Angie Kent’s season of The Bachelorette debuts to 716,000 metro viewers

The Bachelorette on Ten delivered 716,000 overnight metro viewers last night, and topped the key advertising demographics of those aged 16 to 39, 18 to 49, and 25 to 54.

The season launch puts it 13.5% above last year’s first episode. Last year’s offering featuring Ali Oetjen had the lowest series debut to date, with 631,000.

Angie Kent’s debut also topped that of Georgia Love in 2016, which had 655,000, but was unable to beat Sophie Monk’s 951,000 in 2017 or Sam Frost’s 2015 debut of 875,000.

The male-fronted iteration of the franchise, The Bachelor, premiered in August on Ten to 828,000 metro viewers, and wrapped up in September to 1.17m.

Network Ten’s head of network programming Dan Monaghan said this would be the best season yet.

“What a fantastic launch for Angie’s season of The Bachelorette – up 22% year-on-year nationally, and smashed all the demos as the number one show of the night in under 50s and all key demos.

“We’re absolute 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 the fairytale.”

The Bachelorette on Ten was behind The Block in the same time-slot on Nine, which had 855,000 metro viewers. The Block also placed second in all the key advertising demos.

With the addition of regional viewers, The Block had 1.117m, and The Bachelorette 971,000.

Both, however, were well ahead of Seven’s prime-time offering of Bride and Prejudice, which had just 397,000 in the five metro markets, and 214,000 in the regions – taking its total to 612,000.

Later in the evening, Gruen on the ABC had 715,000 metro viewers, and 286,000 in the regions, meaning it just managed to crack the 1m viewers mark with 1.001m.

Love Island’s third episode on Nine had 290,000 metro viewers.

Despite its struggles in prime-time, Seven still had the most-watched show of the evening, with Seven News attracting 934,000 metro viewers, and 1.1443m in total.

Home and Away was Seven’s most-watched entertainment program, with 573,000 (907,000 in total). `

Overall, it was Nine’s night, with its primary channel commanding an 18.1% share, ahead of Seven’s 16.9%, Ten’s 15.2%, ABC’s 13.4%, and SBS’ 5.7%.

10 Bold was the most popular multi-channel, with a 5.0% share, but the network rankings remained in line with that of the primary channels.

Nine Network had 26.4%, Seven Network 25.1%, Network Ten 22.3%, ABC Network 17.8%, and SBS Network 8.5%.

Ten’s primary channel, however, did top the 16 to 39 demographic, with a 27.4% share, ahead of Nine’s 18.8%, and Seven’s 12.9%. As a network in the 16 to 39s, Ten had 33.4%, also ahead of Nine’s 24.2%, and Seven’s 21.9%.

It was a similar story in the 25 to 54s, with Ten on a 22.9% share, ahead of Nine (19.8%) and Seven (13.3%). Network Ten had a 30.4% share in the 25 to 54s, again ahead of Nine (27.1%), and Seven (22.5%).

In the breakfast battle, Seven’s Sunrise remained dominant, with 259,000 metro viewers, and 435,000 in total.

Nine’s Today hovered just below 200,000, with 199,000 in the cities. It had 297,000 in total.

Sunrise also won in each of the capital cities.