Australia's Seven Network is continuing to hammer arch-rival Nine as the Australian TV ratings season continues, with US import Commander in Chief getting off to a strong start on Monday night.

Preliminary figures have the pilot episode of the Geena Davis drama pulling in well over 1.7m viewers, second only to Prison Break, also airing on Seven, for a 2006 series premiere.

The Australian version of Dancing with the Stars is also doing well, posting 2.2m viewers in its most recent outing.

With the ratings season now in its third week, Seven was ahead last week with a 31.5% audience share in primetime. Not even a controversial dot-dumping rebrand saved Nine from trailing with a 26.6% share, with Ten on 21.6%. The ABC had a 15.6% primetime share with SBS posting 4.9%.

CSI is proving to be Nine's strongest performer, with House helping Ten into the weekly list of top-ten most watched programmes.