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

Seven hits will return in 2025 including Farmer Wants a Wife, Australian Idol, The Voice, MKR, RFDS -and Shaun Micallef hits the floor on Dancing with the Stars.

  • 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

Which new Seven show are you most looking forward to in 2025?

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45 Responses

  1. So one of the big new entertainment shows has already been announced and delayed from this year…that doesn’t inspire confidence. Once in a Lifetime should be a better vehicle for Dr Chris…such a big deal was made about him coming to Seven and then we got the underwhelming Dream Home.

  2. Question, the current morning news at 11:30. We have an Adelaide addition, will the midday news be local or national? The local morning news was 7s attempt to win viewers back after we got stuck with the 4pm Melbourne news after they cut local Adelaide funding.

  3. Really uninspiring upfronts headlines by a rip-off format announced a year earlier and shelved and a guest on Dancing with the Stars.

    Will recommend Ludwig though – as someone who can’t stand the formulaic cosy UK murder mystery shows this one was a bit different and quite fun and the BBC’s highest rated new comedy drama in a few years. Not sure ads will do it any favours though.

  4. Three thoughts: 1) about time seven, as host broadcaster, did more with AFL type shows; always struck me as odd that nine had the weekly show on afl. Yes seven has the front bar but nines more traditional offering always rated quite well from memory. 2) that’s a a lot of news each weekday (if you count sunrise and TMS as news). Midday, then 4pm then 6pm. 3) $700million spent on programming – am guessing $660m of that is on AFL and Cricket rights.

  5. Just like the other networks, nothing much excites me anymore. RFDS is the only decent thing on there really the rest is more reality and more news. It is nice to see they are using their catch up service for new shows from overseas but 7plus isn’t the greatest app out there although they are better than 9now and 10play but only in the slightest. Australian tv seems to freefalling really. Not much substance anymore just a whole bunch of reality for the most part.

  6. So Today Extra will follow what the Morning Show does as usual. I can never understand why Today and Sunrise always keep going until about 9.10 every morning instead of finishing at 9am? Always seems silly to me?

  7. Like FFS, do we need yet another AFL show??? This channel is absolutely saturated with the AFL and don’t get me started with the 7News Melbourne Sports section where it’s dominated with the AFL! Like ease up on the AFL coverage!

  8. The way Shaun Micallef being on DWTS as a contestant is seemingly the top announcement, based on the position and size of the photo and it being the top dot point is really telling.
    Don’t get me wrong, excited to see Shaun, I think he is underutilized within the Australian media landscape. Perhaps that’s the wrong phrase on my part, and maybe he is doing as much as he want’s.
    But I got to be honest, there isn’t much here I’m interested in.

    1. Completely agree. I feel like Shaun, on DWTS, is considered there “big” announcement for next year. And it’s really not. He could be booted out after episode one. As for the rest of the line up, boring

  9. Once In A Lifetime with Chris Brown was actually leaked a few months ago as Amanda Keller took time off her radio show to do it. Jim Jeffries still not really that funny. Somehow I am predicting we have seen the last of Made In Bondi …. even if it has screened in the UK

  10. Ugh I always feel physically ill when I see an overseas drama I’m really keen to watch, get picked up by the FTA networks. It means I won’t be watching it at all. Their catch up services continue to be horrendously bad (iView notwithstanding). So it’s a real shame for me that St Denis Medical and Grosse Point Garden Society have been relegated to this.

  11. More reality crap…whatever happened to creativity and originality?..when are we ever going to move on from wannabes and has beens. This is the demise of great Australian dramas and comedies. Seven, Nine and Ten are just crap pitting reality shows against each other in the same time slot…there is nothing here of interest except the few overseas offerings…is it any wonder FTA is dying and people are turning to streaming services?

  12. Can’t take any of this seriously – the second I read the 7plus first approach. It’s all bull. Ludwig has been released for a month in the UK – this is all just spin and it frustrates me to no end these networks keep buying content from overseas to never show it in a timely fashion

  13. The midday movie will likely air at 1pm.

    The bigger question is – will all these midday news bulletins last longer than the 2pm ones a few years ago did?

  14. Sunrise and Morning Show is set to take up the entire morning time slot. Since its inception back in 2007, TMS used to be 2 hours but has extended to 3 hours. I still feel that Larry has too much to juggle especially with morning show and the chase.

    1. It seems that the need a dedicated news channel! With sunrise and TMS covering ‘news’ and entertainment. Then a one hour Midday news, it seems that the Aussie content is increasing. But mostly rehashing for 7 hours.
      Sorry in my experience and limited viewing the news is repeated continuously with informercials after 9:00am.
      How boring!
      At least for 6 or 10 weeks I can watch an Aussie drama on 7.
      Hopefully some good ones coming on ABC and SBS.

      1. Sorry if I’m missing something David, but I’m genuinely confused as to why are Seven are advertising BB in their upfronts for 2025 – do they have it for one more year before it goes to Channel 10?

  15. No major surprises or sources of excitement from Seven’s 2025 Upfronts (as expected), although the decision to extend The Morning Show to 12pm with Seven’s Morning News becoming an hour long midday bulletin is interesting.

    Based on what happened earlier this year with the 5am bulletins being absorbed into the brekky shows (Seven was first here, Nine followed suit three weeks later), it won’t be a surprise if Nine soon announces that Today Extra will be extended to 12pm with Nine’s Morning News becoming Nine News: Midday from January 27.

    As for Stranded On Honeymoon Island, wasn’t this show supposed to make it to our screens last year or maybe even in 2023?

    1. The 5am change mainly was the name and graphics. I didn’t notice any content changes on the 5-5:30am block. Seven still had their cat videos, Nine had real news. The notable exception is for major news stories (e.g. Today Early News did not screen Mon-Wed last week for the election, Today started at 5am).

  16. Seven has previously announced the Marlow Murder Club S2 and Showtrial S2, but they have probably going to a streamer somewhere. They did promote S2 of The Irrational this year but pulled it, not something I missed. Grosse Point Garden Club makes sense is you know that Grosse Point is a suburb by the lake where all the wealthy automotive executives lived, before Detroit collapsed. Could some interesting stories there, at least it’s not a procedural. So RFDS and The Rookie that are watchable.

  17. So Shaun Micallef is a contestant of Dancing with the Stars, not a host. I was about to say I’m surprised because since he’s going to be hosting the new Talking About Your Generation, his contract with 10 wouldn’t permit him from working with any other commercial television. I have my doubts Honeymoon Island will be a success, a silly concept to me (mixing Survivor with Married At First Sight)

    1. Well i mean, he doesn’t film The Chase on the day (keeping in mind some days are repeats), and I’m sure when they do block filming he could run across the hall earlier?

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