0/5

Blind Date debut, Wanted return both under 500,000 mark.

Ratings: Monday belongs to The Block & Have You Been Paying Attention? Nine wins the night.

Many viewers were wondering why Blind Date went so strong on the tawdry jokes last night, noting that a 7:30 show chose to have seniors joking about erections, others demonstrating twerking and references to farting, fannys and camel toes. Yikes.

But the biggest concern was that the contestants felt too scripted and over-egging it all, possibly after coaching from Game of Games. In the end the show debuted to 487,000, fourth in its slot. With episodes already in the can, is it even possible to address those points? Over to you, Gogglebox

The Block won its slot at 1.00m and the demos followed by ABC and Seven shows including 7:30 and Emergency Call.

TEN had better luck winning its slot with Have You Been Paying Attention?  on 769,000. The return of Wanted was next at 455,000 / 396,000 not quite matching Doctor Doctor‘s audience vacated last week. Four Corners and Piers Morgan followed with Nine dropping from 1st to 4th in its slot.

Seven News won its slot as did ACA and The Chase.

Nine network won Monday with 28.5% then Seven 26.5%, TEN 20.0%, ABC 17.9% and SBS 7.1%.

The Block was best for Nine at 1.00m then Nine News (965,000 / 956,000), A Current Affair (815,000), Hot Seat (472,00 / 287,00), and Serial Killer with Piers Morgan (388,000). Madness in the Fast Lane drew 96,000 in 2 cities and The Trade Table was 93,000 in 3 cities.

Seven News was #1 for Seven with 1.05m / 1.01m then Home and Away (670,000), Emergency Call (579,000), The Chase (574,000 / 344,000), Border Security (513,000) and Wanted (455,000 / 396,00).

Have You Been Paying Attention? won for TEN at 769,000 then The Project (564,000 / 320,000), Blind Date (487,000), TEN Eyewitness News (368,000), The Graham Norton Show (273,00), Pointless (216,000). In a new Monday slot of 10:45pm Sports Tonight drew 64,000.

ABC News (705,000), 7:30 (672,000), Australian Story (666,000), Four Corners (414,000), Media Watch (384,000), Q&A (329,000) and Doctor Who (319,000) comprised ABC’s night.

On SBS it was Britain’s Most Historic Towns (257,000), How to Lose Weight Well (200,000), SBS World News (158,000), 24 Hours in Emergency (166,000) and Rick Stein’s Taste of Shanghai (85,000).

9GO!’s Big Bang topped multichannels with 204,000.

Sunrise: 286,000
Today: 247,000
News Breakfast: 118,000 / 46,000

OzTAM Overnights: Monday 15 October 2018.

28 Responses

  1. Its like someone saw the original and best ‘If You are the One’ and then decided to remove all the things that worked – such as fresh and ad-libbing contestants, a great personable host, two insightful judges/agony aunt and uncle and some gentle humour and wildly unpredictable diversions into talented and untalented karaoke moments to deeper discussions on the meaning of life and other discussions about current social issues.

    They have no idea what they are doing with Blind Date – its awkward, lazy, badly scripted, cringeworthy (but not in an entertaining way), boring, extremely un-funny and is a lame version of something that can work well with different execution.

    Despite its obvious challenges with being subtitled, edited, brutal and non-PC I find that the original Chinese ‘If You are the One’ is still wildly more entertaining and a million times more funny, unpredictable…

  2. Blind Date was not great was it. Well it was pretty bad. Compare it to a show like First Dates which is genuinely funny and most of all doesn’t feel rehearsed in the slightest. I think even Date Night (dating gogglebox style show on 9) was more entertaining than Blind Date.

  3. The concept and appeal of the show is definitely there but Channel Ten and it’s Programming Chief have got no idea about production. The end result was a cheaply made, hotch potch production, resented by an overused “comedienne”.
    CBS needs to get involved and get some leadership going here, or they can hire a voice coach to fix the show.

  4. Ten must have thought scripting the contestants on Blind Date would match the scripting on HYBPA. While the rest of the world is going through a ‘Golden Age’ of TV we get Blind Date, Game of Games & lookalike paramedic programs on all 3 channels. Where is the investing in top quality Australian drama? I was hoping that CBS might have changed that for Ten but they seem to be going bargain basement.

    1. This is a perfect point you mention and one that has be baffled as well… that is, why is the rest of the world seeming to be going through a golden age of tv… and we are left with the shows you mentioned, among others…
      It’s a point of thought of consistently.

      1. Mostly US pay TV stuff including UK/Euro co-productions-the market here is too small for high end niche productions and there have been some very dodgy shows like the current ‘Pine Gap’ that suit neither market as a top flight production.

    2. I wonder if the channels feel burned by trying Australian dramas? Let’s be honest, competition shows rate better now (and that is the only criteria that is of importance to the stations). I believe drama is more expensive to produce than many competition shows, and those with ideas have to be able to sell the vision to a backer.

      But the viewer environment is so difficult now. Dramas are not allowed to build gradually to an amazing climax, they have to wow the audience within ten minutes of the first episode. People who live mainly on Netflix etc, don’t even hear any promotion – I was amazed by how out-of-touch my relatives were with FTA shows because they just turned on Netflix automatically every night.

      Thank goodness for ABC/SBS who are not tied so tightly to commercial interests that they can take the time to build dramas. I just wish that they would relax a little and allow…

    3. Because free to air tv in Australia is well into its sunset phase. It’s going out with a whimper, not a bang.

      Besides, I would argue that there are more than a few ‘green shoots’ pointing to a home-grown golden age of tv drama in evidence on Foxtel and Stan.

      If Netflix can be compelled to deliver a quota of Aussie content (as they should) you would definitely see the high-quality drama you yearn for.

  5. I found Emergency Call boring, sat through an entire episode and you never got a final outcome for the calls.
    What’s the point of the show?
    Waste of time won’t be watching again.

    1. So cheap it looked as if Nine bought it from Community TV. At least CTV uses a tripod. Yes, what were the outcomes. Like borrowing a novel to find the last pages have been ripped out.

  6. Well I enjoyed Blind Date. Yes, some responses were a little rehearsed but apart from that it was quite fun and Julia seemed perfectly suited. I find it a whole lot more watchable than Game of Games.

  7. The 1980’s version of Bind Date was so much better and way more funnier than the 2018 version in all facets from compere to contestants and everything in between

  8. The way Channel Seven treats its Australian dramas has become disgraceful. Did they really expect Wanted to succeed after rushing it to air with virtually no promotion? And then airing double episodes, which they know viewers find it hard to sit through. 800 Words also got hardly any promotion, on the network or off it in out of home advertising channels. Then dumped in a 9.30 timeslot for its final episode.

    1. Contrasted with competition shows which are flogged for six months before there is even an air date, giving the viewers promo-fatigue.

      I don’t understand either.

    2. Agreed, Seven appears to have raised a white flag when it comes to Aussie drama. The way they programmed and promoted (or failed to promote) Wanted 3 makes you wonder why they bothered making it in the first place.

  9. Blind Date was nauseating. Starting with the tacky set which would have looked right at home if Alan Carr brought back Chatty Man. I have no idea why TEN are obsessed with Julia Morris, pulling faces and intentionally mispronouncing words is her whole act, and she’s simply not funny – and that outfit was horrendous. The audience laughed and cheered like idiots even when nothing funny was said. The contestants were complete bogans, and not the entertaining kind either. The editing was so jumpy, it’s like they never held a rehearsal prior to filming an episode and just continued to say to themselves, “lets remove that in the edit”. I had to give up by the second round of contestants, there was not a care left about what happened next.

    1. Well I am really happy new shows are being trialled, even if I don’t like them they are trying, I fear however with CBS taking over channel 10 we will get more and more Americanised tv, which simply doesn’t work in Australia I am afraid.

    2. Yep, Blind Date was absolutely cringeworthy.
      Contestants with zero charisma, awkwardly stumbling over obviously scripted cheesy one-liners. And they don’t even get a budget holiday to the Gold Coast or Great Keppel thrown in.
      Bring back Perfect Match, Mondays to Fridays at 5.30 pm. That was actually entertaining !
      I actually like Julia but she was struggling here and it was clear by the grimace on her face she was quickly realising she’d made a terrible mistake signing up to this one.

      1. Cilla Black hosted the UK version with the right amount of humour and seriousness whilst making it a fun family show. Julia thinks she is supposed to fill dead airtime with adlibbing. Not so.

  10. This casting “contestants” from the same agency or whatever as where we got the “contestants” for You’re Back in the Room is so inauthentic – it’s dull at best

    I think I’ll tap out on Game of Games, it’s just too much, I tried Blind Date but went back to The Block (also guilty of casting “quirky/zany” contestants but not to this try hard level we are seeing lately on Tens shows

  11. Blind Date was just a carbon copy of the UK version where it’s blatantly clear that the questions have been given to the contestants in advance and they have had time (and possibly assistance from writers) to craft clever, witty answers that are heavy innuendo.
    While it’s all very entertaining, it’s completely scripted and lacks authenticity.

    1. It needed tighter editing, some of it went on forever especially the bench pressing and much of Julia’s physical humour. And how is it fair on 3 girls to cast a jerk that none of them would ever date?

  12. Agree with David’s sentiments that the contestants on Blind Date were overprepared. It felt like they were reading answers written by someone else. That said, I liked the vibe of it, I liked that it did have diversity with ages (and genders to come) and Julia always lights up the screen. Overall, my household enjoyed it with a glass of wine and a few laughs!!

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