Viewers turn off slow night's viewing AUSTRALIANS must have turned to their personal video recorders last night as overnight audiences were low across the board, with only two news bulletins cracking the million-viewers mark. The top entertainment program after the 7pm double of Home and Away on Seven (838,000) and Big Brother on Nine (732,000) was US sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which drew just 636,000 viewers. Seven won the news battle 1.075 million to Nine News's 1.060 million, with the ABC's flagship bulletin not far behind (927,000), but Nine turned it around at 6.30 as A Current Affair (899,000) fended off Today Tonight (882,000). After three hit shows earlier this week, Seven ran so dead it scheduled the movie Pretty Woman (580,000) on its main channel. Despite that, it took the night on points with a 20.9 per cent channel share, just ahead of Nine's 20.2 per cent. On a network basis, including the multichannels, Seven won with 29.2 per cent to Nine's 27.7 per cent. The ABC was third overall on a channel share basis with 12.6 per cent, thanks partly to its comedies Upper Middle Bogan (602,000) and Clarke and Dawe (572,000), and a network share of 18.7 per cent. Ten's top program was Law and Order: SVU (634,000); it had a channel share of 12.1 per cent and a network share of 17.2 per cent. SBS's food and sex line-up, including Heston's Fantastical Food, pushed it to a main channel share of 6.0 per cent and a network share of 7.2 per cent.