TV screens dominated by reality shows, news and Ashes victory in England

Free-to-air television dominated by reality, news and Ashes as Steve Smith’s team claims victory.

Tim Paine speaks to Pat Cummins on day five of the Fourth Test at Old Trafford Picture: Getty Images

Six television programs, including the first session of the critical fourth Ashes Test, scored more than one million viewers around the country on Sunday.

More than 1.1 million people around the country watched the first session of day five of the fourth test on Nine Network's TV channel 9Gem, of which 810,000 were metropolitan viewers. It was the fifth most popular program on Australian TV.

Following the lunch break, the second session was watched by 635,000 national viewers, of which more half were in the five big metro cities.

After midnight, viewer numbers slipped to 316,000 across the country, the bulk of which were in the metro cities, according to the latest figures from ratings agency ozTAM.

Australia won the fourth Test and Ashes series, and is the number one topic trending on social media platform Twitter in the country.

Australia's most popular TV program on Sunday was Nine's renovation competition reality show, The Block, with more than 1.5m national viewers, beating Seven Network's evening news, which was watched by 1.49m people around the country.

Nine's evening news came in third sport with 1.47m national viewers, followed by Seven's Australia's Got Talent with 1.1m national viewers.

In sixth spot was ABC's evening news, with 1m national viewers.

Reality pilot show, Sydney's Crazy Rich Asians, which kicked off Network Ten's second annual pilot week, was the 34th most popular TV show in Australia on Sunday. It was watched by 254,000 viewers across the country.