MAFS returns to 964,000 metro viewers, winning the night for Nine
The 2021 launch episode of Married At First Sight (MAFS) brought an average of 964,000 metro viewers to Nine last night, making it easily the most-watched entertainment program of the evening, and only behind Seven News for all programming.
That places it behind the 2020 premiere, which saw MAFS gain its highest ever launch ratings with 1.154 million metro viewers, while in 2019 the launch was watched by 1.003 million. 912,000 watched 2018’s premiere, 820,000 tuned in back in 2017.
MAFS did however dominate all three of the key advertising demographics – People 25-54, 16-39, GS+ Child and Total People. Its national peak audience was 1.49 million.
The 964,000 metro viewers who tuned in was up on the recent MAFS reunion special, which drew 866,000 viewers across the five metro markets.
Among the other flagship entertainment programs, the finale of Seven’s Holey Moley drew an average of 491,000 across the five metro markets, while Ten’s The Amazing Race Australia did slightly better with 508,000.
Ten’s Hughesy, We Have A Problem, was watched by 219,000, while the ABC’s Australian Story drew 577,000 metro viewers.
Last night saw the return of #MAFS for 2021 with the show the most watched entertainment show of the evening well ahead of all competitors. The show debuted with an average national audience of 1.255m (metro: 965,000 reg: 291,000) pic.twitter.com/ys1iJ5BIYh
— Nine Comms (@9Comms) February 22, 2021
The performance of MAFS helped Nine to win the evening with a 32.3% network share, as well as a 25.2% primary channel share. In terms of the other networks, Seven finished with 26.2%, with Ten on 17.2% and the ABC with 17.1%.
Nine program director Hamish Turner said he was “thrilled to see Australia once again fall in love with Married At First Sight.
“The successful Australian Open and now the launch of MAFS has given Nine the best start with Total People and 16-39s in more than a decade and our second best start with people 25-54s.
“We expect that the audience will again build across both linear TV and 9Now as Australia follows the journey of the experiment’s participants.”
In terms of News programming across metro markets, the most-watched programs were: Seven News (948,000), Nine News (937,000), Nine News at 6:30 (930,000) and Seven News at 6:30pm (910,000).
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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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