Married at First Sight final becomes the year’s most watched show as 1.7m tune in
Nine’s Married at First Sight grand finale broke another record with the highly controversial final episode achieving an audience of 1.753m metro viewers.
Last night’s result saw Nine’s reality television show – which sees couples engage in a civil ceremony upon meeting and then pursue a relationship – attract more television viewers than the Australian Open tennis final earlier this year, making it the most watched show for 2018 so far.
With Married hitting its highest ever audience result Nine won all the key demographics (25-54s, 16-39s and Grocery Buyers + Child) helping it to clear wins in both Primary Share (36%) and Network Share (43.5%) pic.twitter.com/xGmT8BNKx2
— Nine Comms (@9Comms) March 21, 2018
January’s Australian Open Men’s Final between Roger Federer and Marin Cilic on Seven, was the previously most watched show with 1.730 metro viewers.
Majority of Married at First Sight viewers came from the 25-54 key ad demographic, at 929,000 and in regional areas the show was watched by 648,000.
The grand finale cleaned up its rivals in the same time slot, with 817,000 more viewers than Seven’s My Kitchen Rules, while Ten’s Bondi Rescue did not make the top 20.
My Kitchen Rules’ total average audience was 936,000.
Following the program, Talking Married on 9Life also achieved its highest rating episode, with 342,000 metro viewers.
Despite Nine’s prominence in entertainment last night, Seven was able to dominate news, with its 6pm program attracting 949,000 ahead of Nine’s 931,000.
ABC News attracted 757,000 across the five metro cities making it the most watched program of the evening.
Other strong performers for the ABC were Hard Quiz and Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell, both with metro audiences of 608,000.
Network Ten’s most watched program was alternative news and current affairs show The Project 7pm, with 442,000 metro viewers.
The performance of its reality show gave Nine a main channel share of 31%, more than 10 percentage points ahead of its closest rival Seven, on 20%.
ABC’s share was 11.4% while Ten’s share fell to 7.4%. SBS’ share for Wednesday night was 4.2%.
