X Factor prevails but Nine's still got talent

SUNDAY night’s talent contest tightened last night with Australia’s Got Talent adding more than 200,000 viewers in a week.

SUNDAY nightÂ’s talent contest tightened last night with AustraliaÂ’s Got Talent adding more than 200,000 viewers in a week.

Seven’s The X Factor remained top dog with an average metro audience of 1.382 million viewers but Nine’s AGT rose from 1.044 million viewers last Sunday to 1.212 million according to preliminary OzTAM data, bumped up to 1.303 million when time-corrected.

The result is a fillip for Nine after some premature eulogies for the franchise last week. And it papers over the weak ratings performance of its local period drama, Underbelly: Squizzy, which dropped from 772,000 viewers last week to 731,000, well down on the average for contemporary drama House Husbands, which screened on Sunday nights earlier in the year.

Seven News was the top program for the night with 1.443 million viewers, in part due to a huge audience in Adelaide.

Seven’s Sunday Afternoon Football, which rose to 526,000 viewers in the five capital cities thanks to the Adelaide versus Western Bulldogs match, was the second most popular program for the day in Adelaide as the lead-in to Seven News.

Seven won the night in all people with a 26.5 per cent channel share ahead of Nine’s 21.8 per cent and ABC1’s 11.4 per cent. Ten had a 10.5 per cent share.

Seven extended its all-people lead in network share with 7TWO recording a 4.4 per cent share (including 234,000 viewers for a repeat of Fawlty Towers) and 7mate a 4.9 per cent share.

Nine’s 60 Minutes won the current affairs battle just with 1.224 million viewers ahead of Seven’s Sunday Night with 1.137 million. Both shows were up on last week, as was ABC1’s Grand Designs Revisted with 823,000 viewers.

OZTAM OVERNIGHT RANKINGS, AUGUST 19
1 SEVEN NEWS Seven 1,443,000
2 THE X FACTOR Seven 1,382,000
3 NINE NEWS SUNDAY Nine 1,328,000
4 60 MINUTES Nine 1,224,000
5 AUSTRALIA'S GOT TALENT Nine 1,212,000
6 SUNDAY NIGHT Seven 1,137,000
7 GRAND DESIGNS REVISITED ABC1 823,000
8 ABC NEWS ABC1 812,000
9 BONES Seven 772,000
10 THE TIME OF OUR LIVES ABC1 733,000
11 UNDERBELLY: SQUIZZY Nine 731,000
12 DREAM BUILD ABC1 717,000
13 MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA Ten 671,000
14 CASTLE Seven 540,000
15 SEVEN'S AFL: SUNDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL Seven 526,000
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