Glenn Dyer reports:

The Winners Ten as Australian Idol creaked into gear finally and did the business – like it did so many times last year. Ten won All
People and 16 to 30 while Nine finished 3rd in All People after Seven. The Idol
verdict was watched by 1.885 million people, down 46% on a year ago.
The lead-up was watched by 1.45 million. That was less than the
performance on Sunday at 1.39 million, or 49% under the figure for
last year (2.84 million). It helped Numb3rs to its most respectable
figures for weeks (1.118 million). Seven’s best was Home and Away (1.424
million) easily in front of Temptation (1.276 million), before the Idol final started at 7.30pm.
The Losers Idol
, even though it enabled Ten to win on the
night and it hurt all other programs from 7.30pm. Nine’s final episode of Super
Nanny USA (915,000) was drained of viewers, as was The Great Outdoors (1.134
million). Grey’s Anatomy (1.401 million) withstood the Idol assault very well,
but Eddie McGuire’s two hour stunt of having pregnant mums competing for cash for
their unborn babies, flopped. 1.101 million for two hours was what it deserved!
The ABC’s best was the 7pm news with 912,000 people and then Dynasties
(853,000).
News & CA Monday night and Seven News and Today Tonight won thanks to
big wins in Perth and a smaller win in Sydney. Today Tonight had a nice win in
Melbourne and Adelaide as well for a pleasing night. Nine News had good wins in
Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
The Stats Ten, 30.4%, Seven with 25.6% and Nine with 24.5%. The
ABC was on 12.2% and SBS with 7.2%. Ten won all five cap city markets. Nine
finished third in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth and second in
Melbourne.
Glenn Dyer’s
comments		 That win was to be
expected, Ten will be happy as it now plans its 2006 launch in a week’s time but it has some homework to do on Idol and some hard decisions to make. But
tonight some hard questions for Seven. Headland should
do well, but how low will the audience be after 1.3 million a week ago
and 830,000 last Thursday night. A
sharp drop tonight will encourage the doomsayers. Seven has a series finale mystery murder for All Saints tonight and Home and
Away is building up to a “cliff hanger” for the summer on Friday. And the
final Frasier looms.