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MKR simulcast serves first course for Seven

Ratings: Simulcasts are the new black for launching new seasons, as MKR airs over two channels with a good result.

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2015-02-03_0956Simulcasts are the new black for launching new seasons it seems, with Seven’s simulcast of My Kitchen Rules across two channels last night pulling a big crowd of  1.6m viewers.

The biggest audience was in Sydney at 484,000 viewers followed by Melbourne at 429,000.

Seven’s massive promotion campaign over summer has certainly returned the goods on its first outing. But it does make direct comparisons something of an unfair fight.

Last night saw three Reality shows going head to head, with The Block at 802,000 and I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! dropping to 755,000 in its second outing.

The news was not ideal for either but it’s still early days for everybody: The Block is not even at its final cast and Celebrity is still in sampling stage with the audience getting to know the format. No need for panic stations or dramatic headlines anywhere just yet.

Simulcast strategies in order to elicit positive media for new seasons have been employed by all three commercial networks in the last twelve months, first with TEN’s Family Feud, followed by Nine’s The Block and now Seven’s My Kitchen Rules. MKR returns to a single channel from tonight.

Full ratings wraps resume next week.

25 Responses

  1. I genuinely dont get the appeal. I tried to get into MKR but as a few others have said, it’s exactly the same script year on year. Plus the nastiness is completely orchastrated
    Totally baffled with the numbers

  2. Julia and Chris are hilarious. I laughed from start to finish. The celebrities are c grade but who cares, the show is funny and puts a smile on your face. Chrissie swan is a star!

  3. Predicting The Block to stay around the 800k mark, for interest in I’m A Celeb to increase and for MKR to fall once people get sick of the same old tiresome format. Bring on Masterchef which is actually about cooking and not people playing the villian.

  5. Give it a week or so MKR will drop! Never was a fan, Might be another bad year for producers- there’s better tv to watch am enjoying I’m a Celeb!

  6. Why watch MKR, it feels like a rerun? I’m sure they’re using the scripts form previous series, just changing the names. Celebrity is fresh, fun and has started well. Julia and Dr Chris are terrific together.

  7. Hang on a minute. We don’t know what MKR rated on 7TWO, people are just assuming that it gave MKR a big advantage, when perhaps only very few people would have watched it on 7TWO.

  8. I didn’t know Barry Hall was in ‘I’m not a celeb…’ They could have Matt Maguire or Brent Staker (or any of dozen’s of AFL players) as intruders and give them an opportunity for payback.

  12. Interesting to see what happens when MKR drops back to one channel.

    While the numbers for Celeb are decent, it is absolutely smashing Twitter. Even today, it is the only trending topic in Australia (of the three reality franchises)

  13. Barrie T – its only day 2 and of course the ‘celebs’ are gonna be nice to each other.

    Like Big Brother and Survivor – contestants are always ‘nice’ in the first few days until they start playing the ‘game’.

    Once one of the ‘celebs’ fails a challenge and they don’t have anything to eat – watch the sparks fly.

    And there are rumours there are gonna be celebrity ‘intruders’ during the next 6 weeks so wouldn’t surprise me if Greg Brady makes an appearance or an AFL rival ticks off Barry Hall etc etc.

    Am surprised I am enjoying this show. I honestly thought I wouldn’t and it would be huge ratings disaster.

  14. Combining the ratings is fine. It is just the total number of people who watched the show.

    And the ratings are just the averaged sum of the per minute figures. A lot of them represent people flicking over for a bit or not paying much attention to the TV anyway.

  15. I personally don’t understand the issues with showing combined multichannel numbers – if 1.6million watched MKR, then that’s that, irrespective of which channel it was on.

    I also personally think that simulcasting is a complete waste of bandwidth, and patronising to viewers. But once a broadcaster has made that decision, it seems perfectly sensible to combine the numbers.

  16. Good point Brekkie. It would seem sensible for Seven to simulcast the Aus Open final at least on the digi in HD and Nine to do the same with State Of Origin or GF on GEM… Is it a cost thing?

    Wonder if Nine will simulcast either House Of Hancock or Gallipoli on Gem given both would be produced in HD…

  17. Totally agree, if only the networks had the same attitude towards sport. Sport is the one genre where HD quality matters. The fast moving action of most sports is more difficult to watch in standard definition. The cricket wasn’t too bad this summer in SD but NRL last season was atrocious quality. I have foxtel so am happy to pay for decent vision. When the networks have exclusive rights what is a fan to do? It stinks.

  18. Ummm – if MKR was screened over two separate channels then the ratings should reflect this.

    Combining the two to add up to 1.6m is grossly unfair.

    They should display the ratings on the digital channel separately.

    More sneaky tricks to make them look better than they actually are.

    Who do they think they are? Politicians???

  20. It would be nice if Seven showed break out numbers for Mate. MKR certainly crushed it last night. IMO, tonight is the first fair comparison between the three, theyre all on one channel each and theyve all had their launch episode. Its a fairer fight now.

  22. I think it will be a lot tighter tonight with MKR just on the one channel, and I’m A Celeb having Maureen & Merv doing the Bush Tucker Trial.

    Despite it all being reality content, it’s good to have a variety of formats for audiences to enjoy.

  23. Seems they’ll simulcast reality shows and game shows but won’t simulcast sport in HD, which according to the NFL themselves made Channel 7 the only network in the world not showing the Superbowl in HD.

  24. I started to watch MKR for around 10 mins but seemed all to familar. Same things, different people and heaps of bitch. I changed it back to I’m a celeb. At least this is new territory and has some interesting characters. I feel for Ten as they dont have the big lead in Seven or Nine have for their prime time shows.I think they have milked The Block to death.

  25. Simulcasting has also been done for launches on SBS (First Contact, SBS One and NITV) and ABC (Nowhere Boys, ABCTV, ABC3, iView).

    I don’t think Ten will be too disappointed with the Celebrity numbers, only a few behind the block, and much better than TBL last year.

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