The Bachelor Australia’s best ratings night was its last for the year, with 1.186 million people watching Tim Robards choose criminal lawyer Anna Heinrich.

Robards’ public declaration of love topped the ratings last night beating off Seven and Nine’s offerings.

The first half of The Bachelor, it started at 7.30pm, pulled in 1.016 million people according to OzTam’s preliminary metro ratings.

It beat off Nine’s RBT (747,000), Seven’s Cosentino: The Magic the Mystery the Madness (850,000) and held down Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (681,000).

It’s a strong end for the program which debuted with less than a million viewers.

The show, which Ten has confirmed will be back for a second season in 2014, helped Ten take a total 22% share of all free-to-air viewers with 15.1% for its main channel.

Meanwhile, Ja’mie: Private School Girl has not recovered. After debuting to just under one million viewers it failed to break the 700,000 mark last night with just 644,000 fans tuning in.

Seven won the night with an overall share of 27.8% with 19.8% for its primary channel.

Nine came second on a total 25.6% with 18.1% for its main channel.

ABC sat on a combined 18.6% and 12.5% went to ABC1 while SBS won a total 5.9% with the majority (5.2%) of that for SBS One.