TV Ratings March 21: Married At First Sight secures place as Q1’s biggest hit

Mediaweek editor James Manning looks at last night’s TV ratings.

• After 32 episodes, Married At First Sight secures place as Q1’s biggest hit
• Endemol Shine-produced Married ends: 4 couples, 1.75m viewers, 31% share

Nine is going off the scale in the last week of ratings before the Easter survey break.

The channel last night recorded the highest primary share for any channel since survey started six weeks ago.

Nine won in all metro markets last night with primary share over 32% along the east coast and Nine even managed to win in Perth on both measures – primary and combined channel.

Nine didn’t set any combined share records last night though as its 38.0% was short of Seven’s record opening week of survey where its combined channel share went from 38.5% to 42.5% for the combo of Seven and its multichannels during the Winter Olympics.

Seven

After two nights close to 700,000, Home and Away was on 698,000 for the week’s third episode.

My Kitchen Rules went to the Elimination House. Davide & Marco cooked reasonably well but they couldn’t match the talents of Kim & Suong, who scored perfect 10s from Pete and Manu for the first two courses.

The MKR audience was 936,000 after 963,000 a week ago. The ep held up reasonably well considering the viewing attraction elsewhere.

The 2010 spy thriller Salt followed on 238,000.

Nine

After two nights over 900,000, A Current Affair was on 901,00 last night with its best week so far this year. Leila McKinnon was hosting, Martin King reported on James Packer’s resignation and there was a preview of the final Married At First Sight.

The final Married At First Sight featured an almost forensic examination of all the different relationships. As the series ended, three of the original couples survived, with another two finding love with other spouses. The series has been the #1 program for six of its eight weeks on air. The first episode did 914,000 and the audience dipped to 835,000 on its first Sunday, but that grew to 1.35m a week later and the series was flying high.

Talking Married set a new audience high for 9Life with 342,000.

Viewers in NRL markets then saw an episode of 20 To 1 with 302,000 watching.

AFL markets got The Footy Show a night early with 363,000 from three metro capitals – an improved 250,000 in Melbourne.

TEN

Viewers heard Steve Price plugging his forthcoming musical appearance again on The Project. Courtney Act was on the panel and guests included Mark Webber at the Melbourne GP track at Albert Park. Wednesday started on 266,000 and grew to 442,000 after 7pm.

Bondi Rescue returned for a second evening with four episodes now over two nights. After both were over 300,000 on Tuesday, the midweek numbers were 264,000 and 273,000.

Graham Norton then did 234,000 and then This Is Us was on just 135,000.

ABC

The Wednesday audience numbers took off last week – were the programs able to sustain those numbers?

Among the experts on Hard Quiz was one who specialised in Weird Al! After 636,000 last week, the episode last night was on 608,000.

Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell then also did 608,000 after 667,000 a week ago.

The new comedy Sando from production house Jungle did 427,000 after Squinters did 328,000 in the slot a week ago.

SBS

Great Continental Rail Journeys crossed Germany from the Black Forest to Hanover. After the channel’s biggest audience of 281,000 a week ago, the German train rides did 245,000.

Episode three of Safe Harbour then did a disappointing 138,000.

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