A very even night made more even by Nine’s agonising on Offspring. She does suffering well, does our Asher. Don’t worry about the lass, she pops up again very soon in the ABC1 series, It’s A Date starting at 9pm tonight. She appears with Stephen Curry in the series which looks like a cross between Offspring and The Time of Our Lives! and The Librarians

Seven narrowly won metro markets with Nine second and Ten third, in front of the ABC. In regional markets, Seven also won, from Nine, but the ABC (with Gruen Nation and The Hamster Decides) was preferred to Ten and Nina and Offspring. But all up Ten did the best and scored a good win in 25 to 54s. in Perth Nine was again forced into 4th spot after Seven, Ten and the ABC. In Melbourne Ten won, from Nine and Seven.

Gruen Nation (1.471 million national/ 1.028 million metro/ 443,000 regional viewers) and The Hamster Decides (1.202 million national/ 867,000 metro/  335,000 regional viewers) started well on ABC1 and were both top ten programs nationally. Wednesday Night Fever (757,000 national/554,000 metro/ 203,000 regional viewers) followed the Hamster and ended its season too early. Its version of Sunday night’s debate last night was more entertaining than the boring reality. The Hamster Decides also did over quite a few silly statements from the five weeks of politics, including Seven News’ current promos about how Mark Riley had had the vote in the Rudd election first — he did. But they also  pointed out that Riley (and others) had earlier ruled out a challenge. Bob Katter on The Hamster Decides and Clive Palmer on Wednesday Night Fever were good sports.

The Roast on ABC2 at 7.30pm (184,000 national/ 114,000 metro/ 70,000 regional viewers) again showed why it’s one of the sharpest programs on TV. The skit on Gaffe Free Days at Liberal Party HQ was right on the mark. The Project had a new 2013 peak last night with 920,000 national/ 692,000 metro/ 228,000 regional viewers) and MasterChef Australia got the recipe right and the ageing souffle rose again to average 1.211 million national/ 933,000 metro/ 278,000 regional viewers.

Seven’s Slideshow suffered for what it is — a one trick sight gag — so the number of viewers fell sharply — some  480,000 viewers abandoned it (more than 25% of the debut audience last week) and it averaged 1.612 million national/ 1.032 million metro/ 580,000 regional viewers. Last week it had 2.092 million national/ 1.307 million metro/ 785,000 regional viewers). In the morning Sunrise is ahead of Today this week in the first full week of Sam Armytage replacing Mel Doyle. But seeing Seven is running a million dollar cash game on Sunrise where viewers can win $200,000 a morning, we’ll wait until both programs are back to normal before judging the success of the change.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven 26.8?%)
  2. Nine (24.7%)
  3. Ten (22.7%)
  4. ABC (21.0%)
  5. SBS (4.8%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (19.4%)
  2. Nine (18.0%)
  3. Ten (17.0%)
  4. ABC1 (15.2%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.8%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.6%)
  2. ABC2 (4.2%)
  3. Eleven (3.7%)
  4. GO (3.5%)
  5. Gem (3.2%)

Top national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.923 million
  2. Nine News — 1.783 million
  3. Slideshow (Seven) — 1.612 million
  4. Offspring (Ten) – 1.490 million
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.480 million
  6. ABC News — 1.406 million
  7. Gruen Nation (ABC1) — 1.471 million
  8. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.347 million
  9. MasterChef Australia (Ten) — 1.211 million
  10. The Hamster Decides (ABC1), A Current Affair (Nine)  — 1.202 million

Top metro programs:

  1.  Seven News — 1.288 million
  2. Nine News — 1.218 million
  3. Offspring (Ten) — 1.106 million
  4. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.086 million
  5. Slideshow (Seven) — 1.032 million
  6. Gruen Nation (ABC1) — 1.028 million
  7. A Current Affair< (Nine) — 1.003 million

Losers: No one really, but don’t mention The Mole on Seven, late, with 326,000 national/ 229,000 metro/ 97,000 regional viewers. How quickly we forget!. Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.288 million
  2. Nine News — 1.218 million
  3. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.086 million
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.003 million
  5. ABC News — 956,000
  6. 7.30 (ABC 1) — 743,000
  7. The Project (Ten) — 692,000
  8. Ten News — 688,000
  9. SBS ONE News — 195,000
  10. Ten Late News — 167,000

Metro morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 391,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 341,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC1, 64,000, 35,000 on News 24) — 99,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (3.5%)
  2. TV1  (2.5%)
  3. LifeStyle (2.2%)
  4. Fox Classics, UKTV  (1.7%)
  5. A&E, Sky News (1.5%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: 360 (FX) – 110,000
  2. NCIS (TV1) — 81,000
  3. The Simpsons (Fox 8) – 69,000
  4. Family Guy (Fox 8) –- 68,000
  5. The Simpsons (Fox 8)  – 66,000