Ten benefits as audiences prepare for Easter

TELEVISION audiences dropped last night as people prepared for the holiday break and parents prepared Easter bonnets for school children.

TELEVISION audiences dropped last night as people prepared for the holiday break and parents prepared Easter bonnets for school children.

Only the two major news bulletins attracted more than one million viewers in the five metropolitan markets, according to preliminary OzTAM data.

Nine News and Seven News continued their national tug of war with Nine’s audience of 1.132 million besting Seven’s 1.099 million in the 6pm slot, and Nine News winning comfortably along the east coast.

The only non-news or current affairs programs to crack the top ten for the night - albeit in a schedule disrupted by Nine’s The Footy Show only screening in AFL states - were on Ten.

Comedy drama Mr & Mrs Murder jumped back to near its launch week highs with 710,000 and a repeat of Modern Family ranked tenth in all people with 658,000 viewers.

Indeed, it was a good night for Shaun Micallef, with his ABC news satire Mad As Hell equalling its season’s best, with 625,000 viewers, and for Ten, which managed another 15 per cent channel share.

Nine won the fractured night with a 18.7 per cent channel share ahead of Seven’s 18.4 per cent, Ten’s 15.3 per cent, ABC1’s 13.1 per cent and SBS ONE’s 4.6 per cent. Of the multichannels, 7TWO performed best with a 4.8 per cent share.

Ten was second in the key 25-54 years demographic behind Nine, and won in 18-49s and 16-39s.

Home and Away maintained its consistency with another 924,000 viewers but Seven’s repeat of Dynamo: Magician Impossible didn’t conjure much at 7.30pm. Last Resort dropped to 460,000.

Nine’s best beyond News and A Current Affair (895,000) was the dominant 5.30pm game show, Eddie McGuire’s Hot Seat (619,000). The AFL Footy Show, screened a day earlier than normal due to tonight’s Good Friday eve match, had 310,000 viewers in Melbourne, up on last week.

ABC1 comedy The Agony of Life finished its series with its lowest audience, 461,000 while panel show Tractor Monkeys rose slightly on its debut to 480,000.

The Lifestyle Channel’s dominant run on pay-TV continued with Selling Houses Australia topping the platform with 171,000 viewers last night.

OVERNIGHT OZTAM RANKINGS, MARCH 27
1 NINE NEWS Nine 1,132,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,099,000
3 HOME AND AWAY Seven 7 924,000
4 ABC NEWS ABC 907,000
5 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 895,000
6 TODAY TONIGHT Seven 866,000
7 7.30 ABC 752,000
8 MR & MRS MURDER Ten 710,000
9 TEN NEWS AT FIVE Ten 667,000
10 MODERN FAMILY Ten 658,000
11 MODERN FAMILY Ten 633,000
12 SHAUN MICALLEF'S MAD AS HELL ABC 625,000
13 HOT SEAT Nine 619,000
14 THE BIG BANG THEORY Nine 609,000
15 ABC NEWS UPDATE ABC 557,000
Copyright in the data is owned by OzTAM and may not be used or reproduced without permission.