Kyle Sandilands: Trial by Kyle launch episode attracts less viewers than a repeat of Vera on the ABC
Kyle Sandilands’ Trial by Kyle fails to make its mark on debut, beaten by a repeat episode of a UK crime drama on the ABC.
Confidential
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Kyle Sandilands’ much-hyped Trial by Kyle TV show has disappointed on debut.
The first episode of the Judge Judy-style show had its premiere on Thursday night, ranking the 16th most watched program of the day with a five city metro audience of 363,000 people nationally.
It was beaten by a repeat episode of Brenda Blethyn’s British crime drama Vera on the ABC with its audience of 366,000 people.
Trial by Kyle did however come in ahead of Nine dating show fizzer Love Island with its 298,000 viewers.
By comparison, Trial by Kyle registered half the number of viewers that tuned in to Channel 10 to watch Goggle Box in the same timeslot a week ago at 790,000 people across the five metro city markets nationally.
“Given the publicity blitz, it is a disappointing result,” said one industry executive. “Ten will no doubt program encore screenings and look forward to a BVOD boost. Thursday nights is a hard one to get big audiences and Ten’s Goggle Box has been a major exception.”
Trial by Kyle was commissioned by Ten after a Pilot Week episode attracted 385,000 viewers last year.
It attracted a lot of publicity in the lead-up to the series launch, although even Sandilands bagged out co-star Anna Heinrich as boring in an appearance on The Project this week.
“You’ve got beautiful vanilla boring Anna over there, the criminal lawyer, very nice chick, boring though! She helps out with the legal things … Sometimes they just don’t wash with me and I will go a different direction,” he told The Project panel.
It was announced last week that Sandilands brokered a record deal to sign on for a further six years with Australian Radio Network’s KIIS breakfast show with a rumoured $50 million for the period.
Of the deal, the 48-year-old told Confidential: “The contract was already extremely healthy and I was happy with it. I was more than happy to re-sign but with a few extra changes and a bit of a back pocket filler. Yes it is a remarkable amount of money, but we were already getting paid a sh*tload of money before.”
