Julia sitcom wins its timeslot

More than a million viewers sampled ABC1’s new comedy At Home with Julia last night.

The new comedy pulled 1.06m viewers in its 9:30pm timeslot, more than any show on Channel Nine and TEN all night.

The show was trending on Twitter last night with a mostly favourable response. But Therese Rein called it “pretty rough, frankly” and said nobody’s private life should be subjected to such ridicule. I guess she didn’t empathise with the portrayal of Tim Mathieson, either.

For the second week in a row ABC1’s Wednesday line-up defeated Nine and TEN’s primary channels. The Gruen Transfer was its best performer on 1.16m, with a good retention into the new sitcom. Spicks and Specks pulled 1m viewers, also winning its timeslot.

But it was The X Factor that again topped the night, with 1.52m viewers, more than double The Renovators (631,000),  Ocean Giants (624,000),  7.30 / Poh’s Kitchen (614,000 / 558,000) and Tropic Of Cancer (256,000).

At 8:30pm second place went to Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (893,000), then Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation (754,000), The Mentalist (515,000), and The Hotel (132,000).

The finale for Top Design was 207,000 at 10:30pm. Not a very cost effective way to give away $100,000.

Neighbours topped the multichannels on 323,000.

Seven continues its winning streak. It was a three way battle for second place with TEN pushed to fourth spot in network shares.

Week 37