Launched in 2015, Nine’s Married At First Sight – one of Australia’s most-watched TV shows – offers a valuable insight into the changing nature of the Australian viewer.
Key Takeaways
- The total viewing figure for MAFS has increased by 12% since the show aired in 2015
- In 2023, 31.37% of viewers watched the show via BVOD
- Despite the shift in viewing habits, 90% of industry-wide TV ad spend still goes on linear TV (based on numbers from Think TV)
In 2015, when the show first aired in an almost documentary-style format, the average viewing figures within seven days of the show stood at 1,694,537. This came from overnight linear views and from the audience who recorded the show on their digital devices and watched it within 7 days of the initial airing.
Fast forward 8 years, and the overall viewing figure is marginally higher at 1,900,444. What is markedly different, however, is where that viewing figure comes from.
| Year | Season Average BVOD Views | Percentage Of Views From BVOD | Season Average Linear Views | Percentage Of Views From Linear | Season Average Total Views |
| 2023 | 596,202 | 31.37% | 1,304,242 | 68.63% | 1,900,444 |
| 2022 | 488,488 | 25.64% | 1,416,535 | 74.36% | 1,905,023 |
| 2021 | 391,923 | 21.02% | 1,472,792 | 78.98% | 1,864,715 |
| 2020 | 396,558 | 19.64% | 1,622,447 | 80.36% | 2,019,004 |
| 2019 | N/A | N/A | 1,918,162 | 100% | 1,918,162 |
| 2018 | N/A | N/A | 1,832,296 | 100% | 1,832,296 |
| 2017 | N/A | N/A | 1,674,218 | 100% | 1,674,218 |
| 2016 – 2 | N/A | N/A | 1,335,022 | 100% | 1,335,022 |
| 2016 – 1 | N/A | N/A | 1,367,481 | 100% | 1,367,481 |
| 2015 | N/A | N/A | 1,694,537 | 100% | 1,694,537 |
Source: Source: OzTAM Metro (5 City Metro) & RegTAM Regional (Combined Agg Markets), 2015 – 2023, Total People, Avg Aud, Overnight, Time Shift to 7, contains “Married at First Sight”, excludes “Encore”, ” Grand Reunion”, “Follow on
Of the total number of views, 68.6 per cent came from linear views (1,304,242) whilst 31.4 per cent (596,202) came from BVOD views.
Interestingly, the percentage that comes from BVOD views has increased year-on-year and seems to be accelerating.
In 2020, when OzTam first started including BVOD figures, a total of 19.6 per cent of views came from BVOD, this rose to 21.08 per cent in 2021, 25.7 per cent in 2022 and 31.4 per cent in 2023.
Whilst there was a 12.2 per cent increase in views in the 8 years between 2015 and 2023, there has also been an 11 per cent population growth in that time; the population of the country is now 26,439,111 vs 23,820,236 back in 2015.
For all metrics – including 2015 – figures include only the 7 days since the showed initially aired.
A change in tone
The way viewers look at the show is not the only thing that has changed since it first aired in 2015. Back in 2015, the original iteration of MAFS was much more like a documentary and largely unrecognisable from the reality TV show we know today.
Whilst this version was not unsuccessful with viewers (it pulled in an average of 1,674,218 viewers in 2015, 1,367,481 viewers in the first series of 2016, and 1,335,022 in the second series of 2022) the was an increase in views following 2017 when the writers and producers shifted the show to be more reality-TV-like.
As well as slightly steamier storylines, this also included adding significantly more episodes to the show. There were 29 episodes of the show in 2017, compared to the 8 in the years before it.
Combined with the lockdown, the show reached its highest viewership in 2020 when average views hit 2,019,004.
Advertising spending isn’t reflecting the shift
These figures come as the industry increasingly debates whether TV is on the decline. At the Future of TV Advertising event held earlier this month in Sydney, Nine’s chief sales officer Michael Stephenson was adamant that linear TV was not dying, but rather transforming.
Stephensen admitted that in five years’ time, Nine’s online platform 9Now is likely to usurp traditional free-to-air television.
At the same event, Radha Subramanyam, president, and chief research and analytics officer at CBS in the US, questioned why we are even using the term “linear” at all.
Despite the shift in viewing habits, according to Think TV’s latest advertising spend report the vast majority of the $4.3 billion that the Australian advertising industry spends on TV, is still spent on linear TV.
Of the $ 4.3 billion spent in the 12 months up until the end of June 2022, just 9.9 percent of the total advertising spend was invested in BVOD, vs the 90.02 per cent that is invested in linear TV.
This could be due to outdated perceptions. Sources told B&T that there’s still a number of media buyers that still have a strong preference for linear TV, even if BVOD produces the same (or better) results.
This, at least, does seem to be a perception that is changing: BVOD spending was up 53.3 per cent year-on-year.
Either way, it looks like the marriage between advertisers and the TV industry is a LONG way from over.
