• State of Origin Game 1 delivers Queensland and Nine a win
• But knife-edge USA election result splits mid-week audience
• ABC wins US election as ABC News posts second record share in 5 days
Primetime News
Seven News 1,049,000/1,051,000
Nine News 763,000/772,000
ABC News 641,000
10 News First 318,000/250,000
SBS World News 153,000
US Election Coverage
ABC: News/USA Votes special 7pm 641,000
ABC: USA Votes America’s Decision 6pm 384,000
ABC News: Planet America USA Votes Special 303,000
ABC: USA Votes Election Day Special 4pm 303,000
ABC: USA Votes Election Results Live 1pm 272,000
ABC News: USA Votes America’s Decision 6pm 233,000
ABC News: USA Votes 7pm 212,000
ABC: Planet America USA Votes Special 212,000
ABC: USA Election Day Live 10am 189k
Seven: US Election 2020 176,000
Nine: US Election 2020 151,000
10: The Project US Election Special 72,000
Daily current affairs
A Current Affair 682,000
The Project 324,000/466,000
Breakfast TV
Sunrise 264,000
News Breakfast 242,000
Today 212,000
Late night news
Nine News Late 149,000
The Latest 120,000
ABC Late News 54,000
World News Late 53,000
Wednesday TV
Seven: Despite attractions elsewhere Home and Away posted its best audience of the week with 584,000 after starting the week on 549,000 and 535,000.
The first episode of the two-part My House and Other Animals was on 226,000 at 7.30pm.
The 2020 movie Honour featuring the great Keeley Hawes did 149,000.
Nine: A November State of Origin match was always going to be a risk, but one Nine had to take with what is the biggest TV property of the year. Going up against the Trump v Biden title fight in the USA wasn’t ideal either.
The origin crowd of 1,598,000 was the smallest metro audience since 2003 while the national number of 2,378,000 was the smallest also since that year.
Even the reduced audience size was enough to keep Nine well clear in top spot across the night all people and in key demos. Nine will be hoping for a NSW win in Game 2 otherwise the Game 3 audience might tumble even lower.
10: Origin and election coverage elsewhere was bad news for the channel with The Bachelorette and The Project staying under 500,000.
Origin has hammed the channel’s share in previous years, and it did it again last night with the lowest Wednesday rating this year.
ABC: The channel ranked #2 in primary share and network share last night thanks to its USA election coverage (see chart above for how it dominated that news story).
The channel still found room for three non-election programs which all had smaller than usual audiences – Hard Quiz (596,000), Gruen (601,000) and Reputation Rehab (305,000 after launching on 556,000 a week ago).
SBS: Walking Britain’s Roman Roads had the biggest audience with 177,000.
The premiere of The Royals and the Tabloids did 128,000 and then the season final of The Good Fight was on 69,000.