The night a politician other than ScoMo took over the show

A former prime minister turned up on 7.30 — this one was spruiking a book, not spruiking how many caps he can wear.

Sarah Ferguson speaks to former prime minister John Howard on 7.30 (Image: 7.30/ABC)

A TV highlight last night was the new version of The Masked Singer called The Masked Pollie. After a lot of prodding by Sarah Ferguson, the character playing John Howard in an interview on 7.30 was revealed as, wait for it, John Howard, an author spruiking a book on his views on politics made irrelevant by the latest abuses of convention by Scott Morrison, for whom Howard campaigned strongly in the May election campaign.

7.30 had 793,000 viewers nationally and a top 10 finish. It wasn’t in the national top 10 programs a week ago. The 7pm ABC news added 160,000 viewers last night from a week ago to average 996,000, and 4000 more from Monday night (Seven and Nine’s 6-7pm news went backwards but ACA topped the million-viewer level for a second night in a row).

The Block again topped the million national viewer mark with 1.045 million, The Masked Singer Reveal averaged 749,000, 90,000 more than the performance lead-up with 659,000. Seven’s MKR eased back to 672,000 nationally. Seven followed MKR with two hours and 20 minutes of a remake of The Ipcress File, the iconic ’60s Cold War spy drama that helped turn Michael Caine into a global star. No one bothered to stay with it from MKR and the 140 minutes or so averaged 242,000 — 281,000 viewers for the first ep, 203,000 for the second.