A win to Seven last night, although the AFL game — Richmond v Collingwood  — didn’t do as well as expected on free to air or pay TV. The game averaged 789,000 on Seven and 7mate nationally and a further 254,000 on Fox Sports. 

Ten ended up third behind the Seven and Nine, with the audience for The Biggest Loser creeping up to 468,000 (317,000 in the metros and 155,000 in the regions). That was their best for some time. But it doesn’t herald much of a comeback — it was up against football and whatever is boring the ABC’s core audience at the moment. 7.30, for example, fell under half a million national viewers to register just 480,000. Newton’s Law ended its first run with 706,000 national viewers from 8.30pm on the ABC. A solid end.

Nine boasted this morning that Brisbane turned to its news last night at 6 pm, which they did. Nine News in the Queensland capital averaged a solid 372,000 (floods and cyclone coverage), while Seven News could only manage 319,000. But outside of Brisbane, Seven News crushed Nine with 210,000 viewers to just 55,000. And in breakfast Sunrise had 143,000 viewers in Brisbane to 131,000 for Today, while in Queensland regional areas, there were 81,000 people watching Sunrise to just 45,000 for Today.

In fact the floods and cyclone coverage saw all the morning shows, bar Ten’s Studio 10, enjoy significant increases. The ABC’s News Breakfast saw its national audience jump to 296,000, Sunrise had 667,000 national viewers and Today managed 513,000. That’s 1.46 million people watching those three programs from 7 to 9 am which is a massive national audience.

In the regions, Seven News was tops with a high 682,000, followed by Seven News/Today Tonight with 596,000. The 5.30pm segment of The Chase Australia was 3rd with 410,000, followed by the 7pm ABC News with 359,000 and Home and Away was 5th with 337,000.

The delayed national figures for Wednesday show that My Kitchen Rules hit a season high of 2.13 million people – 1.43 million in the metros (a high) and 700,000 in the regions (also a season high).

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (32.8%)
  2. Nine (27.7%)
  3. Ten (18.2%)
  4. ABC (15.7%)
  5. SBS (5.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (23.3%)
  2. Nine (20.5%)
  3. Ten (12.2%)
  4. ABC (10.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (3.8%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.4%)
  2. ONE (3.5%)
  3. GO (3.1%)
  4. 7mate (2.8%)
  5. ABC 2 (2.7%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.793 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.584 million*
  3. Nine/NBN News — 1.418 million
  4. Nine News/NBN (6.30pm)  — 1.389 million
  5. 7pm ABC News — 1.119 million
  6. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.095 million
  7. Gogglebox Australia Ten) — 985,000
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 884 million**
  9. Home and Away (Seven) — 787,000***
  10. Thursday Night NRL (Round 5) (Nine) — 819,000

* Pre-empted by the AFL in Adelaide

**Pre-empted in Brisbane and Queensland

***Pre-empted in various markets for the AFL

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.11 million
  2. Nine News (Seven) — 1.10 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 1.05 million

Losers: No one really – well at Ten, The Biggest Loser, even though the audience lifted, was still weak, and Family Feud is Family flop, again.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.11 million
  2. Nine News — 1.10 million
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 1.05 million
  4. Seven News/Today Tonight — 987,000*
  5. 7pm ABC News – 765,000
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 625,000 **
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 776,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 613,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 500,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 451,000

* Pre-empted by the AFL in Adelaide

**Pre-empted in Brisbane

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) —667,000
  2. Today (Nine) — 513,000
  3. Today Extra (Nine) — 364,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 229,000
  5. News Breakfast (ABC,  201,000 + 95,000 on News 24) — 296,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 110,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Canterbury v Brisbane (Fox League) — 267,000
  2. AFL: Richmond v Collingwood (Fox Footy) — 254,000
  3. AFL: Thursday Night Footy (Fox Footy) — 143,000
  4. The Late Show With Matty Johns (Fox League) — 118,000
  5. NRL: Thursday Night Football (Fox League) — 76,000