News wins for Seven and Nine as The Checkout posts biggest audience yet

News and current affairs programs each brought over 1m metro viewers to Seven and Nine last night, as The Checkout posted its highest audience yet for ABC1, preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTam show.

In the evening news hour Nine was just ahead of Seven with 1.17m from 6pm as Seven had 1.136m, giving Nine the top program of the night. Nine News then had 1.059m from 6.30pm as Seven News and Today tonight had 1.011m.

Seven then held the bulk of the audience with 922,000 for Home and Away, as ABC1 stepped up to second in the timeslot with 846,000 for ABC News from 7pm, while A Current affair had 827,000 on Nine.

ABC1 posted its highest audience yet for consumer affairs program The Checkout which won the 8pm timslot with 825,000 metro viewers watching as Julian Morrow and Kate Browne exposed the tricks of online dating websites and the extortionate roaming charges imposed by mobile phone companies. The series hit its previous high of 823,000 on March 28.