Married at First Sight smashes Australian Spartan in ratings shock

SEVEN’S Australian Spartan turned into a 98-pound weakling against Nine’s Married at First Sight when the two shows went head-to-head.

AUSTRALIAN Spartan turned into a 98-pound weakling against Married at First Sight last night.

Channel 7’s team-based fitness show, which replaced My Kitchen Rules in the 7pm Sunday timeslot, could only manage 816,000 viewers across the five capital cities.

Married at First Sight scored a scorching 1.536 million viewers — the highest figure in the show’s history.

Seven took a gamble rushing Australian Spartan to air to coincide with the Closing Ceremony of the Winter Olympics. It had been expected to screen after the Commonwealth Games.

Seven commissioned the show in the wake of the phenomenal success of Nine’s Australian Ninja Warrior which launched to 1.676 million viewers last July.

Australian Spartan was no match for MAFS. Picture: Seven

Australian Spartan features teams tackling an obstacle course and Australian Ninja Warrior has individual competitors tackling an obstacle course.

Viewers weren’t slow to point out the glaring similarities between the two formats and criticise the commentary from Edwina Bartholomew and Hamish McLachlan.

“Complete rip off of Ninja Warrior,” Steve posted on Twitter. “S*** annoying hosts … cringe-worthy TV”.

“Is Australian Spartan the biggest rip-off in Australian TV history?” Stephen Brook posted.

“Real lack of atmosphere due to small crowd,” Diane Saunders wrote.

Viewers tuned in to see if Dean and Tracey would stay together on Married at Frist Sight. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“The hosts are about as interesting as cardboard” and “be lucky I get through the first show. Bad. Bad. Bad.” were other posts.

The teams of athletes that entered the Spartan Arena — including Two & A Half Men and Unit 5.5 — won praise though.

“The Two and a Half Men on Australian Spartan was so good I was shook,” Jus posted.

A big worry for Seven would be the fact that the Australian Spartan figure was well down on last Sunday night’s edition of My Kitchen Rules, which averaged 1.139 million.

Seven pushed My Kitchen Rules to Mondays to Thursdays to make way for Australian Spartan.

My Kitchen Rules was moved from Sunday for Australian Spartan. Picture: Supplied

The figures indicate that a lot of the My Kitchen Rules audience simply switched to Married at First Sight with its commitment ceremony.

Fans were already amped up to see whether Davina and Ryan as well as Dean and Tracey would stay together.

Ten’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! spiked with no My Kitchen Rules in the mix, averaging 707,000 viewers for its elimination and 607,000 for the rest of the episode.

David Oldfield was sent packing on I’m A Celebrity. Picture: Ten/Nigel Wright

Controversial former politician David Oldfield was sent packing from the jungle.

Australian Spartan is widely regarded as a knock-off of Nine’s Australian Ninja Warrior but only attracted around half the audience. Australian Ninja Warrior launched to 1.676 million viewers.