The ABC’s hotly anticipated look into the tumultuous years of the Labor leadership under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard has proven a winner for the public broadcaster.
Last night’s airing of the first of three parts of the documentary called The Killing Season pulled in 986,000 viewers according to last night’s OzTam metro ratings and made it the fifth most-watched program of the night.
MasterChef still proved the evening winner, pulling in 1,136,000 viewers according to OzTam.
However, the Sarah Ferguson-led The Killing Season, that highlighted the deep divisions and wholesale enmity in the federal Labor government between 2007 and 2013, showed that quality current affairs is still a winner for the ABC.
Last night’s 7pm news (928,000 viewers) and Foreign Correspondent (681,000) were reportedly some of the best ratings for the year. The better than expected ratings could also revive interest in the telemovie of Julia Gillard’s accession to prime minister. Over the weekend TV producer, Richard Keddie, told industry blog site TV Tonight that he had offered the idea – said to star Australian actress Rachel Griffiths – to the three free-to-air TV stations. However, they’d roundly rejected it out of hand because “everyone hates Julia Gillard, nobody is remotely interested in her,” Keddie said of networks’ reactions to the show.
Preliminary OzTAM ratings, Tuesday 9 June 2015
1 MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA Ten 1,136,000
2 NINE NEWS Nine 1,079,000
3 NINE NEWS 6:30 Nine 1,058,000
4 SEVEN NEWS Seven 991,000
5 THE KILLING SEASON ABC 986,000
6 ABC NEWS ABC 928,000
7 SEVEN NEWS / TODAY TONIGHT Seven 916,000
8 HOUSE RULES Seven 881,000
9 A CURRENT AFFAIR Nine 868,000
10 HOME AND AWAY Seven 799,000
11 LOVE CHILD Nine 770,000
12 THE PROJECT 7PM Ten 736,000
13 7.30 ABC 733,000
