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Strong start to The Block helps Nine win Monday

The first episode of The Block performed well, pulling 1.34m viewers and helping Nine to win the night over Seven and TEN.

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Finally some good news for Channel Nine.

The first episode of The Block performed well, pulling 1.34m viewers across its 7-8pm timeslot last night. That’s up on the 1.04m that The Big Bang Theory attracted last Monday (a public holiday) and well up on what it usually averages at around 900,000 or less.

In its new home city of Melbourne the show pulled out a huge 523,000 viewers ahead of Sydney (365,000) and Brisbane (228,000). The show peaked at 1.72m and was also stronger in its second half hour than its first.

Because it stretched for an hour, head to head battles are difficult to assess, but at 7pm Home And Away (1.16m), ABC News (988,000), and The 7PM Project (724,000) all trailed.

MasterChef (1.68m) won its slot at 7:30pm ahead of The Block and new Big Bang Theory (1.31m), No Ordinary Family (766,000), 7:30 / Australian Story (755,000 / 791,000) and Mythbusters (320,000).

The Amazing Race Australia (1.21m) won at 8:30pm over Come Fly With Me (1.03m), Offspring (995,000),
Four Corners / Media Watch (629,000 / 615,000) and Man Vs Wild (217,000).

The first of two Rescue Special Ops episodes was 684,000.

The one hour premiere of The Block even helped Nine to win Monday night, which is timed nicely when there is so much riding on the new show.

From tonight it settles into its half hour slot (Thursday is another hour) and it is not until the end of the week when the final 4 contestants get their first glimpse of the 4 houses they will renovate. In that sense, the more familiar format viewers will recognise gets underway.

Week 26.

38 Responses

  3. Even with air crash invertagations and no ordany family on either end of tar aust , tar still goes good inthe ratings . Seven should renew it.

  4. Missed it last night as it’s up against master chef where I am at the moment. As someone who used to live near Richmond the idea of a bunch of white guys doing up a house seems pretty foreign. Channel nine casting seems to rarely reflect reality. I can’t think of a single asian face I’ve ever seen on channel nine. Happy to be corrected if anyone can think of one.

  5. There is definitely a lack of diversity in the Block but I’m not even talking about ethnic, cultural or sexual diversity. I’m talking about people that dress differently, that think differently, that live differently. But you look at the casting, and it is pretty much the same couple repeated six times, from different states. It is very cookie cutter. Having said that it probably isn’t fair to judge on initial appearances.

  6. Don’t worry about the contestants, the actual whole concept is boring. Who wants to watch a group of people renovating houses? I have no interest whatsoever, it’s like watching the paint dry.

  7. Problem with first week is no time to get to know the contestants and too hard to tell them all apart with so many of the female contestants in particular looking too similar.

    It rated well due to novelty factor and people looking for something different and thankfully the heavy burden of product placement in past series is not so noticeable now – more subtle. The show also killed it in demos it appears – which is all Nine will care about – even if the overall figures settle to near 1 million.

    Anyone who watched the second series in particular in 2004 would recall how severe the product placements were – especially that laser leveller (was it Black & Decker? I forget!)!

  8. I wasn’t happy about the lack of diversity either.
    surely @adam – average australians are not all white and hetero and young. I don’t think we need to be contrived about it – but I cannot believe there wasn’t One indigenous, european, middle eastern, or asian person suitable.
    I love the block – but it’s really important to represent the community & we’re not all straight, white, and young.

  9. I find all the comments about Nine’s casting quite funny. It looks like it’s only a small vocal group that care about the ‘bland’ casting. Most viewers don’t see to be concerned.

  14. Early days for this. Ch9s whole year depends on it. I may watch when they get rid of the first few crappy episodes and get to the derelict ratholes that they must improve. Too soon to make a judgement call, but 9 must be encouraged by this.

  15. Cameron, you are ragging on viewers not watching ‘quality’ shows, yet find dreck like The Block and Brothers and Sisters entertaining? Get off your high horse.

  22. Well done channel 9! At least we finally see a network with decent proggrammming win the night. Without Brothers and Sisters, Seven was dull and boring and not worthy of winning. No Ordinary Family now technically 4th in its timeslot.

    Rescue not doing well but from 9:30pm onwards it won. The 2nd ep statred after 10pm and doing around 650k is good for finising just after 11pm. It also held its audience out of the 1st ep. Rescue is a great show, so is Offspring and its a shame more people are not watching 2 great Aussie dramas. If they were on 7, they would likey be doing double *sigh*.

    The Block comes to Nine’s aid and delivers. Lets hope it does every day. If so Nine could easily win Thursday and Friday and much more likely to win SOO 3 week. Sunday and Tuesdays are still in trouble moreso the latter.

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