• Leigh Sales returns to 7:30 after her hiatus
• The Block adds its last two teams with the return of the Faves
Primetime News
Seven News 1,245,000/1,175,000
Nine News 1,089,000/1,032,000
ABC News 749,000
10 News First 400,000 (5:00pm)/ 253,000 (6:00pm)
SBS World News 179,000 (6:30pm) 137,000 (7:00pm)
Daily current affairs
A Current Affair 807,000
7.30 609,000
The Project 364,000 (6:30pm)/567,000 (7pm)
The Drum 181,000
Breakfast TV
Sunrise 318,000
Today 264,000
News Breakfast 235,000
Seven
Despite the Olympics coming to a close, Seven has continued its hot streak. The broadcaster was able to secure the #1 primary channel (24.7%) and network (35.6%) as well as the top multichannel through 7mate (7.3%).
Home and Away returned from its mid-season cliffhanger (literally) with 710,000 viewers. The episode saw Dean, Nikau and Mia on the edge of a cliff after a car accident.
The Voice followed its huge launch audience of 1.329m with 1.162m viewers as the episode featured the show’s youngest ever competitor, 12-year-old Janaki Easwar, who stunned the coaches and left her newly selected coach Jessica Mauboy in tears. The show was also #1 in all key demos.
After The Voice was 7NEWS Spotlight: Heroes of the Games as Seven was able to get 389,000 more viewers out of its wildly successful Olympics coverage.
Seven had a rare Monday Night AFL clash in some markets thanks to a Covid-delayed game out of Perth. Viewers to the match might have thought it was looking like an easy Melbourne victory as they outscored West Coast Eagles across the third quarter.
Those who stayed with the game though got a surprise during the final quarter when umpires called a halt to proceedings because of the threat of lightning on a stormy Perth night.
The Seven commentary team and Eddie McGuire (anchoring the coverage on Fox Footy) had to dig into the AFL rules to see how this might play out. The game eventually restarted close to 11pm with the West Coast Eagles revitalised by the stoppage with the game ending on a knife-edge with a narrow Demon victory.
The match had an average audience of 324,000.
Nine
Tracy Grimshaw hosted A Current Affair which started with an amazing interview that reporter Alexis Daish managed to secure. She tracked down former Victorian magistrate Rodney Higgins on the golf course. After he finished his round he spoke about his relationship with a court clerk 45 years his junior, Ashleigh Petrie, and how he was trying to get her super payout which was originally directed to her mother. The episode had 807,000 viewers.
The Block then had 627,000 for its second episode of the year, following the 747,000 that it had for its launch episode on Sunday.
In the episode, Faves Mitch and Mark and Ronnie and Georgia joined the competition and the competition officially kicked off.
The teams picked their houses with Kirsty and Jesse, as challenge winners, picking first and selecting House 5, the only two-storey property. Josh and Luke took House 4, while Tanya and Vito picked House 3.
The Fans also got to decide which houses the Faves would have to help even out the playing field for the new contestants.
And in a twist, it was also revealed that there would be no floor plans provided this year, with contestants having to create their own.
10
On 10, The Project had 364,000 (6:30pm) and 567,000 (7:00pm) as the show covered Covid-19 spreading into regional NSW and spoke to Ryan Reynolds.
Survivor had 618,000 viewers as the Brawn alliance continued to pick apart the Brains tribe, even intentionally losing an immunity challenge to make sure that they went to tribal.
Have You Been Paying Attention? followed with 603,000 as the show featured Lloyd Langford, Denise Scott, and Celia Pacquola.
ABC
“Good to be back,” said Leigh Sales as she returned to host 7.30. The episode had 609,000 viewers and started with another look at the NSW premier and her relationship with Daryl Maguire.
At 8pm Australian Story ended its two-part look at the career of Australian basketballer Luc Longley with 561,000 tuning in. It was perfectly programmed after the Boomer’s bronze at Tokyo 2020 on the weekend.
SBS
The top program on SBS was a repeat of Inside Windsor Castle with 196,000 viewers.
