TV Ratings: Nine topples Seven in survey week 1

Mediaweek editor James Manning looks at last night’s TV ratings

• Nine topples Seven as #1 primary channel in first week of survey
• Nine’s Travel Guides debuts with 650,000, wins slot, outrates 800 Words

As foreshadowed yesterday, Nine has managed to finally dislodge Seven with a primary channel win in the first week of survey. And get this – My Kitchen Rules is no longer the #1 show.

Nine’s Endemol Shine Australia production of Married At First Sight is doing the heavy lifting for Nine with the reality show pulling bigger audiences last night than My Kitchen Rules in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Although we are just three nights into the 280-night survey year, Nine’s achievement of challenging Seven’s first quarter dominance is significant and Michael Stephenson and his sales team at Nine will be making sure media agencies and advertisers stay across the changing shares.

Seven’s flood of emails promoting itself as #1 won’t ebb, yet. The channel managed to remain #1 on combined channel share, Seven News was #1 at 6pm and The Chase was #1 at 5pm.

Nine however won 7pm onwards with A Current Affair, Married At First Sight and then Travel Guides.

Seven

From 5pm Seven remained the #1 destination with The Chase Australia and then Seven News.

Home and Away was just over 700,000 and third in the slot behind A Current Affair and ABC News.

My Kitchen Rules ranked #2 for a change with 1.023m. However, its metro + regional audience of 1.54m allowed Seven to promote it as “Australia’s #1 entertainment program”. Last night, Melbourne hipsters Court and Duncan served up the best piece of meat, smoked lamb ribs, judge Pete Evans said he had in the competition in eight years! Pete subsequently gave the dish 10 out of 10, with Manu giving it a nine. Their other dishes were not quite so exciting – both judges gave the entrée a five while the dessert got a three and a four.

800 Words followed with 647,000 and was second in the slot behind Nine’s new Travel Guides. The Seven drama was down 90,000 viewers week-on-week.

Nine

Although Nine News was trailing across the metro markets, it ranked #1 in Sydney and Melbourne.

A Current Affair was a winner at 7pm with 813,000 and a lead story about a supermarket customer faking bar codes for cheaper prices!

Married At First Sight had its third successive night over 1m (this is becoming a habit) and another dinner party. The program won its timeslot and can boast the biggest timeslot audiences in the east coast capitals. It has also managed to slay an episode of My Kitchen Rules in metro markets.

The first episode of Travel Guides followed which also won its timeslot with 650,000. The show featured all tourists hitting Tokyo. There weren’t a lot of insights for people wanting travel tips, but there were plenty of laughs watching the Aussies sampling different parts of Japanese culture.

Another debut at 10pm with the launch of The Celebrity Apprentice hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. With a cast list that includes recent Nine signing Boy George, the first episode did 179,000 with a finish close to midnight.

TEN

I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! featured Valentine’s Day notes from home for the remaining contestants read by Osher Günsberg. The messages brought tears to the eyes of most contestants with Steve Price revealing a side of him we don’t get to see. The episode did 756,000 which was up week-on-week and helped TEN to its best share so far this week.

NCIS then did 428,000 and NCIS: Los Angeles did 311,000 with both shows down on their series returns last week.

ABC

The second episode of Northern Pictures’ Ice Wars did 399,000 after it launched with 466,000 last week.

SBS

The final part of Paul Merton‘s wonderful Secret Stations did 253,000. Might be a shock for viewers next week with no trains doco in the timeslot.

At 8.30pm Insight returned with 240,000.

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