Chaser plus Spicks and Specks winning ratings combination for the ABC

Wednesday night’s long awaited return of The Chaser’s War On Everything helped deliver the ABC one of its strongest TV audiences of the year, although stablemate Spicks and Specks grabbed the glory by rating even better.  

In a good evening for the non-commercial network, Spicks and Specks at 8.30pm pulled in an audience of just over 1.6m, making it the ABC’s highest rating show since September 2007, with a free to air audience share of  32.5%. The Chaser followed at 9pm although the average audience fell away slightly to just over 1.5m and a share of audience of 32.1%.

Meanwhile, Ten will have been pleased that despite sharing a similar youth skew to its audience, the ABC was unable to overhaul the network for the night. This was almost entirely due to the performance of Ten’s MasterChef, which pulled in an audience of just over 1.3m to see the teams take on the challenge of catering for the Royal Easter Show crowds.

And Seven’s expensive acquisition of Thank God You’re Here is still looking like a good investment, pulling in just over 1.5m and helping the network to a win for the night.

According to preliminary ratings from OzTam, last night’s five city metro share was: Seven 28.4%;  Nine 26.3%; Ten 21.2%; ABC 19.5%; SBS 4.6%. However, in Sydney, the ABC achieved 21.4%, beating Ten into fourth place with 20.6%.

Wednesday’s top ten TV shows:

1. Seven News – Seven 1.6m
2. Spicks and Specks – ABC 1.6m
3. The Chaser’s War on Everything – ABC 1.5m
4. Thank God You’re Here – Seven 1.5m
5. Today Tonight – Seven 1.5m
6. MasterChef – Ten 1.3m
7. RPA – Nine 1.3m
8. Criminal Minds – Seven 1.3m
9. Nine News – Nine 1.2m
10. Two and a Half Men – Nine 1.2m