My Kitchen Rules (1.93 million) enjoyed its highest audience so far this season. Tonight is the night when two contestants will be expelled from the competition for doing what they were put on TV to do — being obstreperous, argumentative and at times offensive. How far can you go in a format whose audience appeal is built on those attributes and no longer on the food?

Interview, the new Seven program hosted by Andrew Denton for his return to mainstream TV worked nicely, won its 9pm timeslot with 871,000 national viewers. The success of Interview and its wider appeal was underlined by the utter failure of Nine’s new program, Date Night at 9pm, which could only manage 322,000 national viewers (yes, 322,000).

The Voice averaged 1.15 million nationally last night — more than 20% down on the Sunday return figure of 1.49 million. The Voice is going to be anchoring Nine’s ratings now for the next month or more. The slide this week (and Date Night’s fail) tells us it is going to be a rough time

In regional markets, Seven’s night with MKR on top with 614,000, followed by Seven News with 546,000. Seven News/Today Tonight was third with 471,000, then Home and Away with 437,000 and ACA was fourth with 354,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (32.4%)
  2. Nine (26.9%)
  3. Ten (18.0%)
  4. ABC (14.9%)
  5. SBS (7.8%)

Network main channels:

  1. Seven (24.9%)
  2. Nine (18.3%)
  3. Ten (13.4%)
  4. ABC (10.6%)
  5. SBS ONE (6.1%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. Gem (3.4%)
  2. 7mate, GO (3.2%)
  3. 7TWO (2.8%)
  4. ABC Kids/Comedy (2.4%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. MKR (Seven) — 1.931 million
  2. Seven News  — 1.576 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.473 million
  4. Nine/NBN News 6.30pm — 1.283 million
  5. Nine/NBN News — 1.248 million
  6. A Current Affair (Nine) — 1.194 million
  7. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.184 million
  8. The Voice (Nine) — 1.151 million
  9. 7pm ABC News — 1.068 million
  10. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 923,000

Top metro programs:

  1. MKR (Seven) — 1.317 million
  2. Seven News — 1.031 million
  3. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.002 million

Losers: Nine — Date Night, Date Fright!

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 1.031 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.002 million
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 948,000
  4. Nine News — 940,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 839,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 725,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 560,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) — 492,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 450,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 344,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 453,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 387,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 219,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC, 169,000 + 80,000 on News 24) — 249,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 153,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 106,000