Seven’s night in regional and metro markets. Its 6pm news again had a big win overnight, losing Sydney narrowly to Nine, but winning Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Nationally Seven News at 6pm won with 1.567 million viewers to 1.107 million for Nine News. That’s a winning margin of 460,000 for Seven (or a whacking great losing margin looking at it from Nine’s point of view). This again underlines the biggest hole Nine has to fix in its schedule next year.

First Contact started on SBS as its closing bang for the year. The first series was an eye opener two years ago. This one is more of the same. But will it change attitudes among the antediluvians accompanying Ray Martin? Nope? David Oldfield? Nope! First Contact’s second episode is tonight.

First Contact grabbed 645,000 national viewers (438,000 in the metros and 207,000 in the regions) on its main channel (601,000) and NITV (44,000 nationally). Two years ago it averaged 568,000 (399,000 in the metros and 169,000 in the regions), so the audience was up nicely.

The most watched TV programs in regional markets were: Seven News with 523,000, Home and Away with 494,000, Seven News/Today Tonight with 461,000, The Chase Australia at 5.30pm with 395,000 and First Dates UK had 318,000. First Dates UK’s second episode was last night and it is not a patch on the series put together by Seven here which was streets ahead as entertainment. Last night was just contrived fairy floss at times.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (29.7%)
  2. Nine (25.3%)
  3. Ten (18.0%)
  4. ABC (16.8%)
  5. SBS (10.2%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (18.4%)
  2. Nine (16.2%)
  3. Ten (12.4%)
  4. ABC (11.2%)
  5. SBS ONE (6.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (4.6%)
  2. GO (4.4%)
  3. 7TWO (4.0%)
  4. ABC 2 (3.4%)
  5. ONE (3.2%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.567 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.495 million
  3. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.221 million
  4. Nine News — 1.107 million
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.047 million
  6. ABC News — 972,000
  7. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 936,000
  8. First Dates UK (Seven) — 904,000
  9. 7.30 (ABC) — 853,000
  10. The Big Bang Theory repeat (Nine) — 782,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.034 million
  2. Seven News — 1.025 million

Losers: Viewers. First Contact was the only program to be remotely interesting

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.034 million
  2. Seven News — 1.025 million
  3. Nine News — 833,000
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 763,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) — 740,000
  6. ABC News – 586,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 580,000
  8. The Project 7pm(Ten) — 526,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 422,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 349,000

Morning TV:

  1. Today (Nine) – 313,000
  2. Sunrise (Seven) – 290,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 140,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC,  90,000 + 47,000 on News 24) — 137,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 101,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 81,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (2.8%)
  2. TVHITS  (2.5%)
  3. LifeStyle  (2.2%)
  4. LifeStyle  Food (2.0%)
  5. Sky News (1.9%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. The Great Australian Bake-Off (LifeStyle Food) — 131,000
  2. NCIS (TVHITS) — 70,000
  3. Family Guy (Fox Sports 1) — 58,000
  4. The Simpsons (Fox8) – 56,000
  5. NCIS LA (TVHITS) — 49,000

*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.