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Bumped: Australian Survivor, Deal or No Deal. Update: Gladiators

Whack. Despite a positive launch, 10 feels the ratings stick hit its summer entertainment show and pulls in a stronger fighter.

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10 has moved quickly on Gladiators programming after audience numbers fell faster than a contender from the Duel platform.

The show premiered to 395,000 metro viewers for its Monday premiere, easily higher than The Bachelors, Traitors, The Real Love Boat, The Challenge against the competition of the Australian Open. Online reaction was mixed with some positive comments around the cast, but confusion over the lack of a visible audience and questioning why the show was stripped into extended episodes.

But by night two it plummeted to 196,000, which was enough for 10 to scramble its plans. This week it will now screen on extra nights, Thursday & Friday. Next week it screens Sunday – Friday to ensure a final on Sunday 28th.

Australian Survivor, originally teased for February 5, will now screen on Monday 29th against MAFS and Australian Idol. 10 will also bring Deal or No Deal forward to the same night at 6pm.

Given Gladiators was originally announced for January 7 (before moving to January 15) this now marks three Network 10 shows which were moved from their intended launch -not good so early in 2024.

Gladiators has also enjoyed a bumper return in the UK where it screens weekly on Saturday nights.

Australia continues to strip formats that the audience prefers as a weekly proposition…

Updated: Double episode Wednesday 24th.

48 Responses

  1. I’m actually quite enjoying Gladiators! Sad to realize that this is going to most likely be it’s only season…

    Excited to see Australian Survivor brought forward! Survivor is one of my favorite shows, so the fact that we get to see it earlier is better for me!

    What is Network 10 doing? They seem to have the best shows in Australia, but something isn’t working in terms of audience viewership…

  2. Honestly its no surprise. TV networks gotta learn we don’t want reboots or revivals. We want fresh ideas. Seems to be an issue across television and cinema across the world at the moment. No one has any good ideas so they just decide to rehash what has already been done and 9/10 times they’re no good.

  4. – needs a bigger arena
    – more interaction with the crowd
    – 60 to 70 mins show
    – less gtadiators bits at backroom
    – once a week – friday or saturday night so the whole family can watch. Not on a school night
    – not the same games every night

  5. If Someone said a Gladiators was a failure, 10 might be considering nabbing the rights to a rebooted Australian Ninja Warrior. Ninja Warrior was a success when it was previously on Nine but ratings dived as years went by. They need something that was previously successful from other rival networks, otherwise they will continue to struggle.

    1. Only come across this now, but as a Ninja Warrior fanatic from Australia I would personally love to see what 10 could do with it, just my opinion but I would think it needs to be less gimmicky and more of a fair competition. I would like to think that’s why the ratings dived on nine but then again I could have no idea. But yeah if anyone knows anything at all if this is a possibility then any info would be very appreciated, thanks!

  6. I’ve been watching the UK version, and there is no comparison. The UK version is slick, exciting, epic and fun. Who is producing our version? They clearly have no shiny floor format experience. The costumes look cheap and dated. The games also include the most dangerous game from the past, the pyramid, where players can easily fall from a great height onto each other. The doco Muscles and Mayhem talks about this at length. The producers might have done some research and checked it out. It is so embarrassing when Aussie productions do things on the cheap.

  7. If someone said do a Gladiators reboot, I’d say do It’s a Knockout instead. It’s just the state and territories competing against each other adds an extra interesting element. It was done again, so maybe it has lived it’s life as well.

    I think a Supermarket Sweep revival would be timely. It has been a staple of ITV programming in the UK, so it shows it still has value, though the casting is good. Supermarkets are universal, so there’s much better potential.

  8. I’ve been one of the few to actually keep watching, but I have never seen a show so badly set up to fail by so many inexplicable decisions, both on the production and programming side.

    – Programming has had an episode featuring original Gladiator Delta in the can (her son is a contestant), but chose not to debut with that – it’ll air tonight
    – In the original, part of the fun was games and Gladiators were random: this series they’re not – it looks like the heats (6 eps) will feature the same 4 games (allegedly per Wikipedia, 8 games will feature in the series including a new one), presumably the other 4 will appear for the remainder of the series – so probably only different 2 game line-ups.
    – Only 4 of the 6 female Gladiators appear in the first 3 eps – 4 eps down, and we still have 1 female and male Gladiator yet to debut from the original group. Why wouldn’t you mix up the aired order to showcase more of the cast early, when the games are the same?
    – 4 people injured in 4 episodes

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