★★★★★ 0/5

2.1m as Hey Hey thumps MasterChef

Hey Hey the Reunion soared to a huge 2.16m viewers last night thrashing Celebrity MasterChef's 1.35m.

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hhmHey Hey the Reunion soared to a huge 2.16m viewers for its two and a half hours last night, thrashing Celebrity MasterChef‘s 1.35m viewers.

The nostalgic show gave Nine a whopping 40.0% share, almost double Seven’s 21.8% and TEN’s 20.8% share.

Preliminary figures, which are not yet adjusted for its extra 30 minute overrun, showed The Apprentice Australia, originally slated for 10pm, showed another 953,000 watching Nine from 10 – 11pm. Half of that was for Hey Hey‘s extra 30 minutes.

Nine’s reunion show blew the opposition out of the water. Other shows to feel the pinch were NCIS: Los Angeles (943,000), World’s Strictest Parents (912,000), Spicks and Specks (842,000), City Homicide (796,000) and Hungry Beast (551,000).

In hindsight, it also left newly launched Nine shows, including The Apprentice Australia, homeMADE and Australia’s Perfect Couple in its wake.

Celebrity MasterChef peaked at 1.92m. Nine indicates Hey Hey peaked at 2.64m viewers.

This post updates.

Week 40

93 Responses

  1. I loved Hey Hey, but i hate Nine. I watched Masterchef and NCIS:LA but flicked to this throughout, and must say it was great having it back. Hadn’t really changed, was like it’s been on always and still as funny as ever. Did not expect those kinds of figures but well done. If Nine bring this back to Saturday nights, i would actually be watching a show on Channel Nine, now excuse me while i throw up.

  3. I didn’t grow up in Australia so the hype surrounding the return of what appeared to be a hastily assembled pantomime, was no doubt lost on me. I watched 2 minutes under duress from my housemate, who after seeing Daryl Somers fumble through a sentence for what seemed like an hour, hastily switched back to Masterchef

    Will be interesting to see if the curiosity factor lasts. Celebrity Masterchef was fantastic last night and I’d be surprised if a good slice of the Hey Hey audience defected next week.

    I would also like to admit that I am obsessed with Matt Preston and would pay good money to watch him eat. He is cravat-a-licious.

  4. Anyone who thought HHIS wouldn’t win the night seriously has no appreciation for the pull a show with such a long history has. What will be interesting to see is if the numbers go up or down next week, but with Ossie back, and Ding Dong, and possibly Jackie, it’s a little obvious and to me seems a little ‘planned’ that Ossie would appear in the 2nd special. But will this be enough for Nine to commission an ongoing series? And if so, will it suddenly become ‘Hey Hey It’s Wednesday’ – because all the ratings prove is that this sort of show could possibly do well on a weeknight, and not necessarily on a Saturday night when a lot of people are out.

  5. Neon kitten

    “Australian TV died a little last night.”

    As a opposed to all the pathetic reality shows and crime shows that plague our channels? Please!!

    This was good old fashioned entertainment, adlibed and genuinely funny. I couldn’t see it being successful being a weekly show but once a month would be great.

  6. I believe that the Australian TV viewing public have voted with their remotes, for this week at least. The fact that nobody predicted these outstanding ratings, in this forum or elsewhere, shows how little people who say they claim to understand this industry, actually know about what the TV Gen Pop likes to watch. Either that, or the demographic that comments on television has little in common with demographic that was the massive majority audience last night. A big congratulations to the entire team behind last nights HHIS, you did what you set out to do and you did it very well.

  8. I think the numbers for Apprentice need to be adjusted immediately. There was a half hour overrun of HeyHey and then a half hour news bulletin for the Samoan Tsunami. Apprentice didn’t start til nearly 11….

  9. Celebrity MasterChef has to be applauded for still picking up 1.35 million viewers up against the biggest one off non sporting event of the year. What will Celebs numbers look like two weeks from now when Hey Hey returned to the vault?

  10. To Neon Kitten:

    Go back and watch your crappy reality TV shows – We didnt ask you to watch Hey Hey, nobody twisted your arm. For once TV was how it was meant to be last night. Instead of the usual crap being aired.

    I am Generation X and cherished the show. You sound like you should be watching Four Corners on ABC.

    Read the ratings and weep – Cheerio

  11. Hey Hey rocks! For the first time in ages I sat with my OH and watched TV. Both of us laughed and laughed. How I’ve missed Hey Hey………truly an Aussie icon in TV land and a show that is so unique.
    We’ve had enough reality shows and CSI type shows………..time for some good old clean humour!
    Your goose was cooked MasterChef!

  12. Well done Hey Hey, I thought it was a surprisingly strong show – it could definitely do with some more segments and less of Daryl chatting about what is coming up all the time – but overall impressive return. Now let’s boot off the awful Funniest Home Videos and put Hey Hey back where it belongs, 6.30 Saturday nights.

  13. @ Neon Kitten: are you saying that 2.1 million people got it wrong? The audience continued to grow throughout the night, the numbers didn’t all happen in the first 30 minutes. You may have thought it was ‘rancid’ but like I said before, the numbers speak for themselves. I would like to see you produce live TV. It can go either way and the Hey Hey team took it in the best possible direction.

    I think Aussie TV had a little life put in to it last night.

  15. Reunion shows always do well, and I’m surprised that Hey Hey didn’t do even better. Ten were able to draw big viewer numbers for Young Talent Time Reunion and Perfect Match Reunion a few years ago, and they didn’t have anywhere near the hype of Hey Hey.
    Worth mentioning that Celebrity Masterchef peaked at 1.92 million, which means there were a lot of people watching television last night. It would have been interesting to how many people recorded Celebrity Masterchef considering Hey Hey would definitely have been the watercooler show today…but we’re still a few months away from getting those figures.
    I don’t think Hey Hey will get anywhere near those figures next week, and Celebrity Masterchef will probably go up to about 1.5 million.

  16. Yey! Go Hey Hey!

    Orignally, I was going to watch Celebrity MasterChef, but when I found out that this was on, I had to watch Hey Hey. I didn’t change the channel once to MC – I even watched the ads during Hey Hey! Best show of the year!

  19. Shame about Hungry Beast – excellent series (far better than re-hashed Hey Hey) and has much potential to go a long way. Denton is a master at creating interesting and topical new series.

    Nostalgia rules the roast at Nine for now, but it would never sustain an audience like this, week in week out. Masterchef did quite well considering, delievering strong demo shares. Clearly the ‘cheesy’ factor is still an attraction for Nine’s audience in 2009.

  20. No surprise, as big a fan of MC as I am, Hey Hey was always going to get my night viewing, Daggy and the gang were fabulous !.

    Molly and Dickie were outstanding, lol.

    But I did just watch MC this morning and it was pretty good too, don’t write it off yet.

  21. Wow that’s alot higher than people expected. Some put it at 1.7million. But it appears to have smashed that. 9 will certainly be looking at this and thinking we really need to work out how to get this happening more often.

  24. The extra 30 minutes was, of course, completely accidental due to it being live.

    Yeah, sure. First person to leak Nine’s internal schedule wins 😉

    I thought Hey Hey would fail miserably – and it was truly awful television – but last night’s mass praise on Twitter and various forums from Gen Y and Gen Meh showed, surprisingly, that this rancid old mare has legs.

    Australian TV died a little last night.

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