Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard can still attract an audience.

• Gillard: Rudd driven by revenge

Her exclusive Nine Network interview with Ray Martin almost knocked The Block off its perch on Tuesday night. 

Gillard’s interview, in which she admitted crying, making a rookie error and appointing her predecessor Kevin Rudd to the ministry to stop leaks while she was PM, was the second most watched show.

Julia Gillard: The Whole Truth had an audience of 1.192 million viewers and was only beaten by Nine’s reality series The Block Glasshouse which had 1.279 million viewers.

Nine News 6.30pm (1.140 million) was third while the Seven Network’s highest rating show was The X Factor Results which finished fourth with an audience of 1.094 million.

Seven may have lost out to Nine early in the evening but the tide turned later when its drama Winners & Losers trumped Nine’s reality show Big Brother.

Winners & Losers was eighth with 993,000 viewers while the eviction of Gemma on Big Brother was 11th with 717,000 viewers.