In a year when ratings for most returning reality programming have fallen, last night’s fourth season launch of Ten’s The Bachelor drew the franchise’s best ever opening night audience.
With 883,000 metropolitan viewers, it improved on the 2015 launch that averaged 846,000 and was well up on the 2014 season’s 692,000 and the 669,000 the watched the first series opener.
The show was an easy timeslot winner and dominated the younger demographic groups as well as Wednesday night’s social media. A later start time saw lead out Offspring lose audience last night but still give Ten another timeslot win.
Ten’s main channel was in number one place while Seven’s network share of 26.4% put it in the number one spot overall. Nine grabbed 24.7%, Ten had 23.4%, ABC 17.4% and SBS 8.2%. Ten dominated the three younger demographic groups ranging from 30.3% of 25-54 year-olds to 38.9% of the 16-39 age bracket.
At 6pm Seven News was number one with 1,048,000 and again at 6.30pm with 964,000. Home and Away was steady with 726,000 but Border Security (699,000) and The Force – Behind the Line (684,000) lost ground this week. Later, Criminal Minds averaged 619,000 and Criminal Minds: Beyond Border had 323,000. In the afternoon, The Chase rated 630,000 and 329,000.
Nine News (1,007,000 and 952,000) was best for its network while A Current Affair was number one at 7pm with 808,000, however, at 7.30pm the network slipped to fourth with RBT on 570,000. A split schedule then saw The Footy Show (190,000) shown in NRL markets and a movie The Hunger Games elsewhere with 180,000 while the afternoon’s Hot Seat had 574,000. .
Over on Ten, The Bachelor (883,000) and Offspring (724,000) made the top ten with The Project next best for the network with 685,000 and 472,000. Earlier, Family Feud had 575,000 and Ten Eyewitness News 523,000 and later Madam Secretary had 192,000.
ABC’s line up included ABC News (798,000) and 7.30 (749,000) in the top ten while the season final of Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell averaged 710,000, its second best number for 2016. QI was up this week with 612,000 watching while Catherine Tate’s Nan managed just 304,000 and Adama Hills The Last Leg had 254,000.
The first episode in the Roots min-series remake managed 320,000 for SBS while Flying Scotsman with Robson Green was next best with 269,000.
In the breakfast TV battle, Sunrise (311,000) came out on top of Today (299,000) and ABC News Breakfast on 94,000 and 50,000. Later, The Morning Show averaged 158,000 on Seven while Today Extra had 124,000 and Studio 10 saw 101,000 tune in.
See [Wednesday 27 July 2016] (http://forums.mediaspy.org/t/wednesday-27-july-2016/1620) for a more detailed look at the ratings numbers in the Media Spy forums.
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