The Mole’s poor ratings no secret

Seven’s second outing of reality game show The Mole saw the program lose more than 164,000 viewers last night, after the network revived the format eight years after taking its off air.

The reality competition show that ran for five seasons from 2000 to 2005 made a soft comeback on Tuesday with 864,000 viewers but the audience dropped last night to 700,000 across the five city metro, preliminary ratings from OzTAM show.

In the episode from 8pm-9.15pm contestants completed challenges in the Blue Mountains and stayed overnight at the fort on Middle Head in Sydney where they were tasked to find 12 hidden keys. Also on at 8pm was an episode of The Big Bang Theory which brought 1.024m viewers to Channel Nine and QI on ABC1 which had a total audience of 778,000.

ABC1 launched live sketch comedy show Wednesday Night Fever at 9.30pm and had 579,000 viewers in its first outing. The show created by the award-winning team behind At Home with Julia and hosted by comedian Sammy J will run for seven weeks.