TV networks battled it out last night with the return of a few tried and tested programs, namely Nine’s Married At First Sight and Seven’s My Kitchen Rules.

Despite the mass amounts of hype and advertising, Nine’s ratings were no match for Seven favourite MKR, raking in just 820,000 metro viewers, per OzTAM figures, versus the cooking show’s 1.309 million viewers.

MKR, now in its eighth season, nabbed top spot for the night, however, slipped slightly from last year’s debut of 1.576 million.

Nine yesterday announced its commercial partners for the blind marriage match up show, with HotelsCombined, KFC, Suzuki and Lottoland all jumping aboard for the ride. Despite struggling against MKR, Married At First Sight still scored 15,000 more viewers than its season three debut last year.

The second episode of 2016 jumped up to pull 1.103 million viewers, so no doubt Nine has its fingers crossed for the next installment.

It was also the night that saw the launch of Seven’s new program Bride and Prejudice: The Forbidden Wedding, which nabbed 874,000, still beating the metro audience of Married At First Sight.

Nine’s chief sales officer Michael Stephenson said, “We are delighted to see a lift in the audiences across the board for Married at First Sight. In the key demographics, Married is up 27 per cent on AGT last year in 25-54s, 56 per cent with 16-39s and we expect it to continue to perform well in the weeks to come.

“There has also been a very strong reaction to the program online with Married coming number one in the Nielsen Social ratings and the preview of episode one on 9Now drawing more than 47,000 streams ahead of last night.

“Married has done what we wanted which is to lift audiences in the demos. With eight more weddings, and more stories to unfold, it will continue to grow audiences in the demographics, which is what advertisers want.”

Seven won the night overall, owning 33.5 per cent of the evening’s metro audiences, while Ten’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here rustled up an audience of 959,000 on its second night, snagging second in the entertainment stakes.