Another easy win for Seven in metro and regional markets, even though My Kitchen Rules (MKR) had its audience slip (by 42,000 nationally, but 116,000 in the five metro markets) from Monday night’s debut. MKR ended up with 1.77 million nationally, down from 1.882 million on Monday.

MKR could only round up 1.19 million metro viewers (1.309 million on Monday night), which is not the sort of figure that monster ratings machines like MKR are accustomed to. This one is now back in the pack and 2017 could be a tipping point for MKR.

The return of 800 Words (1.29 million) boosted Seven’s mid to late evening performance, while Seven’s 6-7pm hour of news and current affairs dominated Nine’s effort. Married At First Sight improved from Monday night for Nine (to 1.3 million from 1.2 million), while I’m A Celebrity’s audience fell for Ten, which would have been disappointed with the 182,000 drop to 1.15 million from 1.33 million. This is in part due to viewers’ familiarity with all three formats. Married will experience a bit of a dip as well, but probably not as much as MKR and Celebrity because viewers now the early rounds don’t produce winners. MKR’s early rounds though produced big audiences because of the tensions and interplay between the contestants. Viewers obviously now see that as acting and part of the program’s storyline, and are over it.

But Seven dominated the night from 5pm onwards. In the morning it was neck and neck in the metros for Today and Sunrise, but the latter was a big winner nationally, while News Breakfast topped the 260,000 mark nationally. In the evening Nine’s A Current Affair was unusually weak — 715,000 metro and just 1.03 million national viewers. — Read the rest of Glenn Dyer’s TV ratings here