Seven’s Olivia Newton-John biopic Olivia: Hopelessly Devoted To You debuted to a rather disappointing 735,000 last night.
However, its viewer numbers were overshadowed by criticism of the show, namely Delta Goodrem’s lead performance that was labelled as “awful”, “debacle” and “so bad” that “Olivia must be cringing”.
Others took to social media to describe the two-part series as “dodgy” and “cheap”, while one compared it to “a dramatic reading of Olivia Newton John’s Wikipedia page”.
Still, bad reviews aside, Seven still won Sunday night snaring 31.6 per cent of the eyeballs. Nine managed a neat 29 per cent, Ten had 16.6 per cent, the ABC 15.3 per cent and SBS pulled in 7.4 per cent.
Nine’s The Voice had one million viewers, while Ten’s MasterChef had a bit of an off night, managing only 723,000. Seven’s House Rules had one of its better evenings, pulling 686,000.
In the battle of news and current affairs, Seven’s 6pm news bulletin beat rival Nine’s 1.09 million to 1.01 million, respectively. Nine’s 60 Minutes did well with 872,000, while Seven bumped its usual Sunday Night for Olivia.
Interestingly Nine’s Harry And Meghan: A Love Story managed just 368,000 while the ABC’s Prince Harry’s Story: Four Royal Weddings boasted a far more impressive 577,000.
Over at Ten, its ever fluctuating Sunday Project once again fluctuated with 488,000, while Roseanne (304,000), TEN Eyewitness News (299,000), NCIS (256,000), Family Feud (236,000) were all disappointing.
The ABC’s night went thus: 7pm news (717,000), Prince Harry’s Story: Four Royal Weddings (577,000), Agatha Christie’s Ordeal by Innocence (504,000), Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery (212,000), The Checkout (160,000) and National Treasure (151,000).
For SBS, its best was the Eurovision Song Contest which averaged 210,000.
