Mike & Molly’s return offers slim pickings for Nine in Wednesday ratings

Nine’s night of obesity-themed programming failed to pile on the ratings, with the return of Mike & Molly wheezing with 627,000, and Big, Nine’s answer to The Biggest Loser, attracting a frail 534,000.

It was a rough Wednesday night for Nine overall, with not a single non-news show pushing above 1m viewers. The Big Bang Theory was closest, with 976,000, according to preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTam.

With no Australia’s Got Talent, which pulled in 1.9m for the first of the semi finals on Tuesday night, Masterchef broke its own season’s best record with 1.602m, forging ahead of the 1.577m it drew on Monday.

ABC1’s Angry Boys recovered slightly after slumping last week, when State of Origin dominated the evening. The Chris Lilley show attracted 920,000, still a shadow of the 1.369m it won when the show debuted.