Ten beats Nine on Offspring bounce

TEN turned in a rejuvenated performance in Wednesday night's TV ratings, edging out Nine thanks largely to a big audience for Offspring.

TEN turned in a rejuvenated performance in Wednesday night's TV ratings, edging out Nine on a channel share basis thanks largely to a big audience for its popular drama Offspring.

In a much-publicised episode, about 1.057 million viewers tuned to be shocked by the death of leading male character Patrick.

Masterchef also did well with 933,000 viewers, making it the eighth-ranked show in the capital cities, and helping to push Ten to a 17.7 per cent channel share, ahead of Nine (17.6 per cent) but well behind Seven (20.9 per cent).

Seven's new comedy improvisation show Slideshow was the top-ranked program of the night, raking in 1.307 million metropolitan viewers.

The network was beaten on the news front with Seven News (1.220 million) edged out by Nine News (1.276 million). However Today Tonight (1.052 million) proved more popular than its rival A Current Affair (1.033 million).

Big Brother continued to languish well below the million viewers mark (754,000) for Nine.

Seven, which had a 28.2 per cent network share, was well ahead of Nine (24.7 per cent), which for once found Ten snapping at its heels (23.4 per cent) on an all-channel share basis.

The ABC's top show was its news bulletin (940,000), which is facing additional competition on digital channels at 7pm from bulletins to be launched by Nine and Seven.

The ABC It had a channel share of 12.3 per cent and a network share of 18.4 per cent, ahead of SBS (4.6 per cent and 5.3 per cent).

OZTAM OVERNIGHT RANKINGS, AUGUST 8
1. SLIDESHOW Seven 1,307,000
2. NINE NEWS Nine 1,276,000
3. SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,220,000
4. OFFSPRING Ten 1,057,000
5. TODAY TONIGHT Seven 1,052,000
6. A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 1,033,000
7. ABC NEWS ABC 940,000
8. MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA Ten 933,000
9. HOME AND AWAY Seven 904,000
10. CRIMINAL MINDS Seven 812,000
11. QI ABC 800,000
12. 7:30 ABC 797,000
13. BIG BROTHER Nine 754,000
14. HOT SEAT Nine 695,000
15. TEN NEWS Ten 673,000
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