro/ 1.001 million regional viewers. But The Block was well short of Seven’s My Kitchen Rules, which averaged (for the winner) 4.272 million national/ 2.952 million metro/ 1.320 million regional viewers in late April.  A clear win to Seven and MKR so far in the battle of the TV “tent poles” in 2013 (as these big budget programs are called).

Nine started Underbelly Squizzy right after The Block at 8.30pm — the set-up episode averaged 1.679 million metro viewers, the second one at 9.30pm averaged 1.148 million metro. But due to some sort of coding problem, the two programs were not separated in regional markets and the two hours averaged a nice 608,000. Averaging the two hours of the metro audiences, the program had around 2.288 million national viewers last night. That’s a good start, but around 1.7 million people turned off from the winner announcement on The Bock.

With his interview of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday morning, we saw the limitations of Andrew Bolt as a journalist and TV performer. The interview attracted good figures for Bolt’s 10am live program — 273,000 national/ 202,000 metro/ 71,000 regional viewers, but not for his 4pm repeat  — 153,000 national/ 94,000 metro/ 59,000 regional viewers. By way of contrast, Bolt got to within 2000 viewers of Insiders, which had 204,000 metro viewers on ABC1, but another 76,000 on News 24. All up Insiders’ 9am live broadcast had 417,000 viewers nationally.

Bolt was unable to separate Andrew Bolt the conservative polemicist from Andrew Bolt the TV interviewer on behalf of his audience yesterday. He also failed to show Rudd a great deal of respect, talking over him, interjecting — at times haranguing him, and not allowing Rudd to finish his answers.

Nine won last week nationally thanks to solid wins in the metro and the regional markets. The Block was the driver for the victory.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (40.7%)
  2. Seven (25.6%)
  3. Ten (15.4%)
  4. ABC (14.2%)
  5. SBS (4.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (35.6%)
  2. Seven (18.5%)
  3. ABC1 (11.2%)
  4. Ten (10.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.3%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (3.8%)
  2. 7mate (3.4%)
  3. GO (3.2%)
  4. ONE, Eleven (2.4%)
  5. ABC2 (2.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. The Block Winner (Nine) — 3.951 million
  2. The Block — Auctions(Nine) — 3.637 million
  3. The Block Grand Final (Nine) — 2.993 million
  4. Underbelly Squizzy (Nine, for two hours) — 2.288 million
  5. Nine News — 2.188 million
  6. Seven News — 2.060 million
  7. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.597 million
  8. Grand Designs (ABC1) — 1.316 million
  9. Highway Patrol (Seven) — 1.262 million
  10. ABC1 News — 1.248 million

Top metro programs:

  1. The Block Winner (Nine) — 2.808 million
  2. The Block — Auctions (Nine) — 2.606 million
  3. The Block Grand Final (Nine) — 2.132 million
  4. Underbelly Squizzy (Nine) — 1.679 million
  5. Nine News — 1.540 million
  6. Seven News — 1.433 million
  7. Underbelly Squizzy (Nine) — 1.148 million
  8. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.071 million

Losers: None one really, with a giant like the final episode of The Block on air. 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.540 million
  2. Seven News — 1.433 million
  3. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.071 million
  4. ABC1 News — 807,000
  5. Ten News — 544,000
  6. SBS ONE News — 201,000
  7. The Observer Effect (SBS ONE) — 133,000

Morning TV:

  1. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 337,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) – 296,000
  3. Insiders (ABC 1, 204,000, News 24, 74,000) — 278,000
  4. The Bolt Report (Ten, 10 am) — 202,000
  5. Financial Review Sunday (Nine) — 189,000
  6. Offsiders (ABC 1) — 155,000
  7. Meet The Press (Ten, repeat) — 142,000
  8. Meet The Press (Ten) — 130,000
  9. Insider Business (ABC 1) — 128,000.
  10. The Bolt Report (Ten, repeat) — 94,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Footy– (7.3%)
  2. Fox Sports 1 – (4.9%)
  3. Fox Sports 3  – (2.8%)
  4. Fox 8  – (2.3%)
  5. Foxtel Movies Premiere  – (2.2%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: Sydney v Richmond  (Fox Footy) – 263,000
  2. NRL: Cronulla v Penrith (Fox Sports 1) – 181,000
  3. AFL: Port Adelaide v Brisbane  (Fox Footy) – 164,000
  4. NRL: Auckland v Melbourne (Fox Sports 1) – 156,000
  5. AFL: After The Bounce (Fox Footy) – 122,000

Tonight: Well, X Factor on Seven, more of the same as last year, despite the glitzy on-air promos. But the real concern for viewers is the return of the horrid Big Brother  on Nine at 7pm. Talk about the ghost of TV past — again. Yuck. But is it the worse show tonight? After all Seven returns Please Marry My Boy at 9pm after X Factor. That leaves Ten’s weak Wanted, to be unwanted at 8.30pm, especially with the solid news and current affairs line up on ABC1.

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2013. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) Plus network reports.