• Knights win an NRL thriller as Nine wins Sydney and Brisbane
Primetime News
Seven News 1,132,000/1,069,000
Nine News 1,035,000/987,000
ABC News 698,000
10 News First 367,000 (5:00pm)/ 250,000 (6:00pm)
SBS World News 183,000 (6:30pm) 132,000 (7:00pm)
Daily current affairs
A Current Affair 707,000
7.30 524,000
The Project 314,000 (6:30pm)/480,000 (7pm)
The Drum 187,000
Breakfast TV
Sunrise 265,000
Today 247,000
News Breakfast 220,000
Late News
The Latest 320,000
Nine News Late 119,000
ABC Late News 85,000
Seven
Home and Away ended its week on 602,000 and 522,000 for the Thursday episodes a week ago.
The Front Bar presented the first of its 2021 Finals Series episodes with special guests Eddie Betts and Titus O’Reilly. Santo Cilauro was standing in for Sam Pang. The audience of 388,000 got to see some champagne TV featuring Mick Malloy and Santo on The Late Show.
Viewers in Sydney and Brisbane who didn’t turn to 7plus to watch Mick, Andy and Santo had the offer of Billy Connolly: Made in Scotland.
Nine
“Should we vaccinate our kids,” asked Tracy Grimshaw at the start of A Current Affair. That was part of an intro to a Nat Wallace story speaking to parents debating whether they should be looking for jabs for their kids. The Thursday audience of 707,000 (and 1m+ national) also saw stories on ID theft from a divorced couple and how to battle phone text fraud.
NRL Thursday Night Football came from Queensland with Newcastle Knights up against Gold Coast Titans. A narrow victory saw the Knights secure a finals berth. The metro audience was 294,000, national was 501,000.
Australian Crime Stories screened in southern states with 175,000.
10
“Containing Covid” was the first story on The Project after 7pm where one of the program’s regular Covid analysts Professor Nancy Baxter summed up the impending NSW easing of restrictions, noting what was being offered was quite a minor change.
The Project then previewed a documentary called Incarceration Nation coming to NITV. ABC sports reporter Tony Armstrong was on the desk last night and he gave a passionate assessment about how Australia is failing big time to deal with the issues the movie documents. Lisa Wilkinson then recapped the Wednesday episode of The Bachelor, without any guest talking about the show. “Strap yourselves in people,” she said before there was another detailed recap at the start of The Bachelor episode seconds later. The Project was just short of 500,000 after 7pm.
The Bachelor Australia is already down to four remaining Bachelorettes as Jimmy went on a single date with each. The episode was on 470,000 after 487,000 a week ago and was #1 Thursday under 50 and 25-54. That episode from Thursday last week added 33% in total audience to 798,000.
ABC
Some appalling detail about the challenges facing people trying to depart Kabul were shared at the start of 7.30. It wasn’t long though until the focus moved to the Delta wave, with a look at the impact on Indigenous Australians last night. The audience was 524,000.
The impact of Covid was also the subject on Foreign Correspondent with great work from Carrington Clarke reporting from South Korea on the strain on home delivery services. The audience was 347,000 after 8pm.
Q+A gave children a chance to have a say with Virginia Trioli hosting. Not many adults tuned in though with 237,000 after 332,000 a week ago.
SBS
The most-watched non-news show was Incredible Journeys with Simon Reeve on 137,000.
SBS Viceland was in 100,000+ territory with a repeat of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown on 109,000.
