The Rundown: Love Island booze ban; ratings winners and losers

Love Island contestants are stopped from getting “hammered” by a strict one drink a day limit and there’s a very practical reason.

Love Island contestants faced a one alcoholic drink limit. Picture: Channel 9

A booze ban has seen one of Australia’s raunchiest reality shows become an almost ‘dry’ space.

Contestants on the hook up and break up series Love Island Australia have been put on a strict one alcoholic drink a day rule.

The edict ensures the show is a drunk free zone.

“They (Islanders) get one drink a day and that is so they make good decisions, because we are not one of those ‘get them hammered’ type of shows,” Love Island Australia’s executive producer Alex Mavroidakis said.

“We want them to look amazing and we want them to make smart decisions, so you will never see a drunk person on Love Island.”

Contestants may have been dashing for the pub when filming ended. Picture: Channel 9

The one drink a day rule makes ex-Married At First Sight star turned Love Island attention grabber Al Perkins’ decision to do a shoey – fill a shoe with beer and drink it – a bit of a waste of his limited supply of alcohol.

Apart from making good decisions, another reason for the booze minimisation policy is the pace of filming.

“We shoot an episode a day and we cut an episode a day, it is a daily cycle for us and in order for that to happen they can’t be hung over, they can’t make stupid decisions, they can’t have physical fights, they can’t scream and shout at each other,” Mavroidakis said of the Channel 9 dating show.

“Our show is about love and LOLs. We want people to laugh and enjoy the romance and look at lots of hot people: that is Love Island.”

Hosted by Sophie Monk, Love Island Australia was filmed in Spain earlier this year.

Sunday Project revamp after Lisa’s departure

The departure of Lisa Wilkinson and Carrie Bickmore from The Project will give Channel 10 the chance to freshen up the show and by the look of average monthly viewing figures perhaps 10’s focus will be on tweaking The Sunday Project.

The five capital city overnight average audience figures for each half-hour of The Sunday Project, averaged by month, show a curious downward trend.

In July this year the show averaged 240,000 capital city overnight viewers for its 6.30pm half-hour and 355,000 for its 7pm half-hour. Ten said the figures were 240,000 and 359,000.

In August the average was 227,000 for the first half-hour and 330,000 for the second half-hour. Ten supplied figures of 228,000 and 331,000.

September saw an average of 218,000 viewers for the 6.30pm timeslot and 277,000 for the 7pm timeslot. Ten said the numbers were 218,000 and 279,000.

The show cooled further in October with 197,000 for the 6.30pm portion of the show and 249,000 for the 7pm half-hour. Ten said the average for the month was 198,000 and 250,000.

Now part way through November, the show is averaging 190,000 five city overnight viewers for the 6.30pm half-hour and 237,000 for the 7pm half-hour.

The Sunday Project has certainly not been helped by Ten’s recent Sunday’s prime time product, such as The Traitors, failing to fire.

Also, historically, viewing numbers across all networks decline outside of winter.

The Sunday Project is going nowhere, with Ten committed to the show having a Sunday presence, but maybe the chance to make changes to the panel has come at an opportune time.

The Project is the youngest skewing news and current affairs show on television with 49% of its audience under the age of 50 and across all platforms it is claimed it reaches 6.2 million Australians every month.

Too foxy for viewers

Was running the two Kath & Kim specials over consecutive nights too much of a good thing for viewers?

Channel 7 loaded its Kath & Kim 20th anniversary shows into Sunday and Monday of this week.

The Sunday offering, Kath & Kim: Our Effluent Life, scored an impressive 786,000 metro viewers, but Monday’s special, Kath & Kim: 20 Preposterous Years, surprisingly dropped substantially, pulling 506,000 metro viewers.

The second Kath & Kim special shed viewers after a successful first night.

Seven is playing the nostalgia card heavily this week.

Tonight’s step back in time celebrates Paul Hogan. The Roast of Paul Hogan was filmed at Crown earlier this year and features Shane Jacobson, Shaun Micallef, Tom Gleeson, Steve Vizard, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, John Paul Young and Ernie Dingo.

Roasts, where good-natured insults and jokes are hurled at the guest of honour, are more popular in America than Australia.

Infamously Channel 9 ‘roasted’ Molly Meldrum in the early 2000s which resulted in a letter of apology being sent to guests who were offended by the grubby nature of some of the tributes to the music guru.

Battle of the TV newsreaders

After more than a decade of playing second best, Seven News has won the ratings year in Melbourne, dethroning rival Nine.

The Seven nightly news team led by Peter Mitchell has won the evening battle of the bulletins 32 weeks out of 39 so far during this year’s official TV ratings period.

The lead over 9 in the nightly news war for 2022 is insurmountable.

The last time Seven won the Melbourne news battle was in 2011.

“It has been a fantastic year for us all and we are absolutely thrilled about it,” Mitchell said.

“We have assembled a fantastic team of presenters and reporters and have an incredible behind the scenes team. It is all their hard work and professionalism that is being rewarded.

“I am so incredibly proud and humbled to be a part of the team. This has been a huge news year.

“The win is wonderful but we take nothing for granted, we have to work even harder next year.”

Mitchell, who has presented Seven’s Melbourne news for 22 years, said he was not going anywhere soon.

“I plan on sticking around for some time yet,” he said.

“I have not reached retirement age quite yet. It will happen, one day I will ride off into the sunset, but I just don’t know when that will be.”