Mrs Brown helps Seven to a win on a slow night's TV viewing

TELEVISION viewing was down on Thursday night after the collective bingeing on The Voice and My Kitchen Rules.

TELEVISION viewing was down on Thursday night after the collective bingeing on The Voice and My Kitchen Rules.

And Seven swooped with its UK comedy Mrs Brown’s Boys ranking third for the night behind Nine and Seven News.

The broad British sitcom averaged 1.038 million for its first episode, 928,000 for its second and another 594,000 for a repeat episode.

It was enough to give Seven a win in all people with a 22.7 per cent channel share against Nine’s 21.9 per cent, ABC1’s 13.6 per cent and Ten’s 12.9 per cent, although Nine won the night in the 16-39 and 25-54 demographics.

Top Gear showed surprising resilience, heading back towards its long-time audience highs of more than 1 million with 927,000 viewers for Nine. The only other non-news or current affairs program that could match it in the metro markets was Seven’s Border Security: International, which also had 927,000 viewers.

Nine News continued its strong week bouncing off The Voice, with another big audience of 1.225 million, watched by a massive 453,000 in Melbourne and also winning in Sydney and Brisbane. Seven News still managed 1.181 million and was 143,000 viewers in front in Perth. Hot Seat also pulled another big number (655,000) for Nine at 5.30pm.

The Footy Show hit around its season averages in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane while ABC1’s The Checkout lifted to its second best result with 752,000.

And The Project is rising for Ten with 573,000 viewers among the handful of its best results for the year, which have all come in the past two weeks.

OZTAM OVERNIGHT RANKINGS, APRIL 11
1 NINE NEWS Nine 1,225,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,181,000
3 MRS. BROWN'S BOYS Seven 1,038,000
4 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,033,000
5 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 981,000
6 HOME AND AWAY Seven 943,000
7 ABC NEWS ABC 931,000
8 BORDER SECURITY: INTERNATIONAL Seven 927,000
9 TOP GEAR Nine 927,000
10 MRS. BROWN'S BOYS Seven 920,000
11 7.30 ABC 834,000
12 THE FOOTY SHOW Nine 796,000
13 ABC NEWS UPDATE ABC 772,000
14 THE CHECKOUT ABC 752,000
15 HOT SEAT Nine 655,000
Copyright in the data is owned by OzTAM and may not be used or reproduced without permission.