It’s all coming up roses for The Block (Winner Announced: 1st – 2,715,000; Auction: 2nd – 2,459,000; Grand Final: 3rd – 2,145,000)* and a deserving result for what has been another great season for the series. A later running 60 Minutes (4th – 1,763,000)* benefits from the carry over effect too while Downton Abbey (7th – 1,402,000) still rates strongly against it. MasterChef Australia (9th – 1,070,000) did OK but almost seemed to waste Heston Blumenthal in this situation and Billy Connolly’s Route 66 (10th – 930,000) was the big loser for the night – though consolidated figures in a week will give a better indication on the audience for all the other programs pitted against the finale of the reality series.

*These numbers have been adjusted by Channel 9 to reflect the show finishing later than the advertised running time to become: Winner 2,969,000; Auction 2,561,000; Final 2,191,000 – it also slides 60 Minutes down to 7th with 1,251,000. Great numbers, but if they’d wanted us to care they’d finish the show at the advertised time.

Timeslot winners (nationally):
6:00pm: Nine News – Ch9
6:30pm: The Block (Grand Final) – Ch9
7:30pm: The Block (Grand Final/Auction/Winner Announced) – Ch9
8:30pm: The Block (Winner Announced)/60 Minutes – Ch9
9:30pm: Castle – Ch7

Channel 9 won the night (31%), followed by Channel 7 (21.9%), Channel 10 (12.1%) & ABC1 (9.2%).