Saturday TV ratings: ABC places second ahead of Nine and Ten
It was a quiet night for television on Saturday, with no programs cracking the 1m metro viewers benchmark and the national broadcaster beating both Nine and Ten in terms of average audience share.
For the fifth time since Sunday, the ABC posted a higher audience share than Ten – 14.9% compared to 7.2%. The ABC placed second behind Seven’s 21.1%, also finishing ahead of Nine (14.5%) and SBS (5.6%).
The ABC had a strong showing in the top 10 programs, according to OzTam’s overnight preliminary metro ratings, with ABC News placing third (788,000), The Coroner fourth (688,000), The Halcyon fifth (558,000), Gardening Australia eighth (410,000) and New Tricks 10th (382,000).
Nine News was the most-watched program of the evening with 880,000 metro viewers, followed by Seven News with 842,000.
Despite only airing in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth on Seven’s main station, the AFL clash between the Western Bulldogs and GWS Giants pulled 542,000 metro viewers, placing it in sixth. The pre-match show had 472,000 across the three cities – putting it in seventh position overall.
For the fifth time since Sunday, Ten failed to crack the top 10 programs list, with its highest-ranked show – Ten Eyewitness News in 15th place – pulling just 284,000. Ten only made it into the top 10 on Thursday and Friday this week – The Living Room placed 10th on Friday with 514,000 metro viewers, and the second half hour of The Project at 7pm on Thursday also placed 10th with 538,000.
Once regional figures were added in, which include viewer numbers from affiliate stations, three shows surpassed 1m viewers nationally: Seven News (1.293m), ABC News (1.201m), and The Coroner (1.065m). Nine News fell to fourth with 894,000.
Including regional figures, Ten’s most-watched program, Ten Eyewitness News, climbed to 13th spot with 435,000.
The second week of the post-Easter ratings period kicks off tonight with Nine’s second week of The Voice going up against the finale of My Kitchen Rules at 7pm on Seven, followed by the premiere of House Rules.
Ten is airing Modern Family and US drama Bull, ahead of its Masterchef premiere on Monday 1 May.
