Channel Seven’s decision to schedule the premiere of House Rules at 7pm thus pushing the grand final of My Kitchen Rules back by an hour appears to have backfired with the ratings for the cooking show recording their worst ever result.
Last night’s Winner’s Announcement drew an estimated audience of 1.48 million metropolitan viewers with the rest of the grand final averaging 1.39 million. The winner’s announcement is down half a million viewers from last year’s 1.98 million that was the lowest result up to that time. This year’s grand final number is also lower than any previous year and down from 1.82 milllion in 2016.
After premiering in early February, My Kitchen Rules has delivered an average of 1.18 million overnight metro viewers. This is down from the 1.46 million average for 2016 as this season recorded its lowest ratings ever.
Weeks one and two got the show off to a good start averaging 1.2 and 1.29 million viewers respectively, dropping to 1.1 million in week three. Week four was up again to 1.26 million but by week seven two episodes slipped below one million for the first time ever. Post-Easter, as the finals approached, the audience improved until last week averaged almost 1.4 million for the three episodes.
House Rules at 7pm, by contrast, had its best launch episode since 2014 with one million viewers watching. Whether this result will offset the drop in the My Kitchen Rulesls final ratings will play out of the next several weeks. The result helped Seven to a 36.9% network share while Nine was competitive with 29.3% leaving 13.8% for ABC, 12.3% for Ten and 7.7% for SBS.
Also on Seven, Seven News won at 6pm with 1,198,000 and the first episode of US mockumentary Trial and Error had 450,000 in preliminary numbers.
Over on Nine, The Voice won its timeslot with a season-high 1,199,000 after Nine News averaged 1,062,000. 60 Minutes also returned one of its best performances of the year with 827,000 while Madness in the Fast Lane had 413,000 and Lethal Weapon 144,000.
ABC News made the top ten for the public broadcaster with 775,000 with Dr Who that followed up slightly from last week to 473,000. New Grantchester also managed a good result with 556,000 while DCI Banks had 332,000. Whovians on ABC2 managed 104,000 for its third episode.
The best that Ten could manage was 341,000 and 269,000 for Modern Family. Bondi Rescue (330,000) and Ten Eyewitness News (324,000) also made the top twenty while earlier, Family Feud averaged 266,000 and later Bull had 267,000, NCIS: New Orleans 188,000 and The Russian Formula One 106,000.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Pompeii edged into the top twenty list with 285,000 for SBS with Walt Disney (220,000) and SBS World News (207,000) next best.
At breakfast, Weekend Sunrise had 294,000 and Weekend Today 254,000.
See Sunday 30 April for a more detailed look at the ratings numbers in the Media Spy forums.
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