House rules tv ratings finale
(Image: 7plus)

MasterChef Australia and House Rules ended for 2019 last night, both down sharply from 2018. In the case of House Rules, Seven seems not to have really cared about the ratings performance. In 2018 Seven went to the trouble of separating the final into segments to try and maximise their ratings story: the winner’s announcement averaged 1.51 million and the lead-up had 1.39 million. Last night, with no split, the whole program averaged 1.21 million which for a program of that length and cost was barely adequate. The 2018 final averaged 1.45 million across its entirety; a fall of more than 15%.

On the face of it MasterChef’s final final last night did better than House Rules — 1.30 million for the winner’s announcement and 1.08 million for the lead-up. But an average of 1.19 million put the whole final behind House Rules. To underline MasterChef’s weak 2019 performance, the winner’s announcement last year averaged 1.51 million and the lead up 1.5 million for an average of 1.50 million. The fall in this year’s audience was around 20%.

Despite these high profile finals, Nine won the night thanks to Australian Ninja Warrior which averaged 1.23 million. In regional markets it was Seven’s 6pm News on top with 648,000, then Seven News/Today Tonight with 595,000, followed by House Rules with 483,000, The Chase Australia 5.30pm with 418,000 and Home and Away with 395,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (28.3%)
  2. Seven (27.7%)
  3. Ten (21.9%)
  4. ABC (13.6%)
  5. SBS (8.0%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (21.6%)
  2. Seven (21.3%)
  3. Ten (16.9%)
  4. ABC (8.9%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 10 Bold (3.5%)
  2. 7TWO (3.0%)
  3. GO (2.8%)
  4. ABC Kids/Comedy (2.6%)
  5. Gem (2.4%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.689 million
  2. Seven News/TT —  1.613 million
  3. Masterchef Australia Winner’s Announcement (Ten) — 1.305 million
  4. Australian Ninja Warrior (Nine) — 1.232 million
  5. Nine/NBN News  6.30  — 1.226 million
  6. House Rules (Seven) — 1.213 million
  7. Nine/NBN News — 1.206 million
  8. Masterchef Australia Grand Finale Part 3 (Ten) — 1.088 million
  9. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.074 million
  10. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.070 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.041 million
  2. Seven News/TT — 1.018 million

Losers: Masterchef Australia — a faded beauty.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.041 million
  2. Seven News/TT (Seven) — 1.018 million
  3. Nine News 6.30 — 926,000
  4. Nine News   — 925,000
  5. ACA (Nine) — 762,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 647,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 551,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 465,000
  9. 10 News First  — 405,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 320,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) — 458,000 (Metros: 282,000)
  2. Today (Nine) —294,000 (Metros: 201,000)
  3. ABC News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) —239,000
  4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 215,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 129,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 83,000