The spicks and the specks of the rest of the viewers

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

Did Australians watch anything other than the Olympics last week? Answer: yes, and the ABC reaped the benefits of offering an alternative to nationalism. Its most popular shows barely suffered a dent in audience -- ABC Sunday news and Spicks and Specks drew 1.1 million, Dr Who drew 1 million and a repeat of Agatha Christie's Poirot drew 994,000 on Friday before the great writer herself met Dr Who himself on Sunday night.

Channel Nine's entries in the top 30 for the week were 60 Minutes , the Sunday news, and the weekday news (for the full chart, go here). Ten's best affort was a repeat of NCIS. Picking up Seven's leftovers, SBS scored with the women's cycling road race (725,000) and Men's Archery (399,000). And it was business as usual for Pay TV, with 224,000 for NRL Titans v Knights (Fox Sports 2), 208,000 for NRL Wariors v. Sharks (Fox Sports 2), 191,000 for Project Runway Australia (Arena) and 165,000 for American Dad! (Fox 8).

Seven estimates that 16.1 million Australians have watched some part of the Olympic coverage. More than two million in the mainland capitals watched the games every night and Seven averaged 43.9 per cent of the prime time audience for the week (Nine 18.5, Ten 16.6, ABC 14.5, SBS 6.6). The most watched night was Wednesday, when a peak of 4 million in the capitals saw Stephanie Rice collect her second gold medal.

What Australia watched, week ending August 16
1 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D5 PRIMETIME Network 7 2,131,000
2 SEVEN NEWS Network 7 2,128,000
3 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D4 PRIMETIME Network 7 2,112,000
4 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D2 PRIMETIME Network 7 2,093,000
5 SEVEN NEWS - SUN Network 7 2,091,000
6 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D3 PRIMETIME Network 7 2,015,000
7 TODAY TONIGHT Network 7 1,973,000
8 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D6 PRIMETIME Network 7 1,969,000
9 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D8 PRIMETIME Network 7 1,935,000
10 SEVEN NEWS - SAT Network 7 1,925,000
11 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D7 PRIMETIME Network 7 1,912,000
12 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D2 AFTERNOON Network 7 1,821,000
13 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D4 FRINGE Network 7 1,708,000
14 BEIJING OLYMPICS: D3 FRINGE Network 7 1,699,000
15 60 MINUTES Network 9 1,465,000