A night to forget while we wait for the women’s AFL competition to start tonight on Foxtel and Seven tomorrow night. Thursday nights are going to be a dead zone until Seven, Nine and Foxtel start their football (NRL and AFL) weekly coverage, which will include Thursdays. For that reason Seven and Nine are not starting new programs on Thursdays. Ten is taking the opportunity to program I’m A Celebrity on Thursday nights and is reaping the ratings with 1.12 million national viewers last night and 4th spot on the national top 10 (and in the metros and in the regions). That made it the highest non-news program on the night nationally and in metro markets.

But Nine won the metros and Seven the regionals. The top five programs in the regions were: 1. Seven News, 540,000, 2. Home and Away 449,000,  3.Seven News/Today Tonight, 446,000, 4. I’m A Celebrity, 352,000, 5.The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 343,000

The ABC did well last night with the new semi soap, Newton’s Law (A bit of Rake, a lot of the Secret Life of Us/Offspring, with an overlay of Crownies). Claudia Karvan dominated the first episode last night, as she should seeing as it is a vehicle for her. Let’s hope she is not forced to completely carry it, because it is not a remake of Rake (which is almost a single hander with Richard Roxburgh, assisted by several strongly defined female characters). The UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension) will have to evolve pretty quickly and run at a high level to keep viewers coming back (Sea Change for lawyers?). Newton’s Law averaged a solid 1.01 million nationally first up and was the 10th most watched program last night across the country.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (27.3%)
  2. Seven (26.7%)
  3. Ten (21.0%)
  4. ABC (18.5%)
  5. SBS (6.4%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (19.0%)
  2. Seven (17.8%)
  3. Ten (15.4%)
  4. ABC (13.2%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.9%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. GO (4.0%)
  2. 7TWO (3.6%)
  3. 7mate (3.4%)
  4. Eleven (2.9%)
  5. ABC 2 (2.8%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.534 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.430 million
  3. Nine News — 1.178 million
  4. I’m A Celebrity (Ten) — 1.125million
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.094 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.012 million
  7. Newton’s Law (ABC) — 1.006 million
  8. 7pm ABC News — 970,000
  9. RBT (Nine) — 897,000
  10. The Big Bang Theory repeat (Nine) — 892,000

Top metro programs: No program had a million or more viewers

Losers: Everyone – Newtons Law was a small spark of hope, give it a couple of weeks to find its feet.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News —994,000
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 983,000
  3. Nine News — 877,000
  4. Nine News 6.30pm —851,000
  5. I’m A Celebrity (Ten) — 773,000
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 708,000
  7. 7pm ABC News – 678,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 542,000
  9. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 515,000
  10. Ten Eyewitness News — 445,000
  11. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 311,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 577,000
  2. Today (Nine) —427,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  174,000 + 101,000 on News 24) — 275,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 265,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 168,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) —128,000

Top five pay TV channels:

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NCIS (TVHITS) — 62,000
  2. A League: Sydney v Wellington (Fox Sports 4) — 58,000
  3. Gold Rush (Discovery) — 52,000
  4. NCIS LA (TVHITS) — 48,000
  5. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 42,000