Australia’s Got Talent proves Nine’s biggest ratings folly

AUSTRALIA’S Got Talent has gone out with a whimper, adding to Channel Nine’s catastrophic ratings woes.

RECORD low ratings figures for Monday night’s Australia’s Got Talent finale are an unsurprising but concrete reminder Channel Nine launched its ratings year with a dud format, and should have known better.

AGT went out with a whimper — 908,000 viewers across five cities tuned in to see 14-year-old singer guitarist Fletcher Pilon win. They are the lowest Australian five-city ratings ever for a winner announcement show.

AGT was the sixth-most popular show on the night, trailing, as it has all season, Channel Seven’s My Kitchen Rules, which won the night with 1.418 million metropolitan viewers.

Sunday night’s first instalment of the two-part AGT grand final attracted 575,000 five-city viewers, another record low audience for AGT in a season of record low audiences, and seems the death knell for the show.

The 2016 AGT story — occasional awesome gems of talent, obscured in a sea of ordinary and indifferent — is reflective of Nine’s start to the year.

As one industry insider said, the writing for AGT was on the wall from the start.

Rare AGT high: 2016 winner Fletcher Pilon. Picture: Supplied

“AGT was a bad choice. For more than five years Seven has opened the year with MKR, and it’s been unstoppable,” the insider said.

“You had to wonder why on earth Nine would put a format that wasn’t new, had been dropped by Seven years ago, and was rested for a year by Nine because of flagging ratings, against MKR.

“It was admitting defeat from the beginning.”

Media commentator and editor of industry trade publication Mediaweek, James Manning, was slightly less scathing.

“With the benefit of hindsight, yes, starting the year with AGT was folly,” Manning said.

“The show had been on a ratings decline for some time on two networks and had previously underperformed for Nine.”

It’s well-documented that Nine’s main channel prime time audience is down 13 per on last year.

Last weekend program chief Andrew Backwell told News Corp he could not ‘hide from the fact that it has been a disappointing start to the year’, conceding AGT had performed below expectations and had ‘probably been too passive in an extremely competitive environment’.

Unstoppable: My Kitchen Rules’ Manu Fieldel and Pete Evans. Picture: Supplied

Now, as the traditional Easter non-ratings period approaches, Nine is pinning its hopes on a second-quarter revival to salvage its fortunes. And it’s not waiting until ratings resume to start.

On Monday, it will premiere the second season of reality renovation series Reno Rumble — created last year to take some of the heat out of Seven’s House Rules, and recalibrated this year.

But it will go up against the final weeks of the seemingly unstoppable, and never-ending, MKR, and, Manning warns, possibly then head-to head with Seven’s rebadged Crowded House Rules.

Promotions have also started on Nine for a new show hosted by an old face — You’re Back in the Room, hosted by Hey Hey It’s Saturday stalwart Daryl Somers.

And despite the failure of Farmer Wants A Wife, another underperformer which ended on Monday with ratings of 707,000, Nine’s relationship genre might have more luck with new season of the controversial Married at First Sight.

He’s back (in the room): Daryl Somers will return to screens as host a new hypnosis show You're Back in the Room. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Also in the wings is The Voice, which despite suffering softening ratings in recent seasons, continues to be a big-gun show, with seemingly more legs than the tired AGT.

Manning says there are bright spots — albeit sporadic — for Nine.

“Married At First Sight and The Voice are the only quarter two returning series that are proven ratings performers. Reno Rumble will get lots of airtime but it really needs to perform better than it did last year,” he says.

“The real bright spots come later in the year — the return of The Block, the Aussie dramas Love Child and House Husbands, and the miniseries House Of Bond which could turn out to be their most-watched program of the year.”

Nine has also reinvested in new comedy Here Come the Habibs, which performed well for Nine; and Today has overhauled Seven’s Sunrise in the breakfast TV race for the first time since 2013.

Manning says they are not the only solid results.

“Nine News and A Current Affair still perform well and compete fiercely with Seven. But the news race is always a daily arm wrestle. Seven is certainly coming hard with its new management team and has poached a few viewers.” Manning says.

Also on the drama horizon for nine are the return of House Husbands, with the addition of popular former Packed to the Rafters star Hugh Sheridan to the cast, and new drama Doctor Doctor.

Originally published as Australia’s Got Talent proves Nine’s biggest ratings folly