• Craig McLachlan back in primetime secures audience over 700,000
• Where’s the beef? Curtis Stone’s brief MasterChef appearance bad news for Conor
Primetime News
Seven News 1,077,000
Nine News 934,000
ABC News 604,000
10 News First 302,000 (5:00pm)/ 270,000 (6:00pm)
SBS World News 160,000 (6:30pm) 119,000 (7:00pm)
Daily current affairs
The Project 315,000 (6:3 pm)/454,000 (7pm)
Insiders 388,000
Breakfast TV
Sunrise 253,000
Today 195,000
News Breakfast 182,000
Late News
Nine News Late Edition 270,000
Nine
Nine News in Sydney started 10 minutes late as the NRL Magic Round ran overtime from Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. The bulletin did 934,000 with Sydney on 310,000, ahead of Seven on 258,000.
The news might have been late in some markets, but Lego Masters got underway at 7pm. The penultimate episode this season featured some spectacular builds. Not making the final three to battle it out tonight were Sarah and Fleur. The episode was the highest rating so far this season with 901,000. The show secured Nine top spot all people and key demos.
Nine’s Sunday night performance has only seen it surrender primary channel dominance one week so far in 2021 since January.
After nearly two hours of brick building, 60 Minutes exposed Gérald Marie, the French supermodel agent, accused of decades of sexual abuse. The episode couldn’t break half a million for a second consecutive week with 447,000 last night.
Seven
Seven News was the most-watched Sunday show. The audience of 1,077,000 was helped by another Melbourne AFL victory in that city as Seven also won the timeslot in Perth and Brisbane.
While the news did well, most interest surrounded the 7News Spotlight program from producer Mark Llewellyn which featured interviews with Craig McLachlan regarding allegations of inappropriate behaviour. The special came a day after further allegations against the star of The Rocky Horror Show and The Doctor Blake Mysteries were made. The Seven special did a very respectable 720,000 and pushed Big Brother from its Sunday timeslot. A little bonus at the end revealed McLachlan’s return to showbiz.
Crime Investigation Australia followed with Most Infamous on 327,000 and then The Real Manhunter was on 167,000.
10
The final episode of Meet the Masters week on MasterChef featured a brief appearance from Curtis Stone and cooking the meat dishes. It might have been just five minutes with the culinary icon, but he delivered a meat masterclass in that short time. Four cooks went into the second round to decide the elimination. “I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it,’ said judge Melissa Leong when tasting Conor’s dish which sealed his fate ahead of his subsequent elimination.
Two episodes of FBI: Most Wanted followed with the new episode on 277,000 and the repeat with 168,000.
ABC
Guests on Spicks and Specks were Eddie Perfect, Mo’Ju, Michala Banas and Nazeem Hussain. The episode was on 486,000 after 499,000 a week ago.
Episode five of the impressive drama Wakefield then did a disappointing 205,000 after an even more disappointing 174,000 a week ago.
The second episode of UK drama Smother then had 153,000 watching after launching with 157,000 a week ago.
SBS
A 2020 doco on Kenny Rogers was a different offering in a timeslot usually visiting ancient ruins in Egypt, Italy or Greece. There’s plenty to like about the country music singer though and the repeat screening of Kenny Rogers: Biography had an audience of 142,000.
Then in another warm-up piece of programming ahead of Eurovision next week, Adam Liaw hosted a special repeat episode of Destination Flavour Eurovision offering advice on how to enjoy the best of Europe without leaving Australia with 55,000 watching.
