2025 Upfronts: Seven Network: Stranded on Honeymoon Island, Once in a Lifetime, Jim Jefferies & Friends

• Shaun Micallef joins Dancing with the Stars
• New: Stranded on Honeymoon Island, Once in a Lifetime, Jim Jefferies & Friends
  
• Returning: Australian Idol, The Voice, Farmer Wants a Wife, MKR, The 1% Club, RFDS.
• First Dates returns.
• Seven News adds midday bulletin, extends Morning Show
• New AFL shows
• “7plus first” for international titles: Suits: LA, Doc, Grosse Pointe Garden Society, Ludwig, The Americas.

Seven has unveiled its 2025 slate at a media event this afternoon at its Eveleigh headquarters, which sees the return of most of its key entertainment shows, building on 2024 successes, with several new titles set to premiere.

Australian Idol, The Voice, Farmer Wants a Wife, My Kitchen Rules, Better Homes & Gardens, The 1% Club, are all returning next year along with a third season of popular drama RFDS. Shaun Micallef unexpectedly takes to the dancefloor in Dancing with the Stars.

They are joined by dating series Stranded on Honeymoon Island, Chris Brown taking celebrities jet-vetting on Once in a Lifetime and new stand-up comedy series Jim Jefferies & Friends. First Dates also returns after several years absence.

Reliable hits Home & Away, The Chase, Sunrise return along with The Front Bar and there are several new AFL shows The Agenda Setters, Unfiltered, Extra Time, Sunday Footy Feast, The Wash Up, Kane’s Call -details are still to be unveiled.

The Morning Show will extend to 12pm in 2025 with a new one hour Seven News bulletin at midday.

There are also new music docos Working Class Man, Cold Chisel Live: 50th Anniversary Tour and Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story.

Amongst international titles for 2025 are Suits: LA, Doc, Grosse Pointe Garden Society, Ludwig and natural history series The Americas -Seven teases a “7plus first” approach for these.

Seven Group Managing Director, Television, Angus Ross, said: “Australian production is at the heart of everything we do. We spend more than $700 million across our three content pillars of news, sport and entertainment to deliver mass audience and reach every single day of the year.

“The biggest shows and most reliable formats in the world are on Seven and 7plus including Home and Away, Australian Idol, Farmer Wants A Wife, Dancing With The Stars, The Voice, My Kitchen Rules and The 1% Club. In 2025 they will be joined by two brand-new tentpole formats – Stranded On Honeymoon Island and Once In A Lifetime – plus a lot more. From AFL and Cricket to Supercars and Horse Racing, we are Australia’s home of sport, delivering the biggest and most engaged sport audiences across Seven and 7plus Sport all year round. Our news and current affairs content – led by 7NEWS, Sunrise, 7NEWS Spotlight, The Nightly and 7NEWS.com.au – keeps all of Australia informed, while 7plus goes from strength to strength with its deep library and exclusive content.”

Seven Chief Content Officer, Brook Hall, said: “From our content ‘spine’ of Sunrise, The Morning Show, The Chase Australia, 7NEWS, Home and Away and Better Homes and Gardens, to increasingly popular tentpoles such as Farmer Wants A Wife, Australian Idol, The Voice, My Kitchen Rules, The 1% Club and Dancing With The Stars, Seven has a powerful year-long schedule that will keep Australians connected and entertained. Our new tentpoles including Stranded On Honeymoon Island and Once In A Lifetime will further strengthen our 7.30pm line up. While other networks’ line ups go through peaks and troughs, we consistently deliver audiences year-round across Seven and 7plus.”

He added “Audiences are responding, and in fact, growing across a lot of our tentpoles, which is not something that the media really writes about, or is an exciting headline. They seem much more interested in talking about a narrative of TV decline, which is not happening on Seven and Nine networks for the last two years.”

Absent from today’s slate are Dream Home, Made in Bondi and SAS Australia (despite the quotes to press by its host) none of which have been ruled out for the future, as well as Ultimate Escape, originally due in 2023.

New:

Stranded On Honeymoon Island
A unique social experiment, Stranded on Honeymoon Island puts adventure, survival and, above all, isolation at the heart of this quest for love. But will the experience lead to love or loathing? The couples are matched by experts following a speed dating event, but they don’t know which partner has been chosen for them until they see them at the intimate commitment ceremony. Immediately after committing themselves to each other, they are dramatically abandoned on their own deserted tropical islands for the adventure of a lifetime.

Once In A Lifetime
Beloved vet Dr Chris Brown, embarks on global wildlife journeys, joined by entertaining Australian personalities (including Mick Molloy, Amanda Keller, Kate Ritchie and Matt Preston) as his untrained and unqualified veterinary assistants. Together, they help iconic animals while navigating unpredictable and often humorous situations. From saving endangered species to facing wild dangers, these duos experience the raw beauty of nature.

Jim Jefferies and Friends
The host of Seven’s smash hit The 1% Club steps into his own stand-up show, Jim Jefferies And Friends. Featuring comedy legends Dave Hughes, Jimeoin, Arj Barker, Tommy Little, Nikki Osborne, Mel Buttle, Felicity Ward and many more, this strictly adults-only affair will see Jim in rip-snorting form as master of ceremonies.

Working Class Man / Cold Chisel Live: 50th Anniversary Tour / Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story
Aussie music will take centre stage on Seven next year with the legendary Cold Chisel’s 50th anniversary tour; Working Class Man, a documentary based on Jimmy Barnes’ best-selling book and featuring the legendary singer telling his story with his trademark honesty and insight; and Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story, a hilarious and moving documentary about one of Australia’s most-loved bands that travels from the sticky carpets of Sydney pubs to the shiny stage of Top of the Pops.

The Rise and Fall Of Kings Cross
Around the world, most nations have one place, a district or neighbourhood that never sleeps, where life is never dull, art meets crime and money will buy you anything – a place where heaven and hell collide. For Australia, that place is Sydney’s Kings Cross, the internationally notorious bawdy, riotous, gaudy, bloody neighbourhood that for generations has mixed fine art and great entertainment with rampant debauchery. This riveting new documentary features rare and unseen vision, re-enactments and exclusive interviews in a cavalcade of stories spanning 150 years. 

First Dates dating series returns after 5 year absence
Off The Grid with Manu Feildel & Colin Fassnidge
AFL: The Agenda Setters, Unfiltered, Extra Time, Sunday Footy Feast, The Wash Up, Kane’s Call (NB: these are correct at time of writing but may change with AFL fixture)
Full Sweat doco inside Sydney Swans.

Returning:

Australian Idol
Hosts: Ricki-Lee Coulter, Scott Tweedie. Judges: Kyle Sandilands, Marcia Hines, Amy Shark.
BH: “The big thing about Idol in 2024 was that we grew the broadcast linear audience. So we saw the Total TV, jumped quite a significant amount. It does a really good job for us….We’ve got more applications so we’re really excited.I’ve from only seen some of the rushes come through, but it’s building on some of the learnings we had from series two…. There’s some slight tweaks to the format. Viewers get more of a say next year.”

Farmer Wants A Wife
Natalie Gruzlewski hosting.
BH: “We still keep them in that lane of really pure, try and keep it authentic. I’m still amazed at each of those first meets, where usually two out of the five farmers struggle to speak to the women when they come in…. We’re actually filming this week, the final decisions and a couple of farmers are very, very happy where they are. So I think we’re going to have more of those success stories again.”

Dancing With The Stars
Sonia Kruger, Chris Brown hosting. Judges: Helen Richey, Mark Wilson, Sharna Burgess, Craig Revel Horwood.
BH: “We’ve signed about half the cast and Shaun Micallef is a great name. A bit surprising, which I think is important… We’ll probably share one next week again at the Melbourne Upfront. But there’s a couple of other (names that are) real exciting. I thought it would be tough to match this year’s but I think we’re going to go better again.”

The 1% Club
BH:  “The format works so well that there’s a couple of specials… Jim Jefferies is a comedic genius and when you give him a theme to bounce off, it just changes it. There’s a state v state and there’s also a ladies night with 100 women .. that’s probably the best episode that I’ve ever seen of the show.”

RFDS
BH: “The big thing that we’re looking at is scheduling. We’re wondering whether we move it forward and run the drama at 7:30. We always do these shows at 8:45, 9:10 but because it’s been such a great performer we’re hero-ing drama a bit more. You might have 90 minutes of drama coming straight out of Home & Away.”

The Voice
BH: “The Voice will have a different panel. To be frank they’re not all signed yet, but there will be some changes… We have a great relationship with Guy but he’s got some other commitments, but I’ll let him reveal why there’s just some time lines that don’t work. I’d imagine you’d probably see him back in The Voice family.”

Home & Away
My Kitchen Rules
Better Homes and Gardens
The Chase Australia
Border Security: Australia’s Front Line
Highway Patrol
The Hunters
The Great Outdoors
The Front Bar

International:

In 2025 Seven is taking a “7plus first” approach to all of its new overseas programming including Suits: LA, Doc, The Hunting Party, Grosse Pointe Garden Society, St Denis Medical, Ludwig and The Americas.

Brook Hall said: “We plan to drop one, premium new series on 7plus every single month during 2025, shows like Suits: LA, The Americas and much more.”

Doc US medical drama
BH: “Doc, which is from Sony, kind of gives us a Good Doctor feel… launching in Q2 next year.”

Suits: LA
From NBC comes Suits: LA, in which Ted Black, a former federal prosecutor from New York, reinvents himself representing the most powerful clients in Los Angeles
BH: “Suits: LA is coming to us first. We’ll probably be running that in line with the US. … That’ll be early in Q1 on 7plus and Seven.”

Grosse Pointe Garden Society
BH: “Everyone looks at and goes, ‘God, that’s a weird title. ‘And I must admit, even when I saw the description of it,it’s a show about a garden club, and you go, ‘Okay, well, how interesting that can be?’ I remember, it’s the same feel as Desperate Housewives when you watch the show. It’s excellently made.  …It’s four members of a garden club. They’re very young, one male. Then, of course, there is a murder that’s linked to it. “

St Denis Medical US comedy series

Ludwig UK mystery series

The Hunting Party
A high-concept crime procedural about a small team of investigators who are assembled to track down and capture most dangerous killers who have just escaped from a top-secret prison that’s not supposed to exist.

The Americas
From BBC Studios Natural History Unit, the creators of the critically acclaimed and multi-Emmy Award-winning Planet Earth and Blue Planet, in association with Universal Television Alternative Studio, The Americas is an epic 11-part tentpole event series, narrated by Tom Hanks. 

News:

7NEWS / new Seven News Midday bulletin
The Morning Show
BH: “The Morning Show will extend by 30 minutes and go to midday, and then it will be one hour bulletin…. I think some of the most popular personalities in the country are Larry and Kylie. They’re going to get 30 more minutes, and then we’re going to go to a full reset of more news, more numbers. We’re just responding to the audience that’s holding up.”
Sunrise
7NEWS Spotlight

Sport:

AFL / AFLW,
Brownlow Medal,
Supercars Championship
Bathurst 1000,
NFL / Superbowl LIX,
Plus horse racing 52 weeks of the year, LIV Golf, surfing, cycling, athletics, netball, hockey, extreme sports, and more.

Events:

TV Week Logie Awards
Good Friday Appeal
Carols In The Domain
Channel 7 Telethon

7Plus:

New exclusive content on 7plus in 2025 includes Suits: LA, Grosse Pointe Garden Society, The Hunting Party, The Americas, St Denis Medical, Doc, Ludwig and The Crow Girl. Returning overseas favourites include The Rookie, 9-1-1, 9-1-1 Lonestar, The Irrational and Alert: Missing Persons Unit, plus 7Bravo shows including Below Deck Down Under, Below Deck, Below Deck Mediterranean, Deadly Waters with Captain Lee, Paris & Nicole: The Encore and Real Housewives of New York City.

Still to Come:

Tsunami: The Wave That Shook The World
SpecialTsunami: The Wave That Shook The World
Special Murder In A Small Town
OzHarvest Concert
Australia vs India Test showdown,
Women’s Ashes,
BBL / WBBL
Carols In The Domain

Key Australian titles:

7NEWS
7NEWS Spotlight
Armchair Experts
Aussie Truck Rehab
Australian Football League
AFLW
Australian Idol
Better Homes and Gardens
Border Security: Australia’s Front Line
Carols In The Domain
Channel 7 Telethon
Cold Chisel Live: 50th Anniversary Tour
Cricket (various)
Dancing With The Stars
Farmer Wants A Wife
First Dates
Flashpoint
Gem Hunters Down Under
Good Friday Appeal
Highway Patrol
Horse racing (various)
Home and Away
Jim Jefferies and Friends
Live It Up: The Mental As Anything Story
My Kitchen Rules
Off The Grid
Once In A Lifetime
Outback Crystal Hunters
Outback Truckers
RFDS
South Aussie with Cosi
Stranded On Honeymoon Island
Sunrise
Supercars Championship, including the Bathurst 1000
The 1% Club The Agenda Setters
The Chase Australia
The Front Bar
The Great Outdoors
The Hunters
The Morning Show
The Latest from 7NEWS
The Rise and Fall Of Kings Cross
The TV WEEK Logie Awards
The Voice
Weekend Sunrise
Working Class Man

Key International:

9-1-1
9-1-1 Lonestar
Accused
Air Crash Investigations
Alert: Missing Persons Unit
Britain’s Got Talent
Doc
Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly
Grosse Pointe Garden Society
Happy’s Place
Ludwig
St Denis Medical
Suits: LA
The 1% Club UK
The 97th Academy Awards
The Amazing Race
The Americas
The Hunting Party
The Irrational
The Rookie

Absent:

Dream Home
SAS Australia
Made in Bondi
Ultimate Escape