IT was an easy first decision for Eddie McGuire - stay with the slogging. And it was successful.
Mr McGuire's opening act as Nine's CEO was telling programmer Michael Healy to delay Sunday's National Nine News until Australia's best one-day innings concluded.
His decision, and Andrew Symonds' thumping of Sri Lanka, led to a resumption of normal service on the first day of 2006's official ratings year.
After much huffing and puffing, Nine began on top, led by its News and the cricket, which peaked at 2.307 million viewers nationally.
Seven's Winter Olympic coverage lagged behind in ninth place with 1.191 million, although Seven management insisted this improved upon the Salt Lake City audience in 2002.
Nevertheless, the first night is a fillip for Mr McGuire, who began Monday at Willoughby at 5.30am before meeting staff at Today and the newsroom.
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He spent the rest of his day in meetings and settling into what had been the vacant CEO's office (Sam Chisholm considered it too big for his taste).
Mr McGuire's on-air replacements weren't the highest priority yesterday, with Nine expected to milk speculation about a new Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host for weeks yet.
Nine has one more taped episode in the can and it is believed Mr McGuire will tape a few more to bring the show up to March's Commonwealth Games.
That will buy time and hopefully build hype, even if a number of high-profile candidates, including Bert Newton, Ray Martin and Richard Wilkins, were dismissed yesterday.
An insider suggested The Einstein Factor's Peter Berner might be considered.
Sunday's television ratings*
1. National Nine News (9) 1,862,000
2. One Day Final-2nd session (9) 1,554,000
3. One Day Final-1st session (9) 1,547,000
4.Law and Order SVU (10) 1,395,000
5. Seven News (7) 1,271,000
6. Hot Property (7) 1,221,000
7. Australia's Brainiest Special (10) 1,215,000
8. Law & Order: Criminal Intent (10) 1,200,000
9. Winter Olympic Games: Day 1 (7) 1,191,000
10. Life In The Undergrowth (ABC) 879,000
*(five city metropolitan ratings)
