Nine’s night in the metros (but not The Voice or nationally as House Rules pushed ahead). But in the regions, Seven ruled, again. House Rules topped the battle of the night with The Voice and Masterchef – though Ten says Masterchef topped 25 to 54s. Nine says it was tops in the big demos. The Voice is now noticeably weaker than it was a year or two ago. It needs a killer voice this year. House Rules had 1.690 million national viewers, The Voice, 1.433 million and Masterchef, 1.214 million.

That’s just over 4.2 million people across the country. So who reckons free to air TV is dead, dying or going out the door backwards? It remains very viable on figures like that, especially as more and more advertisers find the huge figures for digital audiences on Facebook etc are rubbery, very hard to measure accurately or subject to increasing levels of fraud. And on Wednesday night another 2.5 million or more people will watch the second State of Origin game on Nine. Total TV viewing isn’t really falling, the way of viewing content and sharing it is changing.

In the regions, Seven News topped the night with 630,000; followed by House Rules with 606,000; Nine News 522,000; Sunday Night, 459,000 and The Voice, 398,000.

In the morning Insiders easily won with 620,000 national viewers on the ABC’s main channel and News 24 (it had 437,000 viewers in the five city metros). For all the back patting at Sky News and News Corp over Sky’s News’ higher audiences for its wall to wall politics (which are tiny, even adjusted for market penetration and wouldn’t happen on free to air TV, but can happen with most Foxtel subscribers have to pay for Sky News).

Insiders remains the most popular political chat program in the country (and that excludes Q&A which is not purely chat every week, and 7.30 which is a current affairs program). Insiders is doing well in this boring campaign because it is not partisan and host Barrie Cassidy doesn’t hold back when confronted by it on either side.

A rare win last week for Seven’s Sunrise in its bitter breakfast battle with Nine’s Today. Sunrise won the week with an average of 312,000 viewers to Today’s average of 306,000. Thursday and Friday saw Sunrise win by 46,000 and 51,000 viewers respectively, close to its best winning margins of the year so far. Today though still leads the battle so far in 2016. Sunrise easily won the national battle. And Seven won last week in total people and the major demos. Ten says it was number one in 25 to 54 from 6pm to 10.30pm.

Tonight, Nine’s A Current Affair has told us that its report on Nauru tonight will shock the nation. Watch and check to see if it lives up to the hype. And if you want a good example of Grub TV watch Nine’s The Briefcase at 7.30pm. Now this is an unfortunate example of the depths to which modern commercial TV has fallen. Not one redeeming feature in this program, and really, it is not surprising seeing it is from the network that brought us the Great Beirut Kidnap Adventure. The Briefcase does not refer to the way Nine delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to free its 60 Minutes Kidnap Team.

And looking out to next week, Kitchen Cabinet has a “pit stop” with Bill Shorten at 8pm on Wednesday and lunch with Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday night at 8.

Network channel share:

  1. Nine (31.9%)
  2. Seven (29.7%)
  3. Ten (18.0%)
  4. ABC (14.9%)
  5. SBS (5.6%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (23.4%)
  2. Seven (20.5%)
  3. Ten (12.6%)
  4. ABC (11.1%)
  5. SBS ONE (4.0%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7mate (3.9%)
  2. ONE (3.3%)
  3. Gem (3.2)
  4. GO (3.0%)
  5. 7GO (2.8%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1.  Seven News — 1.916 million
  2.  Nine News — 1.860 million
  3. House Rules (Seven) — 1.690 million
  4. The Voice (Nine) — 1.433 million
  5. Masterchef Australia (Ten) — 1.214 million
  6. Sunday Night (Seven) — 1.186 million
  7. Grand Designs (ABC) — 1.159 million
  8. ABC News — 1.155 million
  9. 60 Minutes Late (Nine) — 1.127 million
  10. Dr Thorne (ABC) — 954,000

Top metro programs:

  1. Nine News — 1.338 million
  2. Seven News — 1.285 million
  3. House Rules (Seven)  — 1.084 million
  4. The Voice (Nine) — 1.035 million

Losers: A fair bit on offer last night. Tonight is the losers night on Nine.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Nine News — 1.338 million
  2.  Seven News — 1.285 million
  3. ABC News – 763,000
  4. 60 Minutes Late (Nine) — 759,000
  5. Sunday Night (Seven) — 727,000
  6. Ten Eyewitness News — 382,000
  7. SBS World News — 225,000

Morning TV:

  1. Insiders (ABC, 350,000, 87,000 on News 24) — 437,000
  2. Landline (ABC) — 324,000
  3. Weekend Sunrise (Seven) – 277,000
  4. Weekend Today (Nine) – 273,000
  5. Offsiders (ABC) — 277,000

Top five pay TV channels:

  1. Fox Footy  (5.7%)
  2. Fox Sports 2 (3.2%)
  3. Fox Sports 1  (2.5%)
  4. Fox Sports 2 (2.3%)
  5. Foxtel Movies Premiere (2.0%)

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. AFL: Essendon v GWS (Fox Footy) – 297,000
  2. NRL: Auckland v Easts (Fox Sports 1) — 218,000
  3. AFL: Sydney v Melbourne (Fox Footy) — 190,000
  4. AFL: Before The Bounce (Fox Footy) — 171,000
  5. Super Cars Darwin Race 13 (Fox Sports 5) – 147,000

*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.