★★★★★ 0/5

MAFS cracks 2m viewers in Total TV numbers -again.

There was MAFS and there was daylight last night on air, including a very tough night for SBS.

13
Leave a comment

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Married at First Sight continues to annihilate the competition, last night as the #1 show on television and its Total TV numbers from the previous week cracking the 2m mark for a second time.

MAFS pulled an impressive 921,000 metro viewers, roughly double -and in some cases triple- the competition.

Next were Hard Quiz (480,000), 7:30 (422,000), The Dog House Australia (298,000) and Mrs Brown’s Boys (238,000 / 228,000).

Later The Weekly with Charlie Pickering drew 398,000 then Under Investigation (346,000), The Front Bar (236,000), QI (225,000), Law & Order: SVU (148,000)

Nine network easily won Wednesday with 36.3% then Seven 24.9%, ABC 17.3%, 10 14.2% and SBS 7.2%.

Nine News was 707,000 / 696,000 for Nine then A Current Affair (547,000) and Hot Seat (311,000 / 195,000).

Seven News won its slot with 789,000 / 779,000 then Home & Away (459,000) and The Chase (440,000 / 265,000). A Kitchen Nightmares Australia repeat was just 79,000.

ABC News was 544,000 with Spicks & Specks (146,000) and The Drum (117,000) following.

The Project managed 231,000 / 156,000 for 10. 10 News First was 230,000 / 147,000. Fire Country was 102,000.

SBS had a very tough night with SBS World News (101,000 / 80,000), Megastructures of Genius (69,000), Bloodlands (68,000), Wildlife ER (62,000) and Mastermind (54,000).

Bluey led multichannels at 115,000.

Sunrise: 213,000
Today: 175,000
News Breakfast: 87,000 / 48,000

In Total TV numbers last Wednesday were:

Married at First Sight: 2.03m
Home & Away: 931,000
Under Investigation: 668,000
Hard Quiz: 866,000
The Dog House: 496,000

OzTAM Overnights: Wednesday 1 March 2023

13 Responses

  1. MAFS = The very worst acting by B- grade wanna be actors hoping to become Daily Mail ‘stars’. I will say though, that I think the new guy with the really nasty ‘wife’ (I don’t remember his name) was set up last night at the dinner party and looked genuinely confused at what they were doing to him. I watch bits of it after I watch Survivor. I think David’s reply comment hits the nail on the head.

  2. It’s simple really. People want to watch it because all their friends are. They want to be a part of the conversation around the “water cooler”. This phenomenon isn’t new. I sat at a table with 6 girlfriends the other night all talking MAFS. I was tempted to watch purely so that next time I’m not left out. It might be dribble, but it’s genius dribble.

  3. I understand the appeal of MAFS, and their producers are rather clever in their casting of the various couples. How much of that program is manipulated and scripted, who knows?
    When Seven and Ten on Wednesday night basically program not much in opposition to MAFS in that 7.30PM timeslot, of course it’s going to dominate.
    The ABC always does relatively well with Hard Quiz, the Weekly with Charlie Pickering and so on.
    Is Fisk returning in 2023? I totally loved the first season last year.

  4. Someone might take aim at The Front Bar’s performance currently, however look how close it is with its lead-in, that’s actually the real story for mine. That 7:30pm is a basket case and TFB is actually punching above its weight and even harder for a traditionally non-nationally appealing show (despite its credited efforts recently with “All Sports” edition). Seven should move TFB to 7:30pm (even if Married) before the AFL season, I reckon it’d still hold or do a little higher being earlier, a lot of its middle aged blokey demographic wouldn’t watch Married anyway, but I guarantee you Mrs Brown wouldn’t do 230k-odd later, probably collapse to 100k!

    1. That’s a good point Sully, hadn’t thought about the poor lead in for the Front Bar and it would be interesting to see how Front Bar would do at 7:30. I really enjoyed last nights episode, Pat Rafter was very entertaining and he still seems like a really nice person.

    1. Think of it as soap masquerading as reality or vice versa. In this sense it’s a very clever execution because it hooks viewers into the characters and over the top storylines -but it doesn’t work without some genuine aspiration of couples you hope will make it to the end. Does that help?

    2. Oh come on, you don’t remember back when the whole country was watching Big Brother on Ten? Lots of people thought that was pointless rubbish too, i loved it. I can’t get into Survivor but I don’t question how others find it appealing. MAFS is a pretty in depth look at people trying to cope in a very strange situation, a complete guilty pleasure with drama that people can soak up and enjoy for a few hours a week. It’s not the most revolutionary concept to take in.

    3. Eac year the producers tweak it just enough to make it a bit different. The obstacle course changrs, and of course nee mismatched couples with unexpected issues.

      This year the big change is the faux experts calling out thr bad behaviour that they allowed previously

    5. I agree with the other comments and would add it’s also “check your brain at the door” TV. It’s a simple formula, which is easy to follow and doesn’t require a lot of brain power. You can miss episodes and just jump back in whenever it suits without losing the overall story line. With so many people working long days, I suspect many just want to watch something which is mentally “light” when they get home and MAFS clearly ticks that box. To be fair a lot reality TV is like that these days, so there’s more too it as the other comments have covered. I’d say Survivor on the hand is a more “intellectual” reality show, especially these days with all the idols and advantages to keep up with along with the usual game play. Perhaps that’s partly why Survivor is so far behind??? I hate pop singing shows, so can’t help with that one.

Leave a Reply