Seven’s night in metro and regional markets in 25 to 54s (thanks to the venerable Dancing With The Stars, which remains good fun), and in Total People. Nine was second, but claimed first spot in 16 to 39s and 18 to 49s with the dying Big Brother and two late repeats of The Big Bang Theory. Ten was third with a line up viewers wanted to watch, led by NCIS. And the ABC was fourth with the Australia-Japan soccer friendly, which not all that many people watched to watch from 9pm. It had a total of 499,000 national viewers on ABC 1 (378,000) and Fox Sports 4 (121,000).

Dancing With The Stars had 1.354 million national viewers and was the second most watched program after Nine News (1.374 million).

The SBS series First Contact was OK — it looked more like it was created by a committee than by a host and strong executive producer/director with some passion for the subject matter. But set up episodes are always tough for all TV series. Let’s see how the remainder look, starting with episode 2 tonight.  First Contact had 611,000 national viewers, but overall it wasn’t the strongest of nights. No program  had a million or more metro viewers, a sure sign much of the audience couldn’t be bothered because they either had better things to do, or the TV was dull.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (28.8%)
  2. Nine (26.9%)
  3. Ten (20.8%)
  4. ABC (16.2%)
  5. SBS (7.3%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (20.3%)
  2. Nine (16.6%)
  3. Ten (14.6%)
  4. ABC (11.2%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.6%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. GO (5.2%)
  2. Gem (5.1%)
  3. 7TWO (5.0%)
  4. 7mate, Eleven (3.5%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Nine News  – 1.374 million
  2. Dancing With The Stars (Seven) — 1.354 million
  3. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.311 million
  4. Seven News  – 1.267 million
  5. ABC News — 1.105 million
  6. NCIS (Ten) — 1.014 million
  7. David Attenborough’s Life (Nine) — 981,000
  8. Nine News 6.30 — 968,000
  9. A Current Affair (Nine) — 945,000
  10. 7.30 (ABC) — 943,000

Top metro programs: No program had a million or more viewers.

Losers: Big Brother. It was a live eviction last night but not too many viewers cared, even in the target demographics. Big Brother could only manage 694,000 national viewers, including 525,000 in metro markets. Not really good enough for one of the keynote episodes of the program each week.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News 6.30 — 968,000
  2. Seven News — 965,000
  3. Nine News — 958,000
  4. Seven News/Today Tonight — 928,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 809,000
  6. 7 pm ABC 1 News  — 782,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC 1) — 637,000
  8. Ten Eyewitness News — 548,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 529,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 373,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 393,000
  2. Today (Nine) — 292,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 151,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC 1,  81,000 + 51,000 on News 24) — 132,000
  5. Mornings (Nine) — 112,000
  6. Studio 1o (Ten) — 36,000

Top pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (3.1%)
  2. LifeStyle  (2.7%)
  3. Disney, TV1HITS (2.1%)
  4. Fox Sports 4 (2.0%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Soccer: Japan v Australia match (Fox Sports 4) — 121,000
  2. Soccer: Japan v Australia pre-match (Fox Sports 4) — 62,000
  3. NCIS Los Angeles (TVHITS) — 58,000
  4. Selling Houses Australia (LifeStyle) — 56,000
  5. The Young And The Restless (Arena) — 56,000

*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.) and network reports.