Departed contestants return as MAFS pulls 1.1m metro viewers, The Cube falls further
The stories of Nine and Ten’s two tentpole Wednesday night programs could hardly be more contradictory, as Married at First Sight (MAFS) continued to pull big numbers overnight while The Cube fell to another new low.
An average of 1.100 million metro viewers tuned into MAFS as Bryce’s secret girlfriend was confirmed on the girl’s night out, during an episode that also saw brides and grooms who had left the experience make a surprise return.
MAFS was the most-watched program of the night and the only one to crack the 1 million metro viewer mark. It also took out all three key advertising demos: People 16-39, People 18-49, and People 25-54.
The show has recently received some negative coverage about the treatment of certain participants, and a petition with several thousand names, prompting network executive producer of Married of First Sight, John Walsh, to issue a statement.
“The petition in question does not reflect the nature of Bryce and Melissa’s relationship and at no time did Endemol Shine Australia or Nine consider Bryce and Melissa’s relationship to be characterised by domestic violence or the like.
“We have very rigorous processes in place to protect all participants in the experiment. All participants have access to the show psychologist during filming, broadcast and once the program has ended. Nine also provides an additional service for participants should they like or need further individual and confidential psychological support.”
Over on Ten, The Cube with Andy Lee dropped to an average of 299,000 metro viewers, the lowest since it first aired. The show placed 19th overall among metro viewers.
Also in primetime, Seven’s offering of Highway Patrol took in 346,000 metro viewers.
The ABC kept up its strong run of performances on Wednesday nights, with Hard Quiz airing to 653,000 metro viewers and Fisk bringing in 561,000 metro viewers. Another 543,000 watched The Weekly with Charlie Pickering.
Among news offerings, Nine won out with 971,000 metro viewers tuning into its flagship Nine News bulletin, ahead of Seven News with 933,000 metro viewers, and ABC News which aired to 679,000 metro viewers.
Nine easily won the night with a comprehensive 35% in the network share stakes, ahead of Seven (23.2%), ABC (18.7%) and Ten (16.1%).
The most-watched multi-channel of Wednesday night was 10Bold.
Got a tip?
Zanda Wilson was a reporter and podcast producer at Mumbrella, specialising in radio reporting. He left Mumbrella in September 2021.
Linkedin