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Nine nabs a Thursday ratings win on day of proposed merger with Fairfax

Nine – which yesterday announced a proposed merger with publisher Fairfax Media – won the television ratings battle last night, with its 6pm news bulletin and NRL coverage bringing its total share to 20.6%.

Nine won the night from both a main channel and network perspective, beating Seven’s main channel 16% share, ABC’s and Ten’s shares of 11% and 10.8% respectively, as well as SBS’ 6.9% share.

Nine beat free-to-air rivals last night after a long day of media coverage

The channel’s 6pm bulletin, which across five metro cities is often beaten by Seven News, was the most-watched program, with 932,000 metro viewers. Seven News was slightly behind on 923,000. In Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Nine’s 6pm bulletin was most popular, while in Adelaide and Perth, Nine lost to Seven News.

Nine’s A Current Affair also attracted a sizeable audience last night, with 739,000 metro viewers tuning in.

At 7:30pm, Nine ran the NRL match between the Brisbane Broncos and the Cronulla Sharks in Sydney and Brisbane, which pulled in an audience of 419,000. The show attracted an audience similar to the size of Ten’s David Attenborough and the Giant Elephant, 437,000, but Ten’s show ran across all five major cities.

Outside of news, the most-watched entertainment show of the evening was Seven’s Home and Away, with 611,000 metro viewers across the five capital cities. Seven’s The Single Wives, which ran at 7:30pm, pulled just 329,000 metro viewers. Seven’s The Front Bar, which ran in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, had an audience of 317,000.

Thursday night also marked four days worth of Ten’s new game show Pointless. The show, which premiered on Monday with 493,000 metro viewers, finished Thursday with a metro audience of 295,000. Thursday night’s result was slightly higher than the final episode of Ten’s former game show, Family Feud, which went out with 213,000 metro viewers. 

The ABC’s most-watched program was its news bulletin, with 674,000 metro viewers, but its 8pm program, Grand Designs Australia, performed well, with 501,000.

Earlier on in the day, Seven’s Sunrise- which averaged 247,000 metro viewers – beat Nine’s Today, which had 243,000 metro viewers, despite the announcement of its merger with Fairfax Media.

On the multi-channels, 7Two had the biggest program, with 227,000 tuning in to Father Brown. Overall, the multi-channel with the biggest share on Thursday was 7mate – at 5.3%.

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