The Nine Network’s broadcast of the final of Married at First Sight saw the franchise crack the one million viewer mark for the first time this year with the Follow Up segment attracting an audience of 1.1 million.
Meanwhile, House Rules, Channel Seven’s take on the renovation reality show returned for a fourth season last night with 718,000 tuning in for the first episode, the lowest start to a season so far.
That result is down from last year when Seven and Nine went head-to-head with competing reality formats on the same night. Then House Rules was watched by 791,000 while Nine’s Reno Rumble saw 876,000 tune in. Seven would, however, be relieved the show avoided Nine’s ratings disaster Reno Rumble that could only manage 393,000 on debut this year.
Married at First Sight helped Nine earn a 29.3% share of the five-city viewing audience ahead of the rival Seven Network that had 28.7% with ABC and Ten both on 16.9% and SBS with 8.2%.
Coded in two segments, Married at First Sight Finale rated 1,048,000 for Nine with the Follow Up on 1,110,000 to be the night’s number one program. Earlier, Nine News (1,031,000 and 963,000) and A Current Affair (898,000) made the top ten for the network while Hot Seat managed 624,000 in the afternoon. Later, a split schedule had The Footy Show on 195,000 in two markets and The Notebook on 150,000 in three.
Seven News (1,103,000 and 1,062,000) was the number one bulletin across the survey area while Home and Away had 772,000 at 7pm. The one-off special Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo averaged 690,000 with the afternoon’s The Chase on 639,000 and 394,000.
Ahead of next week’s new schedule, All Star Family Feud over on Ten attracted an audience of 550,000 for its first Wednesday and final episode of the season with The Project Ten’s best performer on 556,000 and 418,000. Also in the top twenty was Family Feud with 523,000. Ten Eyewitness News had 473,000 and later, Madam Secretary had 320,000 and The Good Wife just 213,000.
The penultimate The Weekly With Charlie Pickering for this season did well for ABC with 618,000 fans tuning in. ABC’s largest audiences, however, were for ABC News (830,000) and 7.30 (642,000) with QI (569,000) also faring well. The first instalment of Comedy Showroom just made the top twenty with 486,000 while Antiques Roadshow was next best rating 347,000 with_Would I Lie to You?_ on 328,000.
Over on SBS, best results were for Untold Australia (323,000), Vikings (254,000) and The Story of China (234,000).
In the morning Seven’s Sunrise took the lead again with 331,000 metro viewers while Today had 328,000 on channel Nine. ABC News Breakfast rated 100,000 and 47,000. Later, The Morning Show lifted to 181,000 ahead of Today Extra on 154,000.
See [Wednesday 27 April 2016] ( ) for a more detailed look at the ratings numbers in the Media Spy forums.
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