Nine’s decision to launch spinoff The Voice Kids in the midst of the current The Voice season appears to have paid off with the junior version winning Sunday night television viewers.

The Voice Kids was Sunday night’s (22 June) most watched program with 1.652 million tuning in, according to OzTam’s preliminary metro ratings.

The result is an increase on the 1.533 million people who watched The Voice last Sunday.

Nine said the spinoff peaked at 2.043 million viewers and had a total audience of 2.246 million people when regional viewers are combined with the five city average audience.

The Voice Kids was top in people 18-49 (681,000) and 25-54 (749,000) but second to House Rules in the 16-39 demo with 399,000.

Meanwhile, Seven’s House Rules was second overall with an audience of 1.515 million viewers while Ten’s MasterChef Australia sat in ninth place with 863,000.

Despite Nine having the most watched show Seven won the night as its post-reality programs – including A Place to Call Home (918,000) and Sunday Night (1.246 million) – proved more popular.

Seven’s total share of all free-to-air viewers was 34% with 25.5% for its primary channel. Nine sat in second place with a combined 28.2% with 23% going to its main channel.