ABC brings back the big guns to sweep Wednesday

Nine won total people and the main channels, but the ABC was the real winner. Gruen returned to be third nationally with 1.23 million and easily top anything on the commercial networks apart from Seven’s hour of news from 6pm. In fact from 7pm to after 10pm, the ABC was first or second. Seven and Ten were well down. Nine’s The Block had 1.03 million and looking tired (we’ve seen it all before). Hard Quiz had 1.02 million as the lead in to Gruen.

But there were a couple of warning signs for Nine — A Current Affairs’ recent dip worsened, it fell out of the national top 10 to 11th (with 868,000 viewers nationally) for the first time in a long time. In breakfast, Today suddenly fell below 300,000 national and 200,000 metro, losing 30,000 viewers from Tuesday (296,000/192,000) out of the blue, and ABC News Breakfast suddenly found 30,000 and ended second with 304,000 nationally and 203,000 in the metros. Ten’s The Bachelorette had 603,000 and is looking weak.

In regional markets: Seven News, 515,000; Seven News 6.30, 498,000; Home and Away, 358,000; The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 309,000; 7pm ABC News, 303,000.

Network channel share:

1. Nine (29.1%)
2. Seven (24.2%)
3. ABC (21.4%)
4. Ten (17.8%)
5. SBS (8.7%)

Network main channels:

1. Nine (20.8%)
2. ABC (18.0%)
3. Seven (16.5%)
4. Ten (10.4%)
5. SBS ONE (5.6%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. 10 Bold (4.3%)
2. 7TWO (3.7%)
3. 10 Peach (2.7%)
4. 7mate (2.3%)
5. ABC Kids/Comedy (2.1%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. Seven News — 1.470 million
2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.409 million
3. Gruen (ABC) — 1.237 million
4. Nine/NBN News — 1.153 million
5. Nine/NBN News  6.30 — 1.079 million
6. The Block (Nine) —1.031 million
7. 7pm ABC News — 1.030 million
8. Hard Quiz (ABC)   —- 1.027 million
9. 7.30  (ABC) — 919,000
10. Home and Away (Seven) — 904,000

Top metro programs: None with a million or more viewers 

Losers: Seven, Ten and Nine. 

Metro news and current affairs:

1. Seven News — 955,000
2. Nine News — 912,000
3. Seven News 6.30 — 911,000
4. Nine News 6.30  — 839,000
5. 7pm ABC News — 727,000
6. 7.30 (ABC) — 653,000
7. ACA (Nine) — 623,000
8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 437,000
9. Ten News First — 290,000
10. The Project 6.30 (Ten) — 267,000

Morning (National) TV:

1. Sunrise (Seven) — 446,000/257,000
2. News Breakfast (ABC, ABC News) — 304,000/2031,000
3. Today (Nine) — 296,000/192,000
4. The Morning Show (Seven) — 211,000
5. Today Extra (Nine) — 143,000
6. Studio 10 (Ten) —55,000

Top five pay TV programs:

1. Gogglebox Australia (LifeStyle) — 189,000
2. Alan Jones (Sky News) — 78,000
3. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 77,000
4. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 721,000
5. Credlin (Sky News) — 68,000