SEVEN blinks and bumps ratings disaster THE SUPER SWITCH

48 hours ago it was Seven’s big new hope of crushing Nine in the ratings but THE SUPER SWITCH has turned out to be a super disappointment.

With just 308,000 metro viewers for the Tuesday premiere, and 381,000 for the second episode on Wednesday evening, the networks newest offering was DOA.

Seven know there’s no coming back from a number so low the premiere episode failed to make the top 20.

In fact, Andrew Denton’s chat with Sir Michael Caine in a later timeslot outrated The Super Switch with 459k, leaving executives with few options but to bump it.

With so much money and promotion invested in the show it was never going to entirely disappear from our screens but the show has been pulled from Tuesday June 18 and replaced with House Rules: Best of House Rules Countdown Special. Currently the show remains in its Wednesday 7.30 timeslot but you can be sure it will never be back once this series has aired.

The Super Switch will now go in the history books as 2019’s most expensive flop. In the age of reality TV every concept is a dangerous gamble. If a show takes off like Married at First Sight did it can be a network saviour but if it flops like The Super Switch it can lead to a whole world of pain as programmers search for a replacement.

Even a modest audience would have been enough to keep the show on life support, but with numbers so low on the launch night the network had little choice.

So where does the blame lie?

Is it with the people who commissioned it or the people in charge of selling it to the audience?

There’s no doubt the promo team at Seven must take some of the blame. If they are to celebrate success they must also accept the way they sold this show as it failed to resonate with viewers. The promos are our first look at any new show and it is their job to sell us (the audience) on the concept and on the entertainment value.

Obviously they failed to do this.

But was the concept ever going to work? Judging by the comments in this article on The Daily Mail viewers were not buying it from the start.

Seven is full of smart people and the network will soon get over this bump in the road. The network’s share remains strong thanks to a strong early evening line-up and multichannels, but it just shows how fickle television can be – one day you’re a winner and the next you’re chop liver!

*Additional reporting from Aaron Ryan & Kevin Perry