• Welcome to grand finals week for MasterChef, Ninja & House Rules
• Seven wins Sunday as The Real Full Monty averages 1m+ metro
• SBS crowd farewells SBS news presenter Lee Lin Chin
Seven
The Seven Productions special event The Real Full Monty was the most-watched show after the Seven and Nine news bulletins last night. The program, which promised much and delivered most of it, averaged over 1m viewers in metro markets, which might leave programmers optimistic there is still an audience for a well-produced one-off event on Sunday nights.
Sunday Night followed with under 600,000 watching, but the program can boast it did out-rate 60 Minutes.
Nine
The final of the Australian Ninja Warrior semifinals screened in the final week of the show. It was the biggest audience yet for the second year of Ninja Warrior with 974,000 watching. All of the Sunday episodes have made it above 900,000, but none has yet to crack 1m. With two grand final episodes left this season tonight and tomorrow, reaching 1m might be a challenge given season finals of Seven’s House Rules and TEN’s MasterChef on successive nights.
60 Minutes followed with a smallish 561,000 watching, although it was up on lat week’s 533,000.
TEN
A Bondi Rescue repeat was filling the 6pm timeslot last night with 227,000 watching.
The Sunday Project then started on 249,000 and climbed to 409,000 after 7pm. That was up on last week’s 7pm Sunday audience of 374,000.
The usual Thursday MasterChef elimination moved to Sunday last night followed by the final Masterclass of the season. Surprisingly one of the most crucial elimination challenges of the season took place on a floating barge moving around Sydney harbour. The bobbing vessel didn’t agree with 19-year-old Jess Liemantara and she was eliminated, missing out on the final three. She and her two colleagues Ben and Sashi had to present dishes to the judges plus guest chefs Jock Zonfrillo from Orana, Danielle Alvarez from Fred’s, Lennox Hastie from Firedoor and Ross Lusted from The Bridge Room. With the guest judges split down the middle between eliminating Jess and Sashi, it came down to the judges, and with too many elements that did not work, it was Jess who was sent home, narrowly missing out on her place in the semifinal. The audience of 872,000 was up from 854,000 a week ago.
The final MasterClass of the season then did 800,000, which was the biggest of the season and up 150,000 from the previous Masterclass in week 29.
ABC
Grand Designs New Zealand did 484,000.
Jack Irish was then on 611,000 after 684,000 the week prior.
SBS
The final episode of SBS World News did 222,000 but deserved more. It was, however, the channel’s biggest audience last night. The reason for the crowd was the final bulletin from Lee Lin Chin, who noted last night as she farewell her social media audience: “30 years, it goes by rather fast. Goodbye.” Among the well-wishers was outgoing SBS boss Michael Ebeid, who stopped by the newsroom before the bulletin went to air last night. The bulletin ended with a Lee Lin Chin reel with highlights and bloopers across the past 30 years.
Also screening last night was Ewan and Colin McGregor: RAF at 100 with 189,000 watching.
First Civilisations did 185,000.
The late night final stage of the Tour de France did 84,000. That brings to an end three massive events exclusive to SBS over the past three months – Eurovision, World Cup and the bike race.
Coming soon though is the start of the Premier League season on August 11.
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