Seven takes another ratings trick

MAGICIANS are the new chefs, it appears, with Seven casting a spell over audiences with another magic special.

MAGICIANS are the new chefs, it appears, with Seven again scoring with another magic special.

A prime-time special starring future Dancing With The Stars contestant, Cosentino, The Magic, The Mystery, The Madness, was the most popular entertainment program on Tuesday night, pushing Seven to another win in the five capital cities.

That program’s metropolitan audience of 1.022 million followed a number of strong results of more than 900,000 for Seven on Thursday nights with specials featuring the UK magician Dynamo.

Seven won the night with a 22.1 per cent channel share against Nine’s 19.8 per cent, Ten’s 14.7 per cent and ABC1’s 12.8 per cent, according to preliminary OzTAM data.

Ten’s gamble on another cooking reality show, Recipe To Riches, wasn’t as successful as it might have hoped, opening with 616,000 metro viewers and ranking 19th. Consequently, it pushed Under The Dome back and the US series shed just under 200,000 viewers from the previous week to 646,000 viewers.

Seven’s Winners and Losers maintained its consistent ratings, logging another 1.005 million viewers, meaning its audience hasn’t varied by more than 60,000 viewers in the past five weeks.

The finale of The Great Australian Bake Off rose 140,000 viewers on last week, to 760,000, which remained well off its million-plus metro audiences for its first two weeks.

The late-night schedule was up-ended slightly by the screening in Melbourne of a special Footy Classified episode covering the breaking developments in the Essendon AFL drug saga. The episode, at 10pm, recorded the program’s best Melbourne audience since June 2007 and won its timeslot with a 39 per cent share. The average Melbourne audience of 246,000 viewers ranked it 12th for the night in that city.

OZTAM OVERNIGHT RANKINGS, AUGUST 27
1 NINE NEWS Nine 1,276,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,190,000
3 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,036,000
4 COSENTINO: THE MAGIC THE MYSTERY THE MADNESS Seven 1,022,000
5 WINNERS & LOSERS Seven 1,005,000
6 HOME AND AWAY Seven 975,000
7 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 946,000
8 ABC NEWS ABC1 940,000
9 BIG BROTHER Nine 838,000
10 NEW TRICKS ABC1 829,000
11 MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA Ten 814,000
12 7.30 ABC1 766,000
13 THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BAKE OFF Nine 760,000
14 UNDER THE DOME Ten 646,000
15 TEN NEWS AT FIVE Ten 626,000
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