To no one’s surprise, stale Morrison-Albanese debate brings in paltry viewers

Gee, it seemed like a good idea, a prime ministerial debate between Albo and ScoMo — 175,000 on Sky News — a sort of Hard Quiz (753,000 last night) without the humour, one badly needing Tom Gleeson to give it an edge rather than an earnest political tragic like Kieran Gilbert at Sky News (aka the News Corp PR channel for the Morrison government and all things conservative).

Now to real TV business. The 7pm ABC News had 855,000 national viewers, A Current Affair on Nine had 833,000, and the 7pm part of The Project on Ten had 438,000. Home and Away was watched by 776,000, mostly viewers under the age of 29. SBS World News at 7pm had 191,000. At 7.30pm, 7.30 on the ABC had 667,000, while Ten, Nine and Seven had gone to their reality programs. The Sky News audience had been warmed up beforehand, for an hour, by the rantings of Peta Credlin (58,000).

To give the audience further context, the NRL game on Monday between Wests and Parramatta was watched by 276,000 on Fox League. To provide further context, at the end of December, Foxtel had 1.564 million residential subscribers and 218,000 commercial subscribers. The ratings refer to the former, not the latter, which are pubs and clubs. Australia has around 10 million households, so in effect the debate was hidden away and depended on print and the ABC, Seven and Nine to sell the message on Wednesday, as well as news websites last night and today. In effect, Sky News and the Murdoch controlled got a free ride from their rivals.

Elsewhere, The Voice slipped under a million viewers nationally — 984,000 was well down on the 1.266 million opening-night figure. But Lego Masters found an extra block from somewhere (called the stewards) and added 10,000 viewers to 806,000, still well down from the 929,000 opening on Monday. And Masterchef Australia is now a doomed ship: 466,000 is bad, even for Ten, and nowhere near the 637,000 open. Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell ended this season with a weakish 597,000. Seven’s desperation programming, Britain’s Got Talent, had 463,000 tune in from 9pm. That was boosted by having The Voice as the lead-in, but that made sure Seven won the night.

Regional top 5: Seven News, 559,000; Seven News 6.30, 502,000; 7pm ABC News, 303,000; The Chase Australia 5.30pm, 302,000; Home and Away, 300,000.

Network channel share:

1. Seven (30.7%)
2. Nine (28.4%)
3. ABC (16.4%)
4. Ten (16.3%)
5. SBS (8.2%)

Network main channels:

1. Seven (22.8%)
2. Nine (19.1%)
3. ABC(11.9%)
4. Ten (10.6%%)
5. SBS ONE (4.8%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

1. 7TWO (3.5%)
2. Gem (3.3%)
3. 7mate (2.9%)
4. GO, 10 Peach (2.7%)

Top 10 national programs:

1. Seven News — 1.517 million
2. Seven News 6.30 — 1.454 million
3. Nine News — 1.019 million
4. Nine News 6.30 — 1.008 million
5. The Voice (Seven) — 984000
6. 7pm ABC News — 855,000
7. A Current Affair (Nine) — 833,000
8. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 832,000
9. Lego Masters (Nine) — 806,000
10. Home and Away (Seven) — 776,000

Losers: Anyone who watched the debate on Sky News.

Metro news and current affair

1. Seven News — 974,000
2. Seven News 6.30 — 936,000
3. Nine News — 782,000
4. Nine News 6.30 — 765,000
5. ACA (Nine) — 592,000
6. 7pm ABC News — 567,000
7. 7.30 (ABC) — 439,000
8. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 366,000
9. 10 News First — 316,000
10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 238,000

Morning (national) TV:

1. Sunrise (Seven) — 390,000/229,000
2. Today (Nine) — 282,000/188,000
3. ABC News Breakfast (ABC) — 278,000/185,000
4. ABC News Mornings — 234,000
5. The Morning Show (Seven) — 229,000
6. Today Extra (Nine) — 155,000
7. Studio 10 (Ten) — 39,000

Top 5 pay TV programs: N/A

1. Gogglebox Australia (LifeStyle) — 109,000
2. Selling Houses Australia (LifeStyle) — 92,000
3. Paul Murray Live (Sky News) — 68,000
4. The Bolt Report (Sky News) — 66,000 
5. Credlin (Sky News) — 59,000