(5 city metro combined – all figures in millions)

1. Melbourne Cup (The Race) – Seven – 2.595
2. Melbourne Cup (Race Presentations) – Seven – 2.587
3. Packed to the Rafters – Seven – 2.335
4. Melbourne Cup (The Mounting Yard) – Seven – 2.052
5. Seven News – Seven – 1.593
6. Today Tonight – Seven – 1.408
7. Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation – Ten – 1.258
8. Nine News – Nine – 1.245
9. Melbourne Cup (Late Afternoon) – Seven – 1.220
10. A Current Affair – Nine – 1.155
11. NCIS – Ten – 1.097
12. Iron Chef – Seven – 1.092
13. Home and Away – Seven – 1.083
14. ABC News – ABC – 1.023
15. Two and a Half Men – Nine – 0.974

Top Gear Australia 0.969m
Parenthood 0.934m
The 7PM Project 0.832m
Melbourne Cup – Morning and Early Afternoon 0.772m
Deal or No Deal 0.761m
NCIS: LA 0.747m
Hot Seat 0.650m
Top Gear 0.596m
Survivor 0.521m

Wow, what a day. While Channel 7 hold the rights to the Melbourne Cup, it’s a licence to print racing money. The more notable win for Ch7 is Packed To The Rafters, easily lining up as the highest rating drama episode of the year, with Parenthood benefitting from it’s lead in but still more than halving the audience share of the lead in it was given. If Ch7 want it to succeed, they need to treat it much better. Mind you, there was a horse race on that will have had many tired & emotional people off to bed by that point. It’s always harder to see the TV screen through running mascara, too.

Talkin’ Bout Your Generation the strongest non-Ch7 offering in with 1.258m, Nine News following that. Glad to see that Iron Chef Australia performed resonably – however for it to continue/survive, some tweaking is required (like what exactly is Grant Denyer’s role in the show?). Top Gear Australia trailing well behind the other two 7:30pm offerings, which is a shame as it is much better than the SBS iterations and with Shane Jacobsen only just settling in as host the show has real potential. Top Gear UK repeat lost out both in opposition to Rafters as well as the fact that it’s a REPEAT!! Survivor Nicaragua also struggling, but buried late at night with delayed & poor lead in. Yet a Two and a Half Men repeat still rates better than half the evening. What monkey is programming Ch9 these days? Sheesh…