Married At First Sight fever has well and truly hit, as 1.154m Aussies tuned in to see two couples say ‘I do’ last night, according to OzTAM metro numbers. It’s the highest season debut on record.
Nine’s reality hit MAFS was the clear winner of the reality TV battle on Monday night, with the premiere audience up from last year’s 1.003m, and 2018’s 912,000 viewers.
Nine program director Hamish Turner said: “We are delighted that audiences have embraced the new season of MAFS.
“The numbers across both linear and digital have delivered above expectation particularly in the key demos we focus on.”
10’s Austalian Survivor: All Stars also premiered last night, garnering a decent 624,000 metro viewers. This is slightly down on the original Australian Survivor launch in June last year (807,000), but considering it’s a new format and timing, and up against a reality TV hit like MAFS, 10 probably won’t be complaining about those numbers.
Network 10’s chief content officer Beverley McGarvey said: “We’re pleased with the audience for the first night of Australian Survivor: All Stars. On a very competitive night, it performed well in our key target market of under 50s and generated excellent year-on-year growth in its timeslot.
“The new season is fantastic and we can’t wait for viewers to see how it unfolds.”
Over at Seven, MKR appears to be hovering on the half a mil mark, with just 517,000 viewers tuning in. It is, however, up on Sunday night’s premiere episode (498,000).
At the ABC, Q&A‘s new host Hamish McDonald caused quite the stir on his debut, donning an open-collared shirt and drawing in 484,000 viewers.
Here’s how the rest of the night ran.
Nine
Nine news pulled 837,000 viewers, ACA did 772,000, while Harry and Meghan: A Royal Crisis special saw 566,000 viewers tune in.
10
The Project did 516,000 while 10 News First did 429,000.
Seven
Seven news had an audience of 1.03m, Home and Away did 630,000, The Chase pulled 556,000 and 911 did 427,000.
ABC
ABC news pulled 726,000, Media Watch did 633,000, Four Corners did 592,000 and Back Roads pulled 578,000.
All channels – share
Nine won the night on 31.8 per cent, Seven followed on 25.3, ABC did 18.7 per cent, 10 came after on 18.0 per cent and SBS pulled 6.2 per cent audience share.
Primary channel – share
Over on primary channels, Nine won on 25.8 per cent, Seven came second with 16.9 per cent, ABC had 14.7 per cent, 10 did 12.7 per cent and SBS earned 3.6 per cent audience share.
Demographic breakdown (all channels)
People 25-54
1. Nine (35.3 per cent)
2. 10 (24.5 per cent)
3. Seven (22.6 per cent)
People 16-39
1. Nine (39.5 per cent)
2. 10 (26.5 per cent)
3. Seven (18.2 per cent)
