It was budget night and ABC’s broadcast of the Treasurer’s Speech was number one at 7.30pm with a huge 1.294m. That was well up last year’s 772k.
The 7.30 Budget Special that followed at 8pm had 1.71m followed by the Insiders: Budget Night Special with 779k. That compares to 2025 that had 665k and 496k respectively.
On the commercial networks, Nine ran a Budget news special just after 8.30pm that had 347k. Seven News’ special was after 9pm had 324k tuning in. Later, 10’s Late News ran as usual with focus on the budget and had 190k.
Earlier, the commercials took a hit at 7.30pm with The Hundred With Andy Lee down 50k to 614k while MasterChef was down 100k to 607k for its first service challenge of the season. The renos continued on Seven with episode five of My Reno Rules down 170k to just under 500k. SBS, however, did well at 7.30 with Who Do You Think You Are? on just under 300k, up 50k on last year’s opening episode.
Later, The Cheap Seats, stood out at 8:40pm for those not wanting budget coverage and had 461k.
On a big day for news, Seven’s 6pm bulletin did well again with 1.479m. Nine’s bulletin 180k behind on 1.299m. Earlier, Tipping Point stayed just 40k ahead of The Chase that continued to reduce the winning margin.
By 7pm ABC News had 1.001m to be ahead of A Current Affair (969k) and Home and Away (950k). Millionaire Hot Seat managed 326k.
Sunrise had 466k at breakfast as Today slumped to just 278k for its lowest rating since January, 36k ahead of News Breakfast.