Cricket was a dud, finished early, no Block for Nine, Seven won the night easily in metro and regional markets. End of story. Tonight, The Block is back for the start of its last week culminating with the attempt to make (read: gouge) money next Sunday night from impressionable TV viewers. Nine will be very happy. Ten remains weak, waiting for The Big Bash cricket to arrive with the Summer holidays. Tough times for the weak network.

Seven’s Secret Daughter did OK: 1.334 million nationally — about what it has been doing in recent weeks. Seven News from 6pm to 7pm dominated the metros and regionals and nationally, helped by Home and Away and Secret Daughter. It was almost like old times for Seven. But the weak performance by Australia in the test and then the early end meant Nine’s programming was impacted adversely (a win by Australia would have changed the ratings of course). Seven News had an easily win, especially in Sydney and Melbourne, but that was due to the losing and early end to the test for Australia.

Q&A was good — more than it seemed on paper. The program had 690,000 national viewers with 514,000 of those in the metros.

Regional viewing was dominated by Seven with Seven news tops with 609,000, Home and Away was second with 554,000, Secret Daughter was third with 534,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 498,000 and the 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia was fifth with 427,000. — Read the rest of Glenn Dyer’s TV ratings on the website