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My Kitchen Rules outrates Packed to the Rafters

My Kitchen Rules beats Rafters again, as Seven takes a comfy win on Tuesday. But is there cause for concern?

Last week some media were noting the return of Packed to the Rafters was down some 25% from its previous season launch. With a double episode in play it was down to 1.45m / 1.25m viewers.

Last night with a single episode screening it’s a little easier to gauge its performance.

The show pulled 1.48m viewers, a slight rise from last week, but lower than its lead in of My Kitchen Rules (1.68m). While the figure is still impressive in a multichannel landscape, it is significantly lower than the 1.7m – 1.9m the show was attracting last year.

Whether the drop can be attributed to the natural cycles of episodic television, or a direct impact by Seven interrupting the season and the exit of key characters, isn’t yet clear. If it holds at those kinds of numbers its future isn’t in any mortal danger. How many shows would give their eye teeth for 1.48m viewers?

Seven again won the night with Seven News (1.17m), Today Tonight (1.03m), Home and Away (968,000), Castle (653,000) all winning their timeslots.

If Rafters is any concern for Seven then Top Gear really wasn’t even in the race for Nine.  The return of the show, severely damaged by 2010 programming, was down to 484,000 –lower than the kind of numbers it would attract on SBS. It’s worth noting the show was a two hour special ending at 11:30pm, meaning its numbers would average lower.

Better for Nine were Nine News on (1.01m) followed by ACA (902,000), Two Broke Girls (816,000), The Big Bang Theory (776,000 / 725,000) and Two and a Half Men (706,000 / 671,000).

A new NCIS was also low at 847,000. Elsewhere TEN News was 673,000, The Biggest Loser (656,000), NCIS rpt (540,000) and The Project was 480,000.

ABC News (946,000) was second in its timeslot for ABC1 followed by 7:30 (667,000 oddly coded as “Summer Edition”), Foreign Correspondent (555,000), Kangaroo Mob (430,000). Genius struggled at 220,000 and is failing to match the show it replaced, Qi.

Who Do You Think You Are? (237,000) topped SBS ONE. In their new timeslots Insight was 203,000 and Dateline was 136,000.

Neighbours led multichannels on 277,000. On GEM the cricket was 201,000 and 123,000 in the arvo.

Sunrise (349,000) beat Today (327,000).

Tuesday 21 February 2012

10 Responses

  1. Those PTTR numbers are still great numbers but isn’t it true that the longer a show is on air.. the more expensive it becomes to produce? Plus their tax rebate would be well and truly over by now.

  2. Rafters averaged 1.80 million for eps 1-6 of season 4 and then ave 1.62 for eps 7-15! The second part of S4 was when ratings started sliding as a result of both the interruption and change in direction without Rachel and newer characters.
    Hope that it picks up as the storyline improves hopefully

  3. I believe this will be the final year for Packed To The Rafters….with key actors “taking time off” the show will suffer. Regardless the magic in the show has evaporated….

  4. I know TG would not rate well with 2 hours but 500k must be a concern for Nine, and remember the normal show is about 90 min with ads so not a lot shorter. IMO Nine have once again killed a good show and it’s only a matter of time before TBBT re-run ratings start to suffer the same fate.

    Good on the Rafters for getting better number, seriously I don’t understand the point of a double ep when it’s not a 2 part story. The numbers for Castle seem low for it and the time slot, anyone remember what Parenthood was averaging last year? Maybe most thought it was a re-run as Sunday for the new ep got 831k. Seven please bring back the Braverman family!

  5. I have both this weeks and last weeks Rafters on the PVR, and I’ve seen about 1/2 hour of the first ep so far. I am just finding it a lot less interesting these days, and the mess of the scheduling last year didnt help retain my interest either. If I dont get the chance to catch up by the end of next week, I’ll probably drop this show.

  6. I would have watched (recorded) the second episode last week had I known it was on! It wasn’t until a ticker came up during the first episode saying ‘bonus new episode next’ that I knew it was a double.

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