One million tune in to 'Dancing with Stars' final

Actor Shane Cortese was beaten by former All Black Norm Hewitt in 'Dancing with the Stars'.

Nearly one million people tuned in to watch the Dancing with the Stars final, making it TVNZ's top non-news programme in the last 12 months.

The show, in which ex-All Black Norm Hewitt beat former Shortland Street star Shane Cortese, outrated last year's teeny-bopper phenomenon NZ Idol - but still failed to register in the top 20 highest-rating programmes since 1991.

The AGB Nielsen Media Research list is dominated by rugby games, especially All Blacks clashes against Australia from the days of free-to-air live coverage.

Bledisloe Cup games held 10 of the 20 spaces, including the top four, with audiences of between 1.1 million and 1.31 million.

TV One's news featured six times, all in the early 1990s when TV3's news was still struggling to make serious inroads on TVNZ's 6pm stranglehold.

Only a Mr Bean comedy show managed to breach the ranks of sport and news programme in the top 20. The Curse of Mr Bean, on TV2 on April 28, 1991, was the 11th highest rating show on the list.

A total of 979,600 people tuned in for the final of Dancing with the Stars - leaving it 120,000 short of making the top 20.

But the show has proved a ratings winner for TVNZ, its audience building from 550,000 over its eight-week run.

TVNZ said it would be two weeks before it knew how much the charities Books in Homes and the Starship Foundation received from their 55 per cent share of 99c votes.

But 317,698 votes were cast on finals night alone, meaning they will reap about $173,000.

Whether the hype surrounding the Lions tour - the first in 12 years - will turn into viewing figures that surpass Dancing with the Stars remains to be seen.

But the signs are encouraging - the combined audiences of both Sky Sport's live coverage and TV3's delayed coverage for the Lions v New Zealand Maori game was just over 800,000.

The leading position of early 1990s rugby games in the top 20 list seems unlikely to change for a while because the audience has been fragmented since pay-service Sky TV took over live coverage of games and TV3 took delayed coverage.

An Australia vs Kiwis rugby league match in 2003 and the All Blacks vs South Africa Rugby World Cup game in 2003 were also in the top 20 programmes.

The 2000 boxing match between David Tua and Lennox Lewis was 5th on the list.