Sam, we have stopped listening to your rants and ravings. Viewers want something more these days. They are not watching listening (and watching), and the home AFL market — Melbourne — has gone right off you, the Footy Show and Eddie McGuire. They continue to abandon you and the rest of your Footy Show in favour of the gentler, funnier Front Bar on Seven. There was more free publicity this morning for yet another outburst from Newman on the program last night — this time bagging the AFL for supporting the Yes case in the postal survey. It’s out of whack with the reality of what is happening in the TV audience, especially in Melbourne. For whatever reason (clickbait?) News Corp websites gave Newman’s rant a lot of air this morning. Eddie McGuire gave as good as Newman last night, but the video clips are all of Newman’s ranting.

But fortunately viewers now see Newman’s ranting and ravings as what they are (decades out of date) and they are deserting Nine (when will the message get picked up by the network?). For the third week in a row, Seven’s modest Front Bar out-rated The Footy Show in Melbourne and nationally. In Melbourne the Front Bar was watched by 231,000 viewers, The Footy Show by 194,000. Nationally the margin was 419,000 for the Front Bar, 383,000 for The Footy Show (which would have been a weak night in Melbourne alone, when The Footy Show was at its peak).

Sophie Monk on The Bachelorette got more that n 1.2 million viewers nationally — third overall and first in the metros. Like the Matildas (the Australian women’s soccer team for those of you not up with things), it’s the female version of the concept that is out performing the male version (The Bachelor and the Socceroos, who are 50th in the world to the Matildas’ sixth).

While Seven had more people, Ten had the demos and that was the night. AFL and NRL finals tonight and tomorrow night and then we know what some of us will be shouting about next week and weekend: The Brownlow (AFL Best and Fairest) is on Monday night — and it is now longer than the Loges, and more boring.

In regional areas, Seven news was the most watched program with 498,000, followed by Home and Away with 420,000, Seven News/Today Tonight was on 418,000, then the 5.30pm part of The Chase with 360,000 and fifth was the 7pm ABC News with 313,000.

Network channel share:

  1. Seven (28.5%)
  2. Nine (26.7%)
  3. Ten (22.5%)
  4. ABC (14.6%)
  5. SBS (7.7%)

Network main channels:

  1. Nine (19.0%)
  2. Seven (17.9%)
  3. Ten (17.0%)
  4. ABC (8.5%)
  5. SBS ONE (5.3%)

Top 5 digital channels: 

  1. 7TWO (5.8%)
  2. ABC 2 (3.7%)
  3. GO (3.6%)
  4. ONE (3.2%)
  5. 7flix (2.6%)

Top 10 national programs:

  1. Seven News  — 1.464 million
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 1.342 million
  3. The Bachelorette (Ten) — 1.269 million
  4. Nine/NBN News — 1.191 million
  5. Nine/NBN News — 1.162 million
  6. Home and Away (Seven) — 1.097 million
  7. 7pm ABC News —989,000
  8. A Current Affair (Nine) — 976,000
  9. The Chase Australia 5.30pm (Seven) — 923,000
  10. RBT repeat (Nine) —853,000

Top metro programs: No program with a million or more viewers

Losers: The shrinking number of viewers who stuck with The Footy Show.

Metro news and current affairs:

  1. Seven News — 966,000
  2. Seven News/Today Tonight — 924,000
  3. Nine News (6.30pm) — 873,000
  4. Nine News — 868,000
  5. A Current Affair (Nine) – 686,000
  6. 7pm ABC News – 677,000
  7. The Project 7pm (Ten) — 589,000
  8. 7.30 (ABC) —484,000
  9. Ten Eyewitness News — 437,000
  10. The Project 6.30pm (Ten) — 378,000

Morning (National) TV:

  1. Sunrise (Seven) – 509,000
  2. Today (Nine) – 402,000
  3. The Morning Show (Seven) — 158,000
  4. News Breakfast (ABC,  159,000 + 79,000 on ABC News ) — 238,000
  5. Today Extra (Nine) — 145,000
  6. Studio 10 (Ten) — 110,000

Top five pay TV programs:

  1. Back Page (Fox Sports More) — 107,000
  2. AFL: 360 (Fox Footy) — 85,000
  3. 2nd ODI, India v Australia (Fox Sports More) — 75,000
  4. 2nd ODI, India v Australia (Fox Sports More) — 59,000
  5. NCIS (TV HITS) — 53,000