• Nine ranks #4 on list of Logie winners, but #1 for Logie ratings
• TV Week Logies: Fewer awards, longer show, smaller crowd
• House Rules gets biggest Sunday entertainment show audience
• Mystery Road wraps with one of TV’s best dramatic moments
Seven
It was up against the TV Week Logies, but House Rules still managed to reach a metro audience of 915,000 – the biggest audience after 7pm last night. It also performed well in the key demos. With the threat of a triple elimination looming, the judges revealed their scores for the first Backyard Battle. Kim & Michelle were celebrated for their creativity at Mel & Dave’s with judge Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (LLB) calling their shipwreck island “genius”. Meanwhile, Jess & Jared’s last-minute design change in Josh & Brandon’s backyard failed to pay off as the SA team was slammed by the judges, while LLB’s brutal takedown of Chiara & David’s zone left them near tears.
Sunday Night then did 567,000 followed by Carl Williams’ Women on 289,000.
House Rules
Nine
Real red carpet addicts might have already overdosed on the two hours’ live coverage from the TV Week Logies at the Gold Coast on 9Now with Shelly Horton hosting solo. But the shorter FTA version went to air at 7pm and featured a three-way hosting with Sonia Kruger, Leila McKinnon and Sylvia Jeffreys. While the focus was on arrivals, viewers and people interviewed on the red carpet were all talking about McKinnon’s shimmering Beyoncé-inspired outfit, or, as David Gyngell put it, “glammed up meter maid”!
The red carpet arrivals show had an audience of 840,000 which was down just a little from 867,000 in 2017.
The long, long TV Week Logies award show did 851,000, down from 940,000 last year. Expect this year’s number to shrink even further after the revised time-corrected number is released. The announcement of the Gold Logie winner didn’t happen until 11.30pm and the show finally wrapped about 11.40pm. The program highlights included Hughesy’s opening monologue, which was as witty and laugh-out-loud as usual. Ignore any click-bait today suggesting he was brutal though. The great Tony Martin should have secured a regular job as the “voiceover guy”, as BuzzFeed referred to him in a social media post. The 60 Minutes induction into the TV Week Hall Of Fame was a real highlight with Gerald Stone, Jana Wendt and all the reporting team over the years assembled. Stone was left speechless as tears rolled down his cheeks and there was a nice tribute to Richard Carleton. It was great to see Bert back on the Logies stage although he should have cut the gags, which were from another era. The music only seemed to prolong the evening without any real highlights.
Grant Denyer’s acceptance speech was wonderful as he admitted he thought Amanda Keller was going to win. With tears streaming down his face he revealed he was in a bad place before he secured the gig hosting Family Feud.
As to winning after the show had been axed, Denyer was not alone. The nominee and winner lists were both full of winners from programs that had either finished or were yet to confirm their futures.
TEN
TEN was the big winner at the TV Week Logies with eight awards. The channel’s smart PR campaigns for various nominees, which also got some significant assistance from the ABC, helped secure those victories.
Going up against the Logies Red Carpet plus House Rules saw The Project on 392,000 after 7pm.
The start of Royal Week on MasterChef managed 718,000 with the show giving up demo leadership to House Rules.
Two episodes of NCIS then did 290,000 and 188,000.
ABC
Grand Designs New Zealand was on 534,000 following the ABC News.
It was then time for the final episode of Mystery Road, which came to a stunning conclusion with a very memorable showdown between Judy Davis and Ernie Dingo. No more detail in case you have yet to watch on iview. The final episode then did 572,000 after the penultimate episode did 525,000 a week ago.
After a doco on film music did 120,000, the channel showed the second of two Mystery Road movies – Goldstone – with just 57,000 staying until the end close to 1am.
SBS
A repeat episode of The Mystery Of Stonehenge did 232,000 at 7.30pm.
The midnight round of 16 FIFA World Cup match between Spain and Russia was on 220,000.
Sunday morning’s 4am Uruguay v Portugal game did 163,000.
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