Wednesday Week 41 2019
• Gruen debates celebrity endorsements: From George to Carrie
• The Block gets wet as storm dumps on studio week, day three
• The Bachelorette launches up 22% YOY, #1 in all key demos
+Hamish Blake cameo, Julia Zemiro & Costas, Struggle Street returns
• Seven News 934,000/874,000
• Nine News 775,000/792,000
• A Current Affair 707,000
• ABC News 624,000
• 7.30 578,000
• The Project 261,000/465,000
• 10 News First 331,000
• The Drum 155,000
• SBS World News 145,000
Breakfast TV
• Sunrise 259,000
• Today 199,000
Seven
After two evenings close to 640,000, Home and Away was on 573,000.
Bride & Prejudice: The Forbidden Weddings featured lie detector tests with 397,000 watching.
Episode five of Britain’s Got Talent: The Champions did 267,000 after 273,000 a week ago.
Nine
A Current Affair has found an Australian Basil Fawlty who gives as good as he gets in online reviews. The mid-week episode did 707,000 after 669,000 on Tuesday.
A literal storm hit The Block last night on an episode that also featured the charity challenge. The episode did 855,000, close to last week’s 853,000.
After the opening two nights of Love Island saw the audience slide from 494,000 to 357,000 the Wednesday episode was on 290,000. However Nine has detailed how the series is up significantly on last year when factoring in national numbers and the 9Now audience.
10
The Project should have pushed higher because of a special appearance from Angie Kent. But it was still well short of half a million with 465,000 watching.
The former Gogglebox star then starred in the season return of The Bachelorette. Viewers saw Angie prepping for the series and then the love quest got underway with the arrival of the first contestants. Timm started well, arriving with a massive bunch of sunflowers with plenty of opening night drama later in the episode. The format launched with 717,000 after a 2018 launch audience of 631,000.
Network 10’s head of network programming Dan Monaghan commented this morning: “What a fantastic launch for Angie’s season of The Bachelorette – up 22% year on year nationally and smashed all the demos as the #1 show of the night in under 50s and all key demos (16 to 39s, 18 to 49s and 25 to 54s).
“We’re absolutely thrilled with the result for what is the best season of The Bachelorette yet. Angie is funny, warm and authentic, we can’t wait for the rest of the country to follow fairytale.”
The 2018 Aussie movie Swinging Safari followed with Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, Radha Mitchell, Julian McMahon, Asher Keddie and Jeremy Sims. That wasn’t enough to draw a crowd of more than 213,000.
ABC
Leigh Sales was speaking on 7.30 with Michael Parkinson ahead of his speaking tour. The episode was on 578,000.
Julia Zemiro launched a new season of Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery with the wonderful Costas Georgiadis with a tour of the eastern suburbs. The program offered a surprise North Bondi RSL performance at the end for the audience of 595,000.
Gruen then spent close to its first 20 minutes with an hilarious look at Blackmores vitamins and celebrity endorsements. Some of the vitamin spruiking work of Carrie Bickmore and George Calombaris was discussed and the episode ended with a tribute to the former Swisse vitamin ambassador Calombaris. The episode was on 715,000 after 755,000 last week.
The series final of Utopia ended with the usual government department confusion about an Infrastructure Future Fund. A bearded Hamish Blake turned up as a motivational speaker for the team at the end of the episode. He was talking about winning the Gold Logie, but how he felt nothing inside. “What’s the point,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. The final episode did 571,000 after 599,000 last week.
Boy and Bear were then one of the artists on The Set with 129,000 watching.
SBS
Tony Robinson’s Britain’s Ancient Tracks was in the Peak District with 243,000 watching.
A new season of Struggle Street followed with families from various places in the Riverina district. There has been much less controversy surrounding this season. The opening night audience was 259,000, the channel’s best figure for the night. The format debuted back in 2015 with sensational tabloid coverage and an audience that comes with that – 935,000.
