Renovation reality program, The Block, has named the sponsors for its 18th season, which debuted last week on Nine and 9Now.
With the tree change series undertaking its biggest build yet, with five houses each on 10 acre blocks – as well as Scott Cam’s renovation of a 1866 homestead property – there are 11 brands returning as major partners, including The a2 Milk Company, BlueScope Steel, Catch.com.au, Domain, Ford, hipages, McCafé, Mitre 10, Simonds Homes, Suncorp and Xero.
Michael Stephenson, Nine’s chief sales officer, says The Block is the biggest show on television for brands.
“There is no other show on television that provides a platform for brands to tell their stories like The Block, and this year Powered have created even more big ideas for our sponsors to make their brands famous,” said Stephenson. “This year the show is massive, we have audience growth in linear, live streaming and on demand making The Block a total television powerhouse.”
In its first week, the series attracted an overnight national average audience of 1.352 million across the four episodes in Total TV (812,000 metro/ 340,000 regional/ 200,000 Live + VOD) – up 29% year-on-year.
See more: Nine’s Hamish Turner talks The Block and the future of BVOD
As viewers have seen in last week’s episodes, the Blockheads need all the help they can get, and with hipages also returning to the series, it means sourcing tradies has become more crucial than ever.
With a focus on sustainability, resilience and off-the-grid energy source in all the builds this season, partners Suncorp and Red Earth Energy Storage are helping to keep the environment at the forefront of the series.
Suncorp extends their partnership to include both Bank and Insurance brands – to encourage the Blockheads to implement resilient measures to their properties such as building materials, while Red Earth Energy Storage are providing solar panels and battery energy storage systems to power the entire Block site through sunlight.
The Block continues tonight at 7.30pm on Channel 9 and 9Now.