The great Eddie McGuire comeback on The Footy Show on Nine faded last night. It hasn’t completely stalled, but more gas will be needed to pick it up after nearly 20% of the previous week’s national audience didn’t return for round two. The Melbourne audience plunged by more than 21% from 381,000 a week ago for the return, to 299,000 last night. And that the national audience fell 19% to 503,000.

Not a good look. Nine said the program’s peak audience (that’s viewers watching for at least minute) was 380,000 in Melbourne, which is just shy of last week’s average, which is a sure sign the audience isn’t with Eddie. 

Seven’s Front Bar continues to hang in there, managing 298,000 national viewers, down from 304,000 a week ago, so its loss wasn’t as big as that for Eddie’s Effort. But it lost ground in Melbourne — its audience slipping to 164,000 from 180,000. But it’s in a far better spot so far as ratings/revenue are concerned. Eddie’s effort has to get big numbers because of the higher cost. The 21% slide in Melbourne last night is bad news. The Bachelor managed 1.04 million for Ten last night.

In regional markets a Seven night with the News tops with 598,000, followed by Seven news/TT with 517,000, then Home and Away with 474,000, then the 5.30pm bit of The Chase on 396,000 and fifth was the 7pm ABC News with 347,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (29.7%)
  2. Seven (25.2%)
  3. Ten (19.6%)
  4. ABC (16.9%)
  5. SBS (8.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (22.9%)
  2. Seven (15.4%)
  3. Ten (13.4%)
  4. ABC (11.1%)
  5. SBS ONE (6.1%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (4.4%)
  2. ABC 2, ONE (3.1%)
  3. GO (3.2%)
  4. 7flix (2.8%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.584 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.487 million
  3. Nine/NBN News — 1.283 million
  4. Nine/NBN News — 1.274 million
  5. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.149 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.102 million
  7. The Bachelor (Ten) — 1.044 million
  8. 7pm ABC News — 1.086 million
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1.015 million
  10. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 839,000

Losers: Seven, again and Ten for The Bachelor — and the AFL Footy Show nudging the endangered list.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 999,000
  2. Seven News — 986,000
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 970,000
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 963,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) —780,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 738,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 579,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 574,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 476,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 385,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 512,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 417,000
  3. News Breakfast (ABC,  179,000 + 101,000 on News 24) — 280,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 218,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 158,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 146,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox League (2.8%)
  2. TVHITS (2.4%)
  3. Fox 8  (2.1%)
  4. Sky News  (1.9%)
  5. Nick Jr  (1.8%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. NRL: Parramatta v Gold Coast (Fox League) — 192,000
  2. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 88,000
  3. NRL: Thursday Night League (Fox League) — 81,000
  4. The Late Show With Matty Johns (Fox League) — 80,000
  5. Aussie Gold Hunters (Discovery) — 75,000