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Seven wins Sunday with This is Your Life revival

A gamble to bring back a favourite TV brand has paid off, as Ian Thorpe celebration tops entertainment on Sunday.

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Seven’s gamble to revive This is Your Life has paid off with the show leading entertainment with 655,000 metro viewers last night.

Seven took a punt to bring back the heritage series produced by ITV Studios Australia, and to boldly announce its guest, Ian Thorpe, ahead of the broadcast (previously a surprise on the night).

But it paid off for the network eclipsing 60 Minutes (612,000), Hunted (550,000 from 7:30pm and topping the demos) and Joanna Lumley’s Great Cities of the World (474,000 from 7:40pm).

Later Beauty & the Geek drew 392,000 then 7News Spotlight (316,000) and Mystery Road: Origin (302,000).

Seven network won Sunday with 30.5% then Nine 26.8%, 10 18.1%, ABC 14.8% and SBS 9.8%.

Seven News was #1 at 933,000. A repeat of Murder In The Outback: The Falconio & Lees Mystery was 125,000.

Nine News pulled 848,000 for Nine with Social Media Murders: The Murder Of Molly McLaren at 216,000.

The Sunday Project was 325,000 / 235,000 for 10. 10 News First was 231,000 / 176,000. NCIS: Hawaii was 174,000 and FBI was 97,000.

ABC News was 559,000 for ABC. Compass (178,000) and Small Axe (55,000) followed.

On SBS it was SBS World News (185,000 / 148,000), London’s Super Tunnel (133,000) and Tour de France Femmes (104,000).

7mate’s Harry Potter movie led multichannels at 130,000.

Total TV numbers for last Sunday were:

Hunted: 1.22m
Mystery Road: Origin: 694,000
Beauty & the Geek: 817,000
NCIS: Hawaii: 411,000
60 Minutes: 619,000
Joanna Lumley’s Great Cities of the World: 799,000

OzTAM Overnights: Sunday 24 July 2022

Updated.

12 Responses

  1. I’ll eat my words and say the 7 News Spotlight special on Cody Simpson and Emma McKeon was quite engaging for what it was. Well done 7.

    As for This is Your Life, I enjoyed it but it didn’t need to be that long.

  2. I’m not sure why there was a band, I’m not sure why the studio audience were all seated at cafe tables with a candle on them with nothing else and I’m not sure why his mother, once interviewed, sat at the back of the guests and had to lean over to see her son throughout the remainder of the show.

    These very strange anomalies aside, it was a great show. And far too many ad breaks, but ties in with its excessive length. Ian Thorpe is a légend.

    Congrats to Mel Doyle too. She didn’t burn her bridges with Seven when she well could have following the Sam Armytage fiasco. And now she has a fantastic primetime gig and hey, it’s even better than the old Where Are They Now shows – although the two shows are not entirely dissimilar.

  3. I only lasted 5 minutes, As soon as I saw that they wanted to show off as many names as they could and not tell Ian’s story I switched to Netflix.

  4. Thought Mel was a great host and This is Your Life was good however almost 2 hours is a bit too much. Drop it back to an hour or so. 75 minutes even. Be interesting to see who they have next.

  5. And 7 drags out once again its fictionalised Murder In The Outback: The Falconio & Lees Mystery – again! Next week must be due another Ivan Milat and/or Anita Cobby rerun. does 7 have no respect for the families of the victims, constantly regurgitating this stuff? I guess 3rd and 4th reruns are cheaper than something new.

  7. They will only get away with 1 hour and 45 minutes if the guest is exceptional. I caught the last half hour and liked what i saw. Best think about it was the return of Mel, what a superstar.

  8. I really enjoyed this is your life. Mel was great as host and I enjoyed the fact she just didn’t read from the book.
    The guests were great and even the music. 1 hr 45 may have been a bit long but so far so good.

  9. I really like Thorpe, I really like Mel and I really liked the old 1hr versions of TIYL but to drag the new version out over 1hr and 45 minutes really bored the crap out of me…. No wonder Thorpey doesn’t like watchin himself on TV !!

    1. Wow, 105 minutes.
      gone are the days where shows last an hour. I find there are too many shows that run for an extended time. I realise it is a cost saving to make the show last longer, than to make and air another show. But bigger isn’t necessarily better!

    2. I enjoyed This is your life also. However, once they brought out Jimmy Barnes to sing a second time at about the 80 minute mark, I’d seen enough and moved onto something else. Definitely do not need 105 minute long episodes.

      1. Just doing some research on this on a popular video site.

        American episodes from the 1950s featuring the likes of Laurel and Hardy, Boris Karloff, Roy Rogers – average running time 25 to 26 minutes (presumably half an hour with commercials.)

        British episodes from the 1970s featuring Stirling Moss, Hattie Jacques and others – average running time 27 minutes for the BBC so no commercials.

        Both versions of the show across two decades and two continents run less than half an hour, feel quite complete in their analysis of the person’s life, include comprehensive interviews, tributes and licensed clips and feel just right in terms of length.

        105 minutes (presumably about 75 minutes with commercials and 65 with recaps and Coming Ups) is just obscene frankly.

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