★★★★★ 0/5

Married at First Sight too strong for Survivor, Idol.

The unofficial TV war is off and racing, with Nine dominating the night with its scandalous TV weddings.

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Game on.

The TV war commenced last night ahead of ratings survey with Nine’s reality juggernaut Married at First Sight emerging as the champion.

MAFS pulled 840,000 metro viewers for its 10th season launch, just below a 2022 premiere of 869,000.

ABC was actually second in the slot with 7:30 (546,000) / Back Roads (527,000).

That left two other reality shows to battle it out.

Australian Survivor pulled 447,000 with the return of Australian Idol at 413,000.

While Survivor is well down on 2022’s 608,000 season debut, it was still second in the demos behind MAFS.

Elsewhere last night Ally Langdon’s first A Current Affair episode was 639,000, just pipped by ABC News at 641,000.

Seven News was #1 for the night at up to 900,000, well ahead of Nine News at up to 794,000.

Nine easily won the night’s share at 32.4% then Seven 23.9%, ABC 18.9%, 10 17.5%, and SBS 7.3%.

Full ratings wraps resume with OzTAM survey but you can read more on last night here.

67 Responses

  1. I just can’t help but think this year the network’s have gone all in on each night being about 1 show. Last night’s run times meant you only had 1 show to watch on each channel from 7.30pm. I used to watch multiple shows on a channel when everything was 30 or 60 minutes long, but now it’s all or nothing, so I chose nothing and streamed instead. I watched Last Of Us encore last night and skipped through idol on bvod. Won’t be sampling anything else for a while.

  4. I was never going to watch Idol with Kyle on board (hurts because I am an Idol tragic) but I didn’t hear one singer that made me stop & go – there is an Idol winner. They all seemed very weak.

    1. With the exception of Guy Sebastian and Jess Mauboy, name an Idol or Voice contestant who’s really had long term success in the industry? Some have gone on to theatre and other areas of media, but those shows prove that the public just doesn’t relate to what is just a jazzed up talent show.

  5. I knew MAFS was going to beat Survivor and Idol but agreed of most of the comments here that they go for too long, I wish the networks change back to one hour of most but of course they wont do it because they only care about the show and not the time length of the show.

  6. Watched MAFs live and Survivor on 10PLAY.
    MAFS may be partly scripted but you cannot fake people’s surprise reactions!
    Absolutely priceless!
    Australian Survivor was brilliant! So much better than the wokey US series episodes of recent! Brilliantly casst wirh goid mix of old and new players

  7. 7 has wasted its money on Idol. It’s not 2002 anymore. We all know that all the “bad acts” are completely staged. 2 words as to why Idol will fail …Kyle Sandilands. He’s a massive tool. Why would anyone spend 90 plus minutes watching him. Everything he touches on TV crashes and burns. Do they ever learn?

    1. he hosts one of, if not the most listened to radio program in Australia and Seven probably thought his audience there would follow him to tv. It has never worked like that

  8. Moving Q&A back to Monday nights hasn’t had the desired effect, so far at least, no better audience figures for them than they were getting on Thursday nights last year. The problems to me are the host – Stan Grant is pompous and full of himself and thinks he’s way smarter than anyone else, and also an hour of the ABC promoting a yes vote in two upcoming referenda didn’t interest me. The panel too, dreadfully one sided, whatever you think of Bridget McKenzie – she was vastly outflanked by the host, the audience and 5 other panellists.

  9. Married At First Sight is trash TV, but the Nine programmers know what they’re doing, all those promos during the tennis had the desired result, so of course they were going to thrash Survivor and Idol last night, and the ABC would pick up the non reality show type viewers.
    Fans of Australian Survivor, I wouldn’t be too concerned, that program will pick up as they get to the pointy end of the tribal councils and the tribal merge and so, Jonathan is a decent host and the production values are top notch! But why on earth did they bring that George guy back, he is so annoying.
    Australian Idol Reboot – Seven might be a tad concerned their launch episode didn’t do that well, and that’s been heavily promoted during the Big Bash games. Resurrecting the TV career of Kyle Sandilands was a dumb idea, he is a turnoff in my opinion, the other 3 judges seem good though. But, just too many talent shows on Aussie TV in recent years, boredom factor really for me.

  10. Managed to watch all three reality shows (Married live, Survivor from a recording afterwards and Idol from a recording this morning) thinking it would be good to see the quality of each.
    First major note is the change to the editing style on Married. It was always pretty slow but the repetition of shots, the coming up/previously on… and length over which people’s expressions are held are now greatly extended and the show felt much, much slower than previous years.
    Survivor was okay, also a little longer than it needed to be and would benefit from a hard edit. Watchable though and probably the best of the three.
    Idol felt interminable and even aggressive use of fast forward and skip functions did little to speed it up. Ran well over two hours with maybe, possibly, 15-20 minutes of actual program content. A message to the producers of this and The Voice – if you have a show with 20 minutes of content screen it in a half hour slot not a 2.5 hour one.

  11. I enjoyed idol, but stopped watching after 90 minutes. I noticed it went till about 9:20pm, and was still the shortest of the 3 reality shows, with MAFS running over 2 hours. Why do these shows have to be so long? Who has 6-8 hours in a week to dedicate to one show? I’m hopeful Idol’s ratings will improve as it moves towards the live shows. No doubt though if those ratings don’t improve, there may not be many live shows and they’ll start culling 3-4 singers a week.

  12. Really liked Idol last night. Shame the ratings were low.

    Used to watch Aus Survivor but find it too dragged out these days. Not interested in MAFS but props to Nine for knowing how to promote it and get people to watch.

  13. One needs to remember 10s prime time shows needs to gain an audience from a low base whereby 7 & 9 have a large audience coming out of their news services. They will maintain their audience whereby Idol may struggle to find one. Programmers need to understand a 2 hour plus program is way to long.

  15. Poor Seven. Poor start for the ratings year and not sure if it bodes well for 2023 for the network. In the current free-to-air TV landscape, it doesn’t look like nostalgia attracts viewers anymore.

  16. I just think the audience that watches the cricket & idol probably don’t match up a lot. And most of 7’s advertising was during the cricket (which also didn’t do too well, BBL averaging 270k metro) and so it might not have attracted a lot of that audience.

    Tennis is watched by a wider varied audience and that’s why MAFS continues to do well

    1. Seven were foolish to let Nine snag the Australian Open. For all the talk of it flopping this year, the momentum it provides Nine in the lead up to the launch of their new programming year is unparalleled. Almost 20 years to the day since Seven benefited from halo effect of tennis when launching Desperate Housewives and Lost to monster ratings, the tennis still has that effect and knowing the impact the tennis had, Seven let Nine get it. One of the biggest mistakes ever.

      1. You’ll find a lot of this talk about the Australian Open “flopping” is driven by News Corp, with their rival sports broadcasting interests. Just like how they use their influence to push their own narrative on sports rights…negotiate by news and media release.

  17. I wish idol success, as I think people singing is better TV than fake weddings that degrade the sanctity of marriage.
    Although I didn’t watch any live TV or reality last night and will not catch up. I still think the shows need to be tighter….
    I know I know, they make their dollars count and do not have to make other content.

  18. I watched both the premiere of MAFS and Australian Survivor last night and I really enjoyed both shows! It’s a real shame that Australian Survivor gets relatively low ratings these days, but I suppose every other show that goes up against MAFS will get pretty low ratings…

    1. Survivor does very well in younger viewers and is competitive against MAFS. Ten couldn’t ask for much more really given the strength of the trash Nine serves up.

  20. I watched Idol last night but opted out after an hour 40. Not bad but it did seem very set up with some acts. It is also a real shame in Australia that we can’t make reality content that is tight. Either way I fear I’ve lost the battle in my house as my wife wants to watch Survivor.

    1. The girl from Alice Springs who was “shocked” to be put on the spot to audition, even though there was a camera crew inside her house to film her reaction as Meghan came to the door – not set up at all!!

      1. Worst part by far! Viewers aren’t as stupid as the production seems to think they are. Idol is a good example of how to not produce an authentic program.

  21. Condolences to Seven. They did their best but MAFS will reign supreme for another year. You really have to hand it to the Nine promo team who know exactly how to sell that show year in year out and give the audience what they want. Seven’s big dilemma is what to do at 7pm. Their ratings are going over a cliff when Home and Away starts. Last night everything on the ABC from 7-9.35pm beat everything on Seven.

    1. H&Away rated higher than Idol or Survivor (and of course The Project, then…). 7 went “over a cliff” after H&A, at 7:30. ACA had the ‘new’ curiosity factor.

  22. Seven will be fine with that Idol launch. As with Big Brother it’s just another stocking filler in the schedule drawing advertising dollars. It’s all about “content” and “metrics” these days ahead of genuine entertainment.

      1. David – what do you think Seven will do? Coming 4th and being doubled by MAFS. Obviously not panic…but perhaps shift Idol out of harms way in a week or two? But to where/when…

          1. They’ve already done it to death for the past 2 months ,constant pop ups and during commercial breaks ,cross promotion and the permanent water mark across all their channels so I’d say it’s been done to death and people are sick of the constant reminder,I think Ten is even worse ,as soon as Survivor started on comes the permanent bright watermark and off goes that channel for me.

          3. Agreed! 10’s marketing has been huge for Survivor off-air. Their radio ads are awesome. Outdoor advertising is everywhere too

          4. MAFS promotion featured more eye-rolling at suspected attempted partner swapping before the fake weddings are over. Survivor’s boosted about trying to kill two contestants with equipment that was obviously extremely dangerous to anyone with half-a-brain, and Idol’s about the large number of idiots who can’t sing a note who auditioned for a national singing contest just for 15 seconds of infamy. Idol is at least harmless, as far as I can tell the other two should litigated out of existence. People know the predictable formulas these show use and either love them, or have found out where to stream something better. Promotion isn’t going to change anyone’s minds now. The interesting thing is whether younger viewers are watching or streaming them, which effects revenues.

    2. “drawing advertising dollars”. Coming in at #4 how many advertisers have already contacted their 7 Sales rep (at least in regional areas) requesting their spots be moved? There’s no way that “Seven will be fine with that Idol launch” figure.

    3. Almost certainly they won’t be fine with that. Maybe read the article David posted this morning which talked about the high hopes Seven had for it. 4th in its timeslot and nowhere in the demos is definitely not what they were chasing and that’s before the inevitable second night drop off.

  25. Who continues to watch MAFS, given all pretence of being a genuine “social experiment” has long since passed? This year, I couldn’t even watch the trailer.

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