News

Seven’s Australian Spartan finale beaten into fourth place with audience of just 447,000

Seven’s finale of Australian Spartan averaged just 447,000 metro viewers for last night’s finale, attracting only slightly more than half the audience of its premiere a month ago.

Few viewers saw X Games Sydney win Spartan last night

The show, which attracted 816,000 metro viewers on its launch night before dipping to 524,000 for the following episode, was shifted out of the schedule until the Easter ratings break  after just two episodes.

Inspired by fitness phenomenon ‘Spartan Race’, the show saw teams tackle a set of obstacles to win a prize. It was heavily criticised for its similarities to Nine’s rival show, Ninja Warrior.

Shortly after Spartan premiered, Seven’s programming boss Angus Ross conceded it hadn’t done the job it needed to do, moving the rest of the episodes to the easter ratings break, which runs from March 25 – April 7.

Spartan was fourth in its timeslot, beaten not only by Nine’s Young Sheldon and Ten’s Bachelor in Paradise, but also ABC’s quick turnaround documentary on the cricket cheating scandal, Caught Out.

Ross told Mumbrella last week while Spartan was “disappointing”, he still believed in the show. He also told Mumbrella the network expects to run a second season during the official ratings period.

Meanwhile, Ten’s Bachelor in Paradise averaged 707,000 metro viewers, a strong result for the show which premiered last week with 750,000 viewers.

Bachelor In Paradise also topped all key advertising demographics, 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54s, attracting more viewers than both Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory.

But overall, both Bachelor in Paradise and Australian Spartan could not beat Nine’s Young Sheldon, which dipped to 933,000 metro viewers following last week’s premiere of 1.053m. The Big Bang Theory, from which Young Sheldon originates from, captured 790,000 metro viewers

Although its entertainment line up did not succeed last night, Seven News delivered a strong Monday night audience, with 1.262m metro viewers tuning in. Seven News Melbourne’s audience was by far the biggest, attracting 476,000 viewers. In comparison, Sydney’s audience was 257,000. Seven News’ success result put the channel almost 200,000 viewers ahead of Nine News 6pm’s 972,000.

However Nine’s entertainment lineup coupled with a sizeable audience for news helped it lead Easter Monday, with a 20.4% main channel share. That result was more than Seven’s 17.6% and Ten’s 13.7%. Meanwhile, ABC’s share was 12.7% and SBS was on 5%.

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.