Reality juggernaut Married at First Sight has given Nine its best start to the TV ratings year in OzTAM history.
Monday night’s Married at First Sight finale drew a national TV audience of 2.611 million (5 City: 1.968 million / Regional: 643,000).
This figure was up 8.3% on last year’s finale which had overnight figures of 2.411 million (5 City: 1.761 million / Regional: 650,000)
The reunion dinner party on Sunday night also delivered a significant audience of 2.447 million (5 City: 1.857 million/Regional: 590,000), with an additional 58,000 devices live streaming it on 9Now.
The show has also been hugely successful online. Across all platforms Married at First Sight’s total cross-platform average audience (across consolidated 7, encore and rolling VPM) came in at more than 2.58m people per episode.
Married At First Sight has been an unprecedented success for NINE in 2019, guiding the network to win the first seven weeks of the ratings year. The ‘After Easter’ schedule could be a very different story however with NINE relying on the somewhat tired THE VOICE format, and an untested LEGO MASTERS to continue momentum.
With MAFS only airing 3 episodes last week, SEVEN was able to record its first weekly win. This week is expected to be a similar story, and SEVEN remains confident by the end of the year it will continue to hold the title of Australia’s Nb1 network.
“Married at First Sight has dominated the national conversation in a way no other TV show can,” said Hamish Turner, Nine’s Program Director. “We’ve again seen significant growth YOY in live linear across all the key demos, as well as live, digital and catch-up viewing through the 9Now platform where you have multiple episodes delivering averages of over 400,000 viewers.
“MAFS is both a television and a digital powerhouse with strong engagement across all platforms.”
Apart from the finale and final dinner party the most watched episode of the season was Episode 33, in which the scandal involving Jessika and Dan was revealed. Highlighting Married at First Sight’s true nature as a cross-platform juggernaut, this episode had an overnight audience of 2.27 million (5 City: 1.686 million / Regional: 585,000), and achieved a live VPM (Video Player Measurement) of 46,000. To date, the video-on-demand VPM has grown to 311,000.
9Honey’s MAFS-related TV show, Talking Married, also delivered strong audiences on 9Life. Monday’s finale episode ranked among the highest rating programs on the multi-channel, with an overnight audience of 429,000 (5 City: 315,000 / Regional: 114,000).
