Nine’s Australian Ninja Warrior smashes the ratings and scares Seven
AUSTRALIAN Ninja Warrior is a ratings hit with a monster 1.758m viewers. It forced Seven to shelve one of its new shows — and tonight, Tim Robards will tackle the course.
AUSTRALIAN Ninja Warrior is a certified phenomenon, averaging a monster 1.758 million viewers last night.
The Channel 9 sports game show grabbed another 769,000 viewers across regional areas to better its first week performance.
The result comes after rival seven dropped plans to launch kids’ talent show Little Big Shots, hosted by Shane Jacobson, in the Sunday 7pm timeslot.
Seven replaced Little Big Shots with Border Security: Australia’s Front Line which averaged 632,000 viewers.
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MORE: Behind the scenes of Australian Ninja Warrior
Last Sunday Australian Ninja Warrior launched to 1.68 million viewers and followed that up Monday with 1.604 million and Tuesday with 1.47 million.
Tonight, viewers will see former Bachelor Tim Robards take the Ninja Warrior course, while his fiancee and number-one fan Anna Heinrich will be cheering him on.
Robards had to complete it while still recovering from bicep surgery earlier this year.
“I had to take anti-inflammatories and PRP injections just to train,” he told OK!.
“I was struggling with tendonitis in both arms after surgery.”
He said Anna’s support mean alot to him.
“She knows how hard I rehabbed… not being able to dress myself and needing her to chop my food up for me,” he said. “She was very proud of me getting there on the night!”
The show has other celebrities in it including Beau Ryan, Adam Cooney, Justice Crew with a good selection of Olympians.
It also paid tribute to Johann Ofner last night, who was fatally injured while filming an “Asian gangster” scene for a video for hip-hop group Bliss n Eso.
Ofner, 28, had successfully auditioned and filmed scenes for Australian Ninja Warrior, but the show will not air the vision out of respect to his family.
“Production company Endemol Shine Australia and Channel Nine have decided to feature an on-screen in memoriam dedication to Johann Ofner rather than show his runs in the program,” a spokeswoman said.
Ten’s MasterChef Australia averaged a respectable 806,000 viewers last night but the cooking show’s Finals Week looks set to be down on previous years.
Ten has the MasterChef Australia Grand Final scheduled for Monday night next week up against Australian Ninja Warrior.
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