When Easter falls in April, its usually at the start or during school holidays and the end of the first rating period of the year. That usually sees leading programs rested, lots of repeats and sports. This year with Easter at the end of March that means official ratings continue, but at a modified pace.

Seven rested My Kitchen Rules from last night (and next Sunday night), but runs it tonight through Wednesday, while Nine starts the 2016 season of Reno Rumble (The Block when you don’t have a block) and runs it through Wednesday. Thursday sees the 2016 AFL season start on Seven (and Fox Sports), while Nine starts the fourth round of the NRL. Ten has its usual programming. Without MKR, Nine won the night in metro and regional markets, the ABC was a strong third thanks to Doc Martin (1.667 million national viewers) and Ten was fourth.

In the mornings Nine’s Weekend Today had more metro viewers (269,000) than Weekend Sunrise (228,000) and last week, Today again beat Sunrise in the Monday to Friday battle in the metros. Insiders dominated the morning in the metros with 385,000 viewers and 549,000 national viewers. Former Insiders panelist and failed Ten talking head, Andrew Bolt, is getting his own Monday to Friday program at 7pm on Sky News, further taking the channel to the right and a clone of Fox News in the US. That isn’t surprising given the large say News Corp has in the operations of Sky News. News Corp journalists — mostly from The Australian — are the talking heads and panelists on many Sky News chat programs. It makes the efforts of David Speers and other professional political reporters on Sky that much harder. Bolt’s program will be run at 7pm, meaning it will be up against sports programs on Fox Sports and the ABC News on free to air TV and ACA on Nine.

Ten didn’t renew Bolt’s program for this year because he was (ostensibly) off on a project with the ABC. Now five or so months later, he has the time to do a Monday to Friday program on Sky, write his blog and columns and appear on Macquarie Radio stations in the evening. The Bolt Report lost tens of thousands of viewers a week towards the end of 2015 as viewers preferred the middle of the road objectivity of Insiders which is averaging around half a million viewers nationally on many Sunday mornings.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (32.2%)
  2. Seven (24.3%)
  3. ABC (20.2%)
  4. Ten (16.6%)
  5. SBS (6.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (21.9%)
  2. Seven (16.29%)
  3. ABC (15.5%)
  4. Ten (11.0%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.1%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (3.9%)
  2. 9LIFE (3.8%)
  3. 7TWO (3.7%)
  4. ONE (3.4%)
  5. 7mate (3.3%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Doc Martin (ABC) — 1.667 million
  2. Seven News — 1.580 million
  3. Nine News — 1.544 million
  4. ABC News — 1.304 million
  5. 60 Minutes (Nine) — 1.353 million
  6. Sunday Night Seven) — 1.249 million
  7. Australian Grand Prix – Podium (Ten) — 1.245 million
  8. Australian Grand Prix – Race (Ten) — 1.165 million
  9. Mad World of Donald Trump (Nine) — 1.149 million
  10. Call The Midwife (ABC) — 1.040 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Doc Martin (ABC) — 1.111 million
  2. Nine News — 1.087 million
  3. Seven — 1.040 million

Losers: Fans of MKR.Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.087 million
  2. Seven News — 1.040 million
  3. 60 Minutes (Nine) —959,000
  4. ABC News – 882,000
  5. Sunday Night (Seven) — 754,000
  6. Ten Eyewitness News — 180,000*
  7. SBS World News  — 161,000

*Pre-empted in Sydney and Melbourne by the Formula 1 Grand Prix

Morning TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC 290,000; 95,000 News 24) — 385,000
  2. Weekend Today (Nine) – 269,000
  3. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 228,000
  4. Landline (ABC) — 2111,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) — 185,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Sports 1 (5.6%)
  2. Fox Sports 2 (3.2%)
  3. Fox 8  (2.4%)
  4. Foxtel Movies Premiere (2.2%)
  5. TVHITS  (2.1%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: St George v Souths (FoxSports 1) – 222,000
  2. NRL: NZ Warriors V  Melbourne (Fox Sports 1) — 207,000
  3. F1: Australia (Fox Sports 5) — 190,000
  4. NRL: Sunday Ticket (Fox Sports 1) – 187,000
  5. Real Housewives of Melbourne (Arena) – 145,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2016. 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.