Wild Boys and Underbelly: Razor win it for drama
Sunday night proved to be a vote of confidence in Aussie drama with two period tales pulling good audiences.
- Published by David Knox
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The premiere of Seven’s Wild Boys has topped Nine’s Underbelly: Razor in the Sunday night ratings war.
Seven’s new bushranger drama pulled 1.67m viewers over Nine’s period crime on 1.55m viewers.
But the result is none too surprising given Seven’s show aired an hour earlier when there would have been a bigger viewing audience. In reality, both of them should be deemed a vote of confidence in Australian drama.
Wild Boys’ biggest audience was in Melbourne with 552,000 viewers ahead of Sydney’s 425,000. It bettered 60 Minutes (1.11m), Grand Designs (833,000), Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation (791,000), and Ned’s Head, which despite the news hype, only pulled 143,000 for SBS.
Underbelly: Razor remains more popular in Sydney with 527,000 viewers over Melbourne’s 465,000 and now beginning to settle after its extraordinary launch. It defeated Bones (1.21m), Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian (433,000), The September Issue (406,000) and Dateline (177,000).
At 6:30pm Sunday Night (1.47m) won ahead of RBT (871,000), ABC News (723,000), The Renovators (517,000).
A Castle finale won at 9:30pm with 981,000.
7mate’s new episode of Family Guy (194,000) topped the multichannels.
Seven and Nine battled for the top place leaving TEN in their wake, with Seven emerging victorious.
35 Responses
The opening scene showing bushrangers sleeping in the open on a floodway was enough for me. Anybody knows that you do not camp there. They were way too clean. I suppose Al Swearingen spoiled all this lightweight stuff.
Amazingly if Wild Boys had been shown on TEN it would have struggled to reach 600,000 – and is Rush was on Seven it would be a consistent 1.2-1.4mil every week
This says less about the quality of the drama and more about people’s ability to actually find and watch other channels on their TV
I would watch WB if it was like Mud on The Late Show with the Ministry of Silly Hats! 7 have always produced fluff in tv drama for tv rating purposes, at Hung to the Rafters, W&L etc.
Underbelly razor is rather painful, and predictable! I reckon 9 are now scraping the barrel by sending a work experience student to do some research at the local library to keep this franchise going alive for future storylines! Since when were Gang Gajang songs played in the 1920 dance halls?
the Hangover movie was the only highlight on the box last night!
I thought the ‘look’ of WB was fabulous but the narrative, dialogue and some of the acting was woeful and a real turn-off. I don’t think I will be tuning in again, despite my philosophy of giving new shows a decent go before passing (harsh) judgement. I have been recording Razor but am yet to actually watch any of it.
Great news for local drama – more they can grow and get the jobs that go with it
Does anyone know if any encore screenings have been announced for Wildboys on 7, 7two or 7mate this week?
Wild Boys…
What a shame the ABC didn’t do it, at least it would then be watchable, instead of the soft rubbish it is…
It will be interesting to see how WB rates next week. I felt like I was watching a C drama, rather than family – it would have worked as an episode of My Place! Just too cliched and very soft.
Oh and yes I do understand the current series of Underbelly was not filmed in Victoria also.. but still…
The best thing about Wild Boys was that for once we have a drama that’s not filmed in Victoria.. it’s ends there
The characters have all been done to death. From the good guy doing bad things whilst trying to snag the hot single mother, the average looking womanizer larrikin and of course the evil character who will make everyone’s life a misery to get the young pretty thing he desires. Seen it all before.
In saying that I’m sure the numbers will settle to around 1.3 million which is still good but I can see it being moved from Sundays if it comes back for season 2.