The Winners: Sea Patrol is taking on water badly: 1.336 million viewers and now second place behind Seven News with 1.396 million. Today Tonight was next with 1.313 million, then Home And Away with 1.275 million and the first ep of the new So You Think You Can Dance with 1.214 million from 8pm to 9.30pm for Ten. The Footy Show was next with 1.205 million, thanks to season’s high audiences in Sydney and Brisbane for the Andrew Johns interview. The 7pm ABC News was next with 1.157 million people, followed by the half hour of Idol from 7.30pm, (1.123 million), Nine News (1.107 million) and A Current Affair, which lost viewers from Wednesday (and Today Tonight put them on) to average 1.087 million people. Seven’s Ghost Whisperer at 7.30pm averaged 1.071 million and Getaway fell sharply from last week (down 300,000 or more) to 1.067 million. Temptation on Nine at 7pm had 1.049 million. Law And Order averaged 963,000 for Ten at 9.30pm.

The Losers: Seven. Fight For Life at 8.30pm (773,000) is great TV, better than Sea Patrol, but doesn’t click with viewers. The Time of Your Life at 9.30pm (423,000) is really Heroes by another name, which explains the low audience numbers.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market, beating Nine in Melbourne. Today Tonight won everywhere bar Melbourne. Nine audiences dropped away again in Sydney. Ten News averaged a low 748,000 last night. The Late News/Sports Tonight averaged 419,000. The 7.30 Report averaged 873,000; Lateline, 274,000; Lateline Business, 171,000. Nightline, 213,000. SBS News, a derisory 127,000 at 6.30pm, the late edition had 415,000 right after Jana Rawlinson’s gold medal. 7am Sunrise 416,000; 7am Today 263,000 — should also keep an eye on early Sunrise which is climbing again, 240,000 yesterday.

The Stats: Nine won with a share of 30.0% (32.1% last week) from Seven with 23.3% (26.7%), Ten was third with 22.7% (20.6%), the ABC was next 15.4% (15.5%) and SBS finished with 8.6% (5.1%) which was boosted by the World Athletics Titles coverage. In regional areas a win to Nine through WIN/NBN with 30.8% from Prime/7Qld with 24.4%, Southern Cross (Ten) with 23.3%, the ABC with 13.8% and SBS with 7.7%. Seven leads the week 27.3% to 26.2% for Nine. Nine won everywhere bar Perth which Seven snapped up.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: The Andrew Johns interview on the NRL Footy Show, plus another solid effort for the AFL version in Melbourne helped Nine offset another worrying leakage of viewers from Sea Patrol. There are only a few episodes to go but it could now finish around 1.2 million viewers, compared to its opening 1.98 million. That’s a serious loss of audience and not a good base on which to build a more expensive second series. The World Athletics titles from Osaka averaged 500,000 for SBS from 8.30pm to 9.35pm when Jana Rawlinson ran and won the gold medal in the women’s 400m metres hurdles. So You Think You Can Dance did well with the first ep of the new series for Ten at 8pm. The first series also started well (though not with 1.2 million people) but faded. Tonight Seven will go further ahead with the AFL, which could become a bloodsport in the postmatch wrap up. Will the players and coaches speak? The sulking might be better to watch than the footy.

Source: OzTAM, TV Network reports