A solid win for Seven last night in metro and regional markets, despite Masterchef topping House Rules in the metros. Nine was without The Voice and its ratings sagged. But if you looked at the national top 10,with Nine News tops and Masterchef second, you would be excused for wondering how Seven won. Look further down the list and you find Seven News, House Rules, Criminal Minds and Home and Away all with solid figures and dominating the night and the ratings in metro and regional markets.

Masterchef had its best night and best finish, but it is not that popular with regional viewers and the 347,000 lagged behind the 481,000 for House Rules (which continues to hold up the series for Seven nationally). House Rules also had its best night with nearly 1.3 million viewers, helped by the solid near half a million regional viewers. The 813,000 metro viewers was an OK effort with The Voice out of the line up on Nine. The Weekly ended its season on ABC last night with a solid 977,000 national (656,000 metro, 321,000 regional ) viewers. Next week Shaun Micallef”s Mad As Hell returns in time for the federal election campaign. Yippee.

In the regions the five most watched programs were: Home and Away, 496,000; House Rules, 481,000; The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 409,000; Nine News, 393,000 and Criminal Minds on 385,000.

Today won breakfast with 320,000 to 318,000 for Sunrise, but both were sharply lower (20,000 to 60,000) than the day before, while News Breakfast was down 2,000 people. The overkill coverage of the morning after the night before budget had no impact on audience numbers — if anything there was a turn-off.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (28.0%)
  2. Nine (24.5%)
  3. Ten (22.9%)
  4. ABC (18.4%)
  5. SBS (6.2%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (18.9%)
  2. Nine (16.8%)
  3. Ten (16.5%)
  4. ABC (12.8%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.4%)

Top digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (5.0%)
  2. ABC 2 (3.4%)
  3. 7Mate, Gem, ONE, Eleven (3.2%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.418 million
  2. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.405 million
  3. Seven News — 1.370 million
  4. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.295 million
  5. House Rules (Seven) — 1.294 million
  6. ABC News — 1.250 million
  7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.114 million
  8. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1.068 million
  9. Criminal Minds (Seven) — 1.018 million
  10. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 1 million

Top metro programs:

  1. Seven News — 1.092 million
  2. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.058 million
  3. Seven News/ Today Tonight — 1.028 million
  4. Nine News — 1.026 million

Losers: Not the best of nights, but Nine is not out of the woods. The Voice is a night short a week and Seven with House Rules and Ten with Masterchef benefited. Nine’s NRL game tonight destabilises Wednesdays because Nine has to show the weak NRL Footy Show ahead of the first weekly game on Thursday nights. It is downer so far as ratings are concerned in Sydney, Brisbane and regional NSW and Queensland — just 415,000 viewers across the country last night from 8.30pm in those northern markets.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.092 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.028 million
  3. Nine News — 1.026 million
  4. Nine News (6.30pm) — 978,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 949,000
  6. ABC News – 881,000
  7. 7.30 (ABC) — 687,000
  8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 611,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 513,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 487,000

Morning TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 320,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 318,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 144,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC,  85,000 + 50,000 on News 24) — 158,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 121,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 73,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. LifeStyle  (2.9%)
  2. Fox8  (2.0%)
  3. TVHITS  (1.9%)
  4. Disney Jr (1.8%)
  5. UKTV, Sky News (1.6%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Gogglebox Australia (LifeStyle) — 185,000
  2. On The Couch With Sterlo (Fox Sports1) — 91,000
  3. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) – 82,000
  4. The Flash (Fox8) — 65,000
  5. Ugly House To Lovely House  (LifeStyle) — 59,000

*Data © OzTAM Pty Limited 2016. The data may not be reproduced, published or communicated (electronically or in hard copy) in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of OzTAM. (All shares on the basis of combined overnight 6pm to midnight all people.) and network reports.