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.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
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.
38 Responses
Enjoyed last years but i cannot handle Shelley Craft (sorry) & the timeslot isn’t convenient.Go Eastenders!
yeah this show is lame. network nine is lame. Go Network TEN!
Re Ottvheritage comment “Oh no we left the paint in the store!!! ”
If you want to watch a documetary then flick channels. If you want to come home, put your feet up and relax with dinner and watch a bit of good fun TV, not shot under lights with a director, then don’t.
Just watched the Block for the second night. Not very impressed. It has cheap written all over it. Cheaply shot. Cheaply recorded. Cheaply edited. Bad lighting. Badly edited. Badly directed. Oh no…we left the paint in the store!!!! That’s not building the drama. There was No building of drama as the deadline gets close. Watch Masterchief to get an idea how to shoot, edit, direct, and produce. Great use of music. It’s a real shame cause the concept is great. Could be soooo much better.
I enjoyed the first episode and will keep on watching as I have lost interest in Masterchef a bit.
I was really looking forward to this, then i watched and the show was a bit like watching paint to dry. It was boring and dull. I loved the block in the past but it looked dated and old, just like Hey Hey did when it returned. Also half the people i have spoken to have said exactly the same thing. I expect drop off tonight and by weeks end i expect it to drop to 800k. I am really disappointed Nine. Although i can’t say i am surprised.
Tad,
“Most viewers” as you describe them, are white bogans which is the Nine target demographic.
I liked it.
Any idea how much it is costing Nine to produce?
The music budget must be huge as they used five popular songs in the first episode. I thought the editing was very professional too. I counted at least five different cameras: two following the contestants, one on the roof giving an overhead view, and two in the vehicles. The footage was tied together well.
I don’t get why you all want this to fail….. its way better than endless two and a half men and big bang theory !
@ bek – Dare I say that not having a gay couple is somewhat of a good thing. The Block had a gay couple in each of its first two seasons, if they included one every year it would be fairly obvious that they are just doing it to please the “diversity brigade”.
Perhaps it’s just the case that white bogans make up the majority of the people dumb enough to actually want to sign up for shows like these.
3000 applications says the show.
Oi like the Block. It has the kinda people oi wanna wach.
first thing I noticed, was how un-diverse the casting was. The first four couples shown were all blonde!! Not that I have anything against blondes, but it just seemed they were the carbon copy of each other. With the previous series, and what TAR does so well, is have a mix of characters not just contestants.