Just horizontal last night, just horizontal — and I am talking about the 6th AACTA awards on Seven (mercifully screened 10 days after summer ratings started and the ending of the pretence of showing the audience programs they might find of interest at this time of year). It could only average a national audience of 599,000. The publicity generated from the red carpet, the “protest” of the sausages and whatever was said during the broadcast far outweighed the size of the audience. The rest of the night was snoringly weak.

And even on smaller audiences, Seven News again easily accounted for Nine News (even though Nine won Sydney and Melbourne narrowly and lost Brisbane narrowly as well) because of diabolically bad figures in Perth where Seven News averaged 202,000 and Nine News just 49,000. Nationally Seven’s 6pm News won with a average of 1.520 million, while Nine News was a massive 471,000 behind on 1.049 million.

The top five metro programs were: Seven News, 972,000; Seven News/Today Tonight, 964,000; Nine News 6.30, 774,000; Nine News, 770,000 and the 7pm ACA with 720,000. In the regions the top five were, Seven News, 548,000, Seven News/Today Tonight with 471,000, Home and Away was third with 433,000, Highway Patrol was fourth with 374,000 and the 5.30pm part of The Chase Australia was fifth with 368,000. All five were Seven programs.

And Tonight? Don’t ask.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (31.9%)
  2. Nine (24.7%)
  3. Ten (19.8%)
  4. ABC (15.1%)
  5. SBS (8.4%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (19.7%)
  2. Nine (15.6%)
  3. Ten (12.6%)
  4. ABC (10.3%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.7%)

Top 5 digital channels:

  1. 7TWO (5.4%)
  2. GO (4.3%)
  3. ONE (4.2%)
  4. 7mate (4.1%)
  5. Gem, Eleven (3.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.520 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.435 million
  3. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.081 million
  4. Highway Patrol (Seven) — 1.058 million
  5. Nine News — 1.049 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.023 million
  7. ABC News — 991,000
  8. Nine News 6.30 — 958,000
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 894,000
  10. Air Rescue (Seven) — 891,000

Top metro programs: None with a million or more national viewers

Losers: Viewers, or rather those suckers who watched last night (me!)

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 972,000
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 964,000
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 774,000
  4. Nine News — 770,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 720000
  6. ABC News – 670,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 532,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 492,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 410,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 288,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 319,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 292,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 137,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC,  93,000 + on News 24) — 1,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 115,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 93,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. TVHITS (2.7%)
  2. LifeStyle (2.5%)
  3. Fox8 (2.2%)
  4. Nick Jr (2.0%)
  5. UKTV (1.9%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Location Location Location (LifeStyle) — 74,000
  2. Deadline Design With Shaynna Blaze (LifeStyle) — 66,000
  3. NCIS LA (TVHITS) — 55,000
  4. NCIS (TVHITS) — 52,000
  5. The Simpsons (Fox8) – 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.