Ten gains speed thanks to Formula 1 blue

A BLOCK-LESS Nine Network rediscovered what life was like before reality TV with its worst Sunday share for the year, while Ten recorded its best.

Mark Webber Sebastian Vettel

A BLOCK-LESS Nine Network rediscovered what life was like before its early-evening stripped reality show schedule, recording its worst Sunday share for the year.

Without The Block: All Stars, Nine had a 16.7 per cent share in all people, well behind Seven’s 25.2 per cent and just ahead of Ten’s 15.4 per cent, according to preliminary OzTAM data.

Ten had its best network share in all people since July last year, boosted by a 6.8 per cent share for ONE. That was thanks to a thrilling Formula One race from Malaysia in which Red Bull teammates Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber blued, which averaged 451.000 viewers in the capital cities. 

Seven’s Sunday Night is winning the current affairs battle against Nine's 60 Minutes. It topped the evening with 1.26 million viewers - its second best result for the year - while 60 Minutes at 7.30pm had 892,000 viewers, losing the timeslot to Seven’s factual duo The Force (1.057 million) and Border Security (998,000).

The news battle is a little different though. Seven News won national bragging rights with 1.211 million viewers, according to preliminary OzTAM data, ahead of Nine News’ 1.197 million.

But Nine News nearly doubled Seven’s audience in Sydney (428,000 compared with 241,000) while Seven pegged back that difference in Brisbane, where it was ahead of Nine by 64,000, and Perth (up by 146,000).

Jane Campion’s vaunted new drama series for the BBC, UKTV and America’s Sundance Channels, Top of the Lake, debuted on pay-TV with 91,000 viewers but its consolidated viewing figures will be of more interest to programmers.

By comparison, the highest-rating drama on pay-TV at the moment is The Walking Dead on FX, which is averaging more than 120,000 viewers.

Downton Abbey was the top drama on free-to-air with 1.153 million while Elementary lifted on previous weeks for Ten to 866.000. The Biggest Loser added more than 100,000 on its launch episode last week to 957,000, reveling in a schedule without My Kitchen Rules and The Block.

The NRL matches on Fox Sports averaged 225,000 and 219,000 viewers while the final day of the Australian test match series in India averaged 128,000 and 114,000 viewers.

On Saturday, the Seven network confirmed another weekly win, banking week 12 of the official ratings year with a 24 per cent channel share against Nine’s 21.5 per cent, ABC1’s 13.8 per cent, Ten’s 12 per cent and SBS ONE’s 3.9 per cent.

OVERNIGHT OZTAM RANKINGS, March 24
1 SUNDAY NIGHT Seven 1,260,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,211,000
3 NINE NEWS Nine 1,197,000
4 DOWNTON ABBEY Seven 1,153,000
5 THE FORCE Seven 1,057,000
6 BORDER SECURITY Seven 998,000
7 THE BIGGEST LOSER NEXT GEN Ten 957,000
8 DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S GALAPAGOS ABC 900,000
9 60 MINUTES Nine 892,000
10 ELEMENTARY Ten 866,000
11 THE MAKING OF DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S GALAPAGOS ABC 797,000
12 ABC NEWS ABC 759,000
13 ABC NEWS UPDATE ABC 717,000
14 CALL THE MIDWIFE ABC 685,000
15 EASTER WITH THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY Nine 606,000
Copyright in the data is owned by OzTAM and may not be used or reproduced without permission.