The Glenn Dyer breakdown: No chance of a late one last night in the tennis on Seven as Novak Djokovic (the champ) disposed of his semi-final opponent to book a spot with the winner of tonight’s tantaliser between Roger Federer and Andy Murray.

The tennis averaged just over a million metro viewers and 1.5 million national viewers. Good figures at last for Seven and the second 1.5 million plus national audience in a row.

American Idol on Ten last night averaged 545,000 metro viewers (726,000 nationally). It did well as Ten wanted it to, among the under 50s, but gee they are a tolerant bunch of viewers. Idol last night was one of the most self-indulgent bits of TV (at least the first half hour) you’d ever see.

Idol wasn’t strong enough to anchor Ten in third spot last night in Melbourne and Perth, as well as regional markets in the main channels (which shouldn’t be that surprising).

No wonder it’s dying on air in the US. Last night’s episode aired hours earlier in the US and it rated weakly, losing 10% of the opening audience (17.9 million) to average 16 million viewers (and lower than the second episode last week of 16.28 million people). It was still enough to help Fox win the night, but if audience loss at this rate continues, it will be under pressure come May and the finale.

Tonight: Tennis on Seven, with the second men’s semi-final which could be the match of the tourney so far. Nine, Ten and the ABC have not much at all by way of comparison, although Ten has the second weekly episode of American Idol. There are some Australia Day programs on the ABC at 6pm and 8.30pm.

Tomorrow: Tennis on Seven with the women’s final the stand out. The’s a T20 international between Australia and Sr Lanka on Nine. The ABC has repeats of Doc Martin and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Ten has an Australia Day thingie at 8.30pm. After the cricket, Nine has Lethal Weapon 2 (I wonder why it’s not the venerable Crocodile Dundee?).

Sunday: Men’s tennis final on Seven at night. Upstairs Downstairs on ABC1 at 8.30pm. Nine runs dead with mostly repeats. Ten starts the second week of MasterChef: The Professionals.

Monday: A holiday and yippee, the end of the summer snooze. The ABC and SBS have fillers, Nine has the second T20 game between Australia and Sri Lanka, Ten has the second episode of MasterChef: The Professionals and Seven starts the 2013 season of My Kitchen Rules (you may have seen the odd promo in the tennis).

The top 10 national programs (metro & regional combined):

  1. Nine News — 1.597 million.
  2. Seven News — 1.585 million.
  3. Australian Open Tennis: Night 11 (Seven) — 1.504 million.
  4. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.401 million.
  5. ABC1 News — 1.360 million.
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.310 million.
  7. Today Tonight (Seven) — 1.208 million.
  8. QI (ABC1) — 1.045 million.
  9. 7.30 Summer (ABC1) — 1.034 million.
  10. Ten News At Five — 957,000.

The Metro Winners:

  1. Seven News — 1.152 million
  2. Nine News — 1.116 million.
  3. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30 – 7 pm) — 1.047 million.
  4. Australian Open Tennis: Night 11 (Seven, 7.30 – 10.30 pm ish) — 1.028 million

The Losers: Not long to go now for all you tennis haters.

Metro News & CA: Seven is continuing with the fiction of broadcasting TT at 6.30pm. The tennis didn’t hep Seven News in Sydney or Melbourne last night as a lead-in. Seven lost both to Nine News.

  1. Seven News (6pm) — 1.152 million.
  2. Nine News (6pm) — 1.116 million.
  3. Today Tonight (Seven, 6.30 pm) — 1.047 million.
  4. ABC1 News (7pm) — 912,000.
  5. A Current Affair (Nine, 6.30pm) — 909,000.
  6. 7.30 Summer (ABC1, 7.30pm) — 683,000.
  7. Ten News (Ten, 5pm) — 666,000.
  8. The Project (Ten, 6.30 – 7.30 pm) — 473,000.
  9. SBS ONE News (6.30pm) — 127,000.
  10. SBS ONE Late News (10.30pm) —- 110,000.
  11. ABC Late News (ABC1, 10.30pm) — 96,000.
  12. The Drum (News 24, 10pm, repeat) — 48,000.

In the morning:

  1. Sunrise (Seven, 7 – 9 am) — 372,000.
  2. Today (Nine, 7 – 9 am) — 292,000.
  3. Mornings Summer (Nine, 9 – 10.30 am) —
  4. News Breakfast (ABC 1, 7 – 9.30 am) — 55,000 + 34,000 on News 24.

Metro FTA: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 32.6% from Nine (three) on 23.8%, Ten (three) was on 19.8%, the ABC (four) was on 16.8% and SBS (three) ended with 7.1%. Seven leads the week with 34.5% from Nine on 24.3%, Ten’s on 19.2% and the ABC is on 16.0%. Main Channel: Seven won with a share of 24.7% from Nine on 17.6%, Ten was on 12.1%, ABC1, 11.1% and SBS ONE, 5.6%. Seven leads the week with 26.8%, from Nine on 17.6%, Ten is on 13.2% and ABC1, 11.2%.

Metro Digital: 7TWO won with a share of 4.0% from 7mate and ONE on 3.9% each, Eleven on 3.8%, GO on 3.6%, ABC2 on 3.5%, Gem on 2.6%, SBS TWO on 1.4%, News 24, 1.1% and ABC3 on 1.0%. NITV was on 0.1%. The 11 channels had an FTA share last night of 28.9%. 7TWO leads the week with 4.3% from GO on 3.6% and 7mate on 3.4%.

Metro including pay TV: Seven (three channels) won with a share of 26.4% from Nine (three) on 19.3%, Ten (three) was on 16.0%, the ABC (four) was on 13.6% and SBS (three) ended with 5.8%. The 16 FTA channels had a total viewing share last night of 83.3%, made up of 23.5% for the 11 digital channels and 59.8% for the five main channels. The 200 plus channels on Foxtel gave pay TV a viewing share of 16.7% last night.

The top five pay TV channels were:

  1. Fox8 — 3.5%.
  2. Disney, TV1 — 2.2%.
  3. Fox Classics — 2.1%.
  4. LifeStyle, A&E — 1.8%.
  5. Nickelodeon — 1.7%.

The five most-watched programs on pay TV were:

  1. Chicago Fire (Fox8) — 67,000.
  2. Coronation Street (UKTV) — 66,000.
  3. Pawn Stars (A&E) — 64,000.
  4. Futurama (Fox8) — 62,000.
  5. The Last Wagon (Fox Classics) — 58,000.

Regional: Prime/7Qld (three channels) won with a share of 35.4% from Nine (three) on 26.0%, SC Ten (three) was on 16.8%, the ABC (four) was on 15.3% and SBS (three) ended with 6.5%. Prime/7Qld won the main channels with 23.7%, from WIN/NBN on 18.8%, ABC1 was third with 9.8% and SC Ten was fourth with 8.3%. 7mate won the digitals with a share of 6.8% from 7TWO on 4.9% and ONE on 4.6%. The 11 digital channels had a very high  FTA share last night of 34.2%. Prime/7Qld leads the week with 35.2% from WIN/NBN on 27.5%, SC Ten with 16.0% and the ABC on 15.7%.

The five most-watched programs in regional markets were:

  1. A Current Affair — 493,000.
  2. Nine News 481,000.
  3. Tennis — 475,000.
  4. Home and Away — 458,000.
  5. ABC1 News — 448,000.

Major Metro Markets: A clean sweep for Seven (overall and the main channels) in all five metro markets. Overall Nine and Ten were second and third. But in the main channels ABC1 claimed third spot ahead of Ten in Melbourne and Adelaide. Ten was third in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. In the digitals it was 7TWO which won Adelaide and shared Perth with ONE, Eleven which won Sydney, ABC2 won Melbourne and 7mate and GO shared Brisbane. Seven leads the week from Nine and Ten in all five metro markets.

(All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight All People)

Source: Oztam, TV Networks data