With the data hacking scandal behind us, we finally now have launch ratings for Seven and Nine’s next big primetime hopes.
Data for Sunday night reveals it was the series return of Australian Ninja Warrior which took the title for nb1 entertainment program. The launch episode was watched by a 5-City metro audience of 1.040 million viewers. A figure that puts it just ahead of the premiere for Farmer Wants A Wife on Seven with 908,000 metro viewers.
Unsurprisingly however, regional viewers were far more interested in rural romance with a massive 492,000 viewers tuning in for the launch of Farmer Wants A Wife. The strong result boosted the program to a national figure of 1.400 million, just ahead of Ninja Warrior on 1.376 million.
Elsewhere on Monday night, ABC News at 7pm had a national audience of 1.093 million (767k metro) followed by Grand Designs 757,000 nationally (539k metro).
Bachelor In Paradise was well off the pace for 10 with a national audience of 531,000 (434k metro)
Data for Monday night’s viewing was unavailable at the time of publication.
Commenting on the successful launch, Nine’s Program Director, Hamish Turner said:
“Ninja was clearly the destination of choice for 25-54s and family audiences on Sunday night,”
“Nine had a very strong audience share on Sunday night and dominated the commercial shares. The sentiment on social media has been positive and we think the audience have responded well to the Power Tower. We look forward to seeing the show continue its ratings momentum in the weeks to come.”
Angus Ross, Seven’s Network Programming Director, was also keen to talk up the success of his network:
