When Australians sat down on Saturday night to watch the election results pour in (and delight in the sudden lack of text messages from Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots), the vast majority – 2.4 million, on average – watched the ABC.

Network Seven came second, with 580,000 viewers, followed by the Nine Network (527,000) and Channel Ten (97,000). Millions more tuned in for a few minutes to check in, the night’s TV ratings reveal. But the show was effectively over within 2½ hours of polls closing on the east coast.