Joe Hildebrand’s publicity blitzkrieg for ABC2’s Dumb, Drunk and Racist paid off on Wednesday night, delivering an audience of 266,000, which was a strong result for a digital channel.
The show – featuring the experiences of a group of Indians being chaperoned around Australia by the sartorially challenged News Limited journalist – was produced by Cordell Jigsaw Zapruder.
It was the third highest rating show on ABC2 since the channel launched – beaten only by an episode of The Graham Norton Show and a documentary about Queen.
However, Hildebrand was still beaten by The Big Bang Theory and Neighbours on digital channels Go and Eleven.
Dumb Drunk and Racist also gave ABC1 a hefty challenge in the 9.30 timeslot – QI rated 399,000.
Elsewhere on the primary channels, the top rating show was The Block on Nine which rated 1.511m according to preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTam.
Seven News rated 1.302m, Nine News 1.294m and Mastcherchef 1.125m.
It was a relatively weak night for Seven which saw Australia’s Got Talent rate 881,000 and The Amazing race Australia fail to fire on 695,000, 15th for the night.
In the key advertiser demographic of 25-54, The Block was top followed by Masterchef and The Big Bang Theory.
Wednesday’s Top 15 shows
- The Block – Nine 1.511m
- Seven News – Seven 1.302m
- Nine News – Nine 1.294m
- A Current Affair – Nine 1.228m
- Masterchef – Ten 1.125m
- Today Tonight – Seven 1.075m
- The Big Bang Theory – Episode 1 – Nine 1.060m
- ABC News – ABC 0.908m
- Offspring – Ten 0.906m
- The Big Bang Theory – Episode 2 – Nine 0.885m
- Australia’s Got Talent – Seven 0.881m
- Home and Away – Seven 0.835m
- Ten News – Ten 0.803m
- Hot Seat – Nine 0.760m
- The Amazing Race – Seven 0.695m
Wednesday’s channel share
- Nine: 23.2%
- Seven: 18.9%
- Ten: 17.1%
- ABC1: 10.5%
- SBS1: 4.9%
- 7mate: 4.1%
- ABC2: 4.0%
- 7TWO: 3.8%
- Eleven: 3.5%
- GO!: 2.8%
- Gem: 2.3%
- One: 2.0%
- SBS2: 1.0%
- ABC3: 0.9%
- ABC News 24: 0.8%