• My Kitchen Rules first Thursday outing wins over live NRL
• Seven wins four of five metro markets as Easter break beckons
• Focus on A Current Affair as it covers story starring one of its own
• Gogglebox season final again lifts TEN share to week
• Stargazing Live discovers planets, but not bigger Thursday audiences
• Breakfast TV: Sunrise at Fort Worth bigger draw than Today’s Inverloch visit
Seven has won four of the five nights of week 14, only slipping up on Monday against the final episode of Nine’s Married At First Sight. Driving the Seven victory last night was the first episode of My Kitchen Rules to screen on a Thursday night so far this season. The show drew a record 2017 Thursday audience and delivered Seven a win in four of the five metro markets, even Sydney where it was a showdown between the home cooks and live NRL.
Nine performed best in Brisbane where it won the night off the back of the Broncos’ victory.
Gogglebox was again TEN’s best as it found a spot in the top 10.
Breakfast TV on the road: Friday – Day 5
Travel fatigue is not only catching up with the TV teams travelling around the USA and Australia, but maybe some viewers. When we saw Sam and Kochie at the start of Sunrise this morning dancing in a New Orleans street twirling parasols above their heads it seemed the USA Mystery Tour might have just been going long enough. Mark Beretta was in Atlanta, Georgia talking about everything from CNN to Coca-Cola while back in Rockhampton Natalie Barr took to the skies for an aerial look at the extent of the flooding.
Over on Today, the program started in Australia Zoo, with Terri, Bindi and Robert Irwin joining the hosts on the set. There were memorable moments too here with Karl for some reason feeding a giraffe with food sticking out of the TV host’s mouth and Tim Gilbert appeared with a lemur on his shoulder.
The day 4 ratings show Sunrise continuing to lead with 318,000 versus Today on 281,000.
The week-on-week comparisons are probably not fair given the interest in Cyclone Debbie. A week ago Sunrise was on 393,000 and Today on 345,000.
Seven
Home and Away was just under 700,000 for a second successive night.
My Kitchen Rules pumped the Seven Thursday share to 22.2%, which was the second best Thursday share in the eight weeks of survey so far. It was narrowly ahead of the first week of Thursday AFL too a fortnight ago.
My Kitchen Rules did 1.22m winning its timeslot in all markets.
There was a big drop-off for the second episode of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares with 223,000 watching.
Nine
A Current Affair was having close to one of its best weeks this year in the ratings after three nights of week 14. However, the program was making headlines yesterday when the blowtorch of media scrutiny was turned on one of its own Ben McCormack. Leila McKinnon was hosting last night and she made sure viewers knew were Nine stood as she promised the show would deal with the case as it has for other similar investigations. The Thursday audience was significantly higher than usual with 823,000 watching.
Nine then went to live NRL in Sydney (217,000) and Brisbane (202,000). The NRL Footy Show followed with 89,000 in Sydney and 56,000 in Brisbane.
Melbourne and other AFL markets got RBT and then the AFL Footy Show. Last night a long interview with Garry Ablett was a program highlight. However, the Melbourne audience of 173,000 would have been a disappointment for such an exclusive. Screened on Wednesday last week, the Melbourne audience was 175,000.
TEN
The season final of Gogglebox Australia did 634,000 with over 200,000 watching another strong episode in Melbourne.
Next best was The Project 7pm with 507,000 and Jimmy Barnes replacing Fitzy on the desk for the Thursday episode.
At 7.30pm two episodes of David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities did 394,000 and then 410,000.
ABC
The final instalment of Stargazing Live found another solar system, but it wasn’t able to boost the Thursday audience. The episode did 461,000 in the overnight TV number, which is exactly the same number the final episode of Newton’s Law attracted a week prior.
The return of The Checkout started a new season on 416,000.
You Can’t Ask That returned at 9.30pm in a longer format with 255,000 watching.
SBS
We had a winner in the first final on The Chefs’ Line when Melbourne chef Geoff Lindsay from Vietnamese restaurant Dandelion won the cook off against a home cook. The episode did 77,000.
The channel’s biggest audience however was again attracted by a Michael Portillo train journey with 291,000 on board last night. The journey between East Grinstead and Guildford might not be on many bucket lists, but it drew a good crowd last night.
Actor/director Craig Anderson revealed much about himself on Next Step Hollywood a few years ago. He was at it again last night on the very different My Japanese Diet at 8.30pm with 158,000 watching.