1.792m metro viewers watch The Block give away Aussie TV’s biggest cash prize
The Block broke the record for the biggest cash prize in the history of Australian television overnight, but Nine’s metro viewership of the winner announcement fell for the third year in a row to 1.792m.
OzTam reports that figure rose from the 1.428m who watched the show’s grand final across the five metro markets ahead of the winner announcement, which was down from 1.541m last year.
2019’s winner announcement saw 1.924m metro viewers tune in, while 2.021m looked on across the metro markets as the winners were announced in 2018.
The Block 2020 Winners Jimmy and Tam
The total viewers watching the winner announcement swelled to 2.328m on average when taking into account regional viewers (with a peak of 2.432m), while the addition of regional figures pushed the grand final to 1.901m.
Brisbane-hailing contestants Jimmy and Tam were the outright winners, with their house selling for a massive $4,256,000 – $966,000 over reserve. That left the pair with a cash prize of $1,066,000 – the biggest prize in the history of The Block, and Australian television.
This year’s series of The Block was held in Brighton, with Melbourne unsurprisingly delivering the highest viewership of 679,000. That was followed by 494,000 Sydney viewers and another 338,000 in Brisbane.
The Block’s winner announcement was also the number one show with all three recorded advertising demographics. 836,000 tuned in among 25-54s (48.3%), 739,000 watched among 18-49s (47.7%), and 431,000 viewed the announcement among 16-39s (49.8%).
The Block 2020 Cast
Despite metro viewing figures being down on last year, Nine comfortably won the metro primary channel share with a dominant 33.4%.
Nine Network’s multi-channel metro share was also easily number one on the night, with 41.4%, ahead of Seven Network’s 23.2%.
Seven also came in second place in terms of five city metro primary share, with 16.4%, ahead of the ABC in third with a 9.9% share.
Of the news and current affairs programs, Nine News Sunday performed best with 979,000 metro viewers, ahead of Seven News with 925,000.
Nine’s 60 Minutes also performed well, taking in 841,000 metro viewers.
The second-highest rating non-news and current affairs program was Seven’s Beat The Chasers, which delivered 583,000 metro viewers.
The Block will return in 2021 for the 17th series on Nine, with the next edition to take place in affluent Melbourne suburb Hampton.
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Zanda Wilson was a reporter and podcast producer at Mumbrella, specialising in radio reporting. He left Mumbrella in September 2021.
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