Shock ratings revealed for Australian Ninja Warrior
AUSTRALIAN Ninja Warrior was a ratings hit when the first season debuted last year but last night’s viewer numbers could come as a huge blow to Channel 9 bosses today after it was revealed how the program compared to the other shows.
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IT was a slow start for Ninja Warrior.
The Channel 9 ratings juggernaut Ninja Warrior debuted to disappointing audience numbers for its second season.
While it is still the most watched non-new program of Sunday night, nearly 700,000 less viewers tuned in compared to last year’s first episode.
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Last night 929,000 viewers were recorded for the show while last year’s first episode recorded 1.68 million, with a Nine source telling The Daily Telegraph the network was disappointed with the result, expecting 1.3 million “at a conservative estimate”.
In a big night of news with the rescue in Thailand 7 News topped the night’s most watched list with 1.17 million viewers with Channel 9’s news program drawing 1.03 million sets of eyeballs.
MasterChef Australia and House Rules also pulled decent numbers last night.
While Ninja Warrior failed to attract the same numbers as last year, it was an action-packed first episode.
MediaWeek editor James Manning said it would have been surprising if Nine were able to repeat the launch figures again.
“Last year it was a real unknown program, there was some excitement because people didn’t know what they were going to get,” Manning said. “They’re very familiar with it now so it’s not shiny and new anymore. So I think in a way it’s a good result for Nine but not as good as it possibly could have been.”
The standout moment of the first episode involved Sydney’s Olivia Vivian. The former Australian Olympic gymnast became the first Aussie woman to make it up the Warped Wall in a heat on the Channel 9 show.
Vivian is now one of only two women who have made it up the Warped Wall on Australian Ninja Warrior after Andrea Hah did it during a semi-final.
It took six seasons for a woman to make it to the top of the Warped Wall on the American version of Ninja Warrior.
A Nine spokesman told The Daily Telegraph the network feels “confident the numbers will continue to grow through the season”.
“There are many external factors which effected night one, including crippling technical issues in Perth,” the spokesman said. “Ninja is a program we are extremely proud of and we’re confident it will again be one of this year’s blockbusters.”