Despite a flurry of criticism from Twitter, and despite B&T lambasting the show for producing dismal ratings early on, Seven has nabbed a sweet slice of ratings pie with its Zumbo’s Just Desserts, which overnight was the most watched entertainment program.
Landing in fifth spot, behind both Seven and Nine news programs, Zumbo snaffled 880,000 metro viewers, according to OzTAM preliminary overnight figures.
Seven took the cake ahead of Nine’s Married at First Site (810,000) and The Block (792,000), as well as Ten’s Australian Survivor (728,000).
Yes, it seems B&T was too quick to judge the cake by its icing, predicting the show wouldn’t work in a later time slot, while the pre-records would mean it’s probably too late to meddle with the format.
Zumbo’s Just Desserts debuted to an audience of 1.08 million watching live on free-to-air, but subsequently shed a whopping 250,000 viewers on its second airing to 830,000, as viewers slammed the show as “achingly boring” and “drab, drudging, dull, flat, ho hum, insipid, irksome, lifeless, monotonous, mundane, uninteresting, vapid” (yes, that was all in one tweet).
The third instalment attracted just 734,000 metro viewers, but it appears third time’s the charm, and like a cake baking in the oven, it’s enjoyed a rise in ratings ever since.
Having stemmed the tide, it’s safe to say Zumbo appears to have found its audience and, hopefully, may attract more viewers as the show culls contestants and moves towards the finals.
Despite losing out overall to Seven’s six programs for the night, Nine still managed a good shout with an equal six of its shows making it into the top 20 programs, albeit with lower ratings.
