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Lego Masters off and running, thumping House Rules, Bachelor in Paradise.

Ratings: Lego Masters launches to a whopping 1.37m viewers. MKR wraps with its lowest-ever finale but Seven clinches network share.

Lego Masters has hit the ground running for Nine launching to a whopping 1.38m viewers and topping Sunday night viewing.

That’s officially higher than Married at First Sight‘s season debut this year which was 1 million in the same 5 city overnights. That makes it the highest new program launch of 2019 to date.

The show easily beat the return of House Rules which was 762,000, up on last year’s 607,000. Lego Masters topped all the demos and even won in Seven’s diehard city of Perth.

My Kitchen Rules endured its lowest-ever finale on 873,000, rising to 946,000 for the win by Matt & Luke. By comparison last year it wrapped on 1.37m / 154m.

But while Nine led in primary share Seven clinched network share at 32.5% then Nine 31.2%, ABC 16.3%, 10 13.3% and SBS 6.6%.

Elsewhere Seven News won its slot at 1.17m viewers. Gordon, Gino & Fred: The Ultimate Roadtrip was just 260,000 viewers.

Nine News drew 962,000 for Nine then 60 Minutes (556,000) and Surviving R. Kelly (192,000).

Vera led for ABC at 671,000 followed by ABC News (607,000), Will Australia Ever Have a Black Prime Minister? (348,000), and a repeat of Ask the Doctor (161,000).

Bachelor in Paradise was best for 10 at 427,000 then The Sunday Project (316,000 / 222,000), 10 News First (243,000), Hughesy We Have a Problem (231,000) and Bondi Rescue (155,000).

On SBS it was David Baddiel on the Silk Road (210,000), Secrets of the Chocolate Factory (180,000), SBS World News (166,000). Lord Lucan: My Husband The Truth drew 105,000.

7mate’s movie The Avengers topped multichannels at 187,000.

OzTAM Overnights: Sunday 28 April 2019.

43 Responses

  1. LM was ok, i didn’t get enough ‘fun’ factor from it though so far, seems like its all being taken too seriously. And before it even started i said i wouldn’t be up for watching 3 shows a week, first show has not changed my mind. So i guess i will be doing what i usually do at 7.30, catch up on emails & social media or make a late dinner, with a bit of reality tv in the background, this time switching between LM & MC.

  2. Don’t remember a new show in recent memory that has had such widespread praise on TV before than Lego Masters has. I enjoyed it, especially Hamish’s send up of the reality TV format. However, the networks can’t resist stretching things out can they….60 Minutes would be perfect. Started to lose interest when they had that second challenge to “attack their buildings”. Great to see a new show debut well – 9 doing 7’s market research for them. When will the copycats strike again?

  3. Good to see a new show. For reno shows The Block is king, it feels like Seven stretches out House Rules too much. I couldn’t miss an episode of The Block unlike House Rules. I also didn’t watch every episode of My Kitchen Rules, it feels like some of it is manufactured. According to reports it is. That’s the good thing about The Block, it doesn’t feel manufactured as there’s no need. Drama naturally occurs due to the stress and tiredness! As for cooking shows, Masterchef probably won’t grab many of the My Kitchen Rules viewers as it’s too soon after. Channel Ten also have the tendency to milk popular shows to the point of excess, towards the end of this run it will probably be too much for many people.

    1. I forgot about the judging. That’s typically most the show. It’s too much to have a while show dedicated to the judges judging, and another whole show the following night dedicated to the house owners. The second show is largely repeating the judges show. They should combine the two shows and focus more on the actual renovation.

      If there’s two judging shows again this year I’ll watch something else Monday night.

      1. In the early days it was one episode, but 7 decided to stretch it out, hence I switched off! Plus the format was tweaked too much with too many judges and while the current 3 are good, others were bland!

  4. I hardly watch 9 but given I hate the Bachelor & House Rules I gave Lego Masters a go last night and enjoyed. Have 9 borrowed this concept off someone else or is it an original?

  5. Great to see something that isn’t cooking, dating or reno. Loved it. Bravo to Nine for again taking a chance on something new, like they did with Ninja Warrior.

  6. Watched House Rules…found it difficult to keep concentration….
    I actually watched MKR …well it was on…but more interesting than the previous offering…never watched before…
    Also watched Gordon, Gino & Fred: The Ultimate Roadtrip…It was fun… 🙂

    1. Clearly after my comments about House Rules bogan contestants Seven has cast 6 teams of mostly white, ridiculously good-looking, latte-sipping millenials starting with a Block style challenge warehouse.

      I’m only half joking.

  7. Time for SBS to dust off the shelves and find some old content to put on, there’s A Lego Brickumentary and James May’s Lifesize Lego House to name but two, maybe try and get Lego House: Home of the Brick off NetFlix as well.

  8. Am very worried about MC – Lego is quite shiny and new compared to MasterChef which is now 11 years old – plus the overly long MKR will have blunted viewers appetite – can’t see MC doing great numbers tonight – maybe 700k

    1. Last year MasterChef launched on 890,000, it had The Voice then that got 949,000 and House Rules on 607,000, so the 700,000 mark may be about right if Lego Masters holds it’s audience.

    2. i wouldn’t worry too much, people often flock to watch a new show, doesn’t mean its going to get consistent good ratings from there on. Not saying Lego Masters will rate badly but i feel Masterchef has an already existing huge & dedicated fan base…

  9. Absolutely loved Lego Masters and Hamish’s send up of reality shows but he kind of started over doing it with all the clock comments. As someone who was huge into Lego in the 1980’s only annoying thing for me is all the new fangled pieces we didn’t have in the 80’s that they have now – you can do so much more with them, not to mention all the extra colours.

    A great idea for a Lego challenge would be to do a build using only pieces available prior to 1988 say – limited colours, limited shapes, etc – would be very interesting to see the creativity that comes out of that!

  10. We started to watch Lego Masters on 9Now this morning … the 1st few mins was more than enough. So skipped to the last 10 mins to see the result.

    Doubt we’ll watch anymore. All it did was reinforce our loathing of reality TV, just the same old, same old.

    1. Oh Bazza. In other words you did not watch the show. Tbe first few minutes and last 10 minutes wre just the top and tail of a very good competition.

      It is not “reality” television at all. Just a lego building contest in fancy clothes.

      It was awesometacular.

    2. “All it did was reinforce our loathing of reality TV, just the same old, same old” – Sounds like you missed all Hamish’s brilliant self-referential humour lambasting reality TV. It was fantastic. Funnier than I thought it’d be.

      1. Agreed he was great. You have to give a show more than a few minutes before you switch off. Im not even really into lego myself but it was really cool watching what they built! Hamish as funny as well a real surprise tbh.

  11. During the first judging phase of Lego Masters, I don’t know why they showed the builds and judge’s review of the first three pairs in detail, but then skipped straight through the two Asian pairs in less than 5 seconds. I want to see everyone’s final builds, not the drama!

    I noticed some people on Twitter accusing Channel 9 of racism because of that – I sure hope that’s not why they chose to speed straight through them.

    1. All these shows are like this though – Masterchef especially where you don’t even see comments of half of what they cook. They now doubt do talk them all, but edit down to what they think is best to air.

  12. Congrats to 9 – LM won’t maintain those figures but could easily surpass 1 million every night given it is a short series. Teamwork, an original concept, creativity, something everyone can watch – they are onto a winner. Channel 7 roll out the same stuff all the time and it gets boring.
    Expect MasterChef to have a good outing this year – actually people cooking food, not all about the ‘drama’ that is being drummed up. I am not into cooking shows but can easily watch MC and Channel 10 deserves some success.

  13. Will be interesting to see if Lego Masters can sustain those figures, or whether it was due to the curiosity factor. Surely MC will have an impact, evening out the competition between the three commercial networks.

  14. 9 rewarded for some original programming. Well done. People are screaming out for something different clearly. 7 keep seem to serve up the same stuff year in year out without much risk.

    1. Doesn’t make sense though. If this were on 10 no-one would have watched it. No-one watches “original programming” on 10, so they mustn’t be looking for “screaming out for it”. Appears some people only watch Channel 9.

      1. There has to be Kudos for 9 for this though. Its actually an interesting new concept. Maybe people arent watching 10 because they dont like the offerings? People do want to watch something new. The ratings reflect it.

        I hope LM gets 1 million a night over the course of the series.

        I actually watched BIP live and watched LM after.

    2. Don’t 10 as well though? I’m A Celebrity>Bach in Paradise>MasterChef>Bachelor>Bachelorette with everything else in between. DWTS the only different, but even that’s not technically “new”

  15. Must admit I enjoyed Lego Masters a lot more than I thought I would. Was just fun viewing, and a great alternative to Seven’s terrible reality offerings.

    Really looking forward to the return of MasterChef tonight… hopefully Ten finally scores a hit, they deserve a break.

      1. Then they’ll bring all the groups to sit together at a table and generate some controversy, so that they can all shout at each other instead of actually build things.

  16. I enjoyed BiP last night. Ratings say otherwise. 10 can’t wait for tonight and hopefully MC does well.

    7 must be debating on that second season of MKR on whether or not to screen it later this year.

      1. Exactly. 40+ episodes of one and a half hours each, 4 nights a week, it’s just too much. People start to tune out after a while, I don’t think they’ll want it all over again later in the year.

        1. Any show that is on 90 minutes plus more than once a week loses me. I’d prefer two 60 mins max twice a week, the oversaturation of 4x90mins+ is too much!

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