A good night for Seven and House Rules, but a bad night for Nine and The Last Resort, which was again the black hole in the network’s prime time schedule — 519,000 national viewers, the lowest figure so far for the show. Now, the figures for Britain’s Got Talent — 716,000 nationally — were nothing to boast about, but they were substantially better than The Last Resort and underline the audience response to the program. They just don’t like it, and it seems Nine are not getting the message. Or it is that Nine has nothing in its program bank to replace it? 

Masterchef was solid for Ten, in front of Seven’s House Rules in the metros, 958,000 to 807,000, but nationally that was reversed with House Rules on 1.39 million people and Masterchef managing 1.24 million. That was due to the strong regional performance by House Rules — 591,000, more than double the 287,000 who tuned in to Masterchef.

Seven News remains well in front in the regions, were it managed 715,000 viewers last night. House Rules was second with 591,000, Seven News/Today Tonight was third with 551,000, Home and Away was fourth with 535,000 and the 5.30pm bit of The Chase Australia was fifth with 485,000. In breakfast Today with 308,000 won the metros easily from Sunrise back on 275,000, but the latter was the winner nationally.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (27.9%)
  2. Nine (25.2%)
  3. Ten (21.8%)
  4. ABC (17.6%)
  5. SBS (7.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (18.9%)
  2. Nine (16.0%)
  3. Ten (15.7%)
  4. ABC (11.9%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.1%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. Gem (3.7%)
  2. ABC 2, 7TWO, GO (3.3%)
  3. ONE (3.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.767 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.573 million
  3. House Rules (Seven) — 1.399 million
  4. Nine/NBN News — 1.339 million
  5. Nine/NBN News (6.30pm) — 1.317 million
  6. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.245 million
  7. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.240 million
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.218 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.125 million
  10. 7pm ABC News — 1.044 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.057 million
  2. Nine News — 1.025 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.021 million

Losers: Nine 

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.057 million
  2. Nine News — 1.025 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.021 million
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 989,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 861,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 738,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 644,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 612,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 492,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 426,000

Morning (national) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 525,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 475,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  169,000 + 71,000 on News 24) — 240,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 228,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 178,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 122,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox 8  (2.8%)
  2. LifeStyle  (1.9%)
  3. TVHITS  (1.9%)
  4. UKTV, Fox Classics (1.7%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Selling Houses Australia (LifeStyle) — 108,000
  2. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 82,000
  3. Rusty Rivets (Nick Jr) — 64,000
  4. The Simpsons (Fox8) – 63,000
  5. Shimmer and Shine (Nick Jr) — 58,000