• 10 secures first place with MasterChef, Masterclass, Gogglebox
• Best of the rest: Home and Away, RBT, Grand Designs, The Tower
Thursday news highlights
Seven News 1,283,000/1,202,000
Nine News 1,170,000/1,147,000
ABC News 914,000
A Current Affair 798,000
7.30 655,000
The Project 459,000/636,000
10 News 513,000/459,000
Sunrise 319,000
The Drum 261,000
ABC News Breakfast 258,000
Today 231,000
SBS World News 215,000
The Latest 205,000
Morning Show 182,000
10: The channel has worked hard this week to keep momentum from the Easter break and it managed to win Thursday with its line-up of two hours of MasterChef/Masterclass and then Gogglebox.
The hosts of The Project wore tributes to police last night and one of their guests was Victorian Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Kate Langbroek was also on the line from Italy. The show had a strong audience of 459,000 at 6.30pm (biggest in close to three years) and then pushed to 636,000 after 7pm.
MasterChef featured a five-way competition to get immunity on Sunday night. The good cooking featured during the week continued with Sarah last night who wowed the judges and it safe on Sunday. The episode did 1.028m with a second consecutive Thursday episode over 1m. The first Masterclass of the year saw the contestants getting to work on some dishes. The Masterclass was on 802,000.
Gogglebox subsequently started a little later which saw the audience drop week-on-week from 874,000 to 601,000. That was still enough to have the penultimate episode of the first season for 2020 win its timeslot.
Nine: A Current Affair was just under 800,000 with an update on $100,000 of goods for the Great Australian Giveaway.
A show about police keeping the roads safe took on extra meaning last night as RBT had an audience of 534,000.
The James Bond film Spectre then did 309,000.
Seven: Home and Away was well above 600,000 all week with 661,000 last night.
The first episode of a repeat screening of Billy Connolly: Great American Trail did 270,000.
A timely screening of 2011 movie Contagion about a deadly virus then did 310,000.
ABC: 7.30 featured an interview with departing Rugby CEO Raelene Castle with host Leigh Sales alluding to reasons why some people wanted Castle out. Shock jock Campbell Parkes also made an appearance with thoughts about Coronavirus and Malcolm Turnbull’s book. The episode did 655,000.
The Heights followed with 269,000 and then Grand Designs Australia on 406,000.
SBS: The penultimate episode of Secrets of the Tower of London was on 309,000. A replay of The Handmaid’s Tale was on 72,000.
