Cyclone Debbie meant accurate Queensland regional data could not be guaranteed, so the combined metro and regional (national) figures aren’t available. As well as pre-emptions by the networks at various times yesterday to allow continuous coverage of the cyclone story, this means programs audience figures for the five metro capitals are not strictly accurate.

Suffice to say that Seven easily won the battle of the coverage with Nine, while ABC News 24 and the ABC in Queensland also had solid days and nights. Seven produced these metro comparisons from yesterday in a release this morning:

Seven won the metros thanks to another solid night for My Kitchen Rules (1.23 million viewers), while Nine’s Married at First Sight faded a little to average 1.03 million. Ten managed to grab 3rd in the metros from a weak ABC. Family Feud though could only manage 327,000 metro viewers and The Biggest Loser was just that (no transformation) with just 275,000 metro viewers. Time for the shepherd’s crook and a yank into “hiatus”.  — Read the rest on the Crikey websiteToday’s woes are underlined by that weak effort yesterday. Another pasting from Sunrise on a big news story where both had the same sort of start – the cyclone was coming, all it required was solid reporting, good graphics, a bit of production smarts and know how and off they went. But in the minds of metro viewers, Sunrise was the one that offered the better coverage. Interestingly the ABC’s News Breakfast didn’t get a hit – it averaged 198,000 on the ABC’s main channel and News 24 — that was solid, but down on the 250,000 or so it picked up last week with no cyclone to cover. That was an odd outcome.