Nine still the one in news

WHEN the big news broke yesterday, audiences returned to Nine News, which beat Seven by a quarter of a million viewers.

WHEN the big news broke yesterday, audiences returned to Nine News.

After weeks of tight national audiences for Nine News and Seven News, Nine beat Seven by almost 250,000 last night as the closure of Ford manufacturing, Hazel Hawke’s death and the hacking to death of a British soldier led the news.

Nine News won in all cities bar Perth beating Seven by 138,000 viewers in Sydney and 198,000 in Melbourne.

A Current Affair benefited from the strong lead-in with 1.187 million viewers against Today Tonight’s 958,000 although ACA won handsomely in in Sydney and Melbourne.

Seven’s House Rules continues to gain traction with another audience of 898,000 consolidating gains the renovation series made this week, although it wasn’t helped by a move back to 8pm behind a one-hour episode of Home & Away (899,000).

Nine won the night with a 23.2 per cent metro channel share against Seven’s 22.3 per cent. Network Ten (12.8 per cent) and ABC1 (12.3 per cent) scrapped for third as ABC1’s The Checkout rang up another strong audience (819,000) on a night in which no other non-news ABC program cracked the top 20.

Nine’s The Block Sky High softened to 1.073 million, although that was up marginally on last Thursday. And The Footy Show was up on last week in the northern states.

Seven’s comedy Mrs Brown’s Boys continued its "fecking" good year, winning its timeslot with 898,000 viewers and another 716,000 for a repeat.

OzTAM OVERNIGHT RANKINGS, MAY 23
1 NINE NEWS Nine 1,395,000
2 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,187,000
3 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,149,000
4 THE BLOCK SKY HIGH Nine 1,073,000
5 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 958,000
6 ABC NEWS ABC 954,000
7 HOME AND AWAY Seven 899,000
8 MRS. BROWN'S BOYS Seven 898,000
9 HOUSE RULES Seven 898,000
10 THE BLOCK SKY HIGH UNLOCKED Nine 821,000
11 THE CHECKOUT ABC 819,000
12 THE FOOTY SHOW Nine 794,000
13 7.30 ABC 782,000
14 MRS BROWN'S BOYS Seven 716,000
15 HOT SEAT Nine 714,000
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