Brooke Blurton offers ratings solution for struggling The Bachelor franchise

Ex-Bachelorette Brooke Blurton has offered a solution for the franchise’s dire ratings problem, revealing what she thinks people will “resonate with” going forward.

Bachelorette star Brooke Blurton has offered a solution for how the struggling dating franchise can be restored to its former glory.

The Channel 10 reality series, which first aired The Bachelor Australia in 2013 before debuting The Bachelorette in 2015, has copped dire ratings in recent seasons, with just 629,000 metro viewers tuning in for last year’s September finale with Jimmy Nicholson and Holly Kingston, which was down from 879,000 for the show’s seventh season in 2020.

Blurton’s subsequent season of The Bachelorette didn’t fare much better, with November’s finale pulling in the smallest audience on record with just 439,000 metro viewers for the final 15 minutes.

“Obviously there was a time where it was a little bit outdated, but I think they need to start incorporating more wholesome, intellectual conversations and people will resonate with that,” Blurton, 27, told Daily Mail Australia.

“The US one is still very successful … I think people really do love the franchise.”

Brooke Blurton is The Bachelorette Australia, which airs on Wednesday and Thursday on Channel 10

She added: “I love the franchise, and what it’s enabled me to shine a light on.

“I came in to amp it up a little bit, but I think it still has a lot of room to grow.”

Blurton’s casting last year marked a major shift for the network, with the WA youth worker becoming the franchise’s first bisexual, indigenous lead star.

And despite the low ratings, Blurton – who has since split from her winner Darvid Garayelli – said the move toward inclusivity was a shift in the right direction.

“The format originally, how it started … Hopefully it still stays to the core of finding love, and less drama,” she said.

“They should be more diverse, show more normal people. We’ve had a woman of colour, bisexual … maybe changing it up and having someone who maybe identifies different, maybe they/them, maybe someone who has a disability.

“Let’s just be a bit more inclusive and involve more people that have a beautiful story to tell and want to find love.”

Brooke Blurton and Darvid Garayeli split a few weeks after the finale aired in November.

Little is known about the upcoming 10th season of The Bachelor – which is delayed on previous years and has reportedly just started filming on the Gold Coast – but there are suggestions Ten is shaking things up yet again.

Last year’s ratings were in stark contrast to the hey days of Bachelorette, when Sophie Monk’s 2017 season pulled in 1.604 million metro viewers, while Sam Frost’s debut season in 2015 had 1.52 million metro viewers for the final episode.

Elsewhere, the most successful Bachelor finale was in 2015, when almost 1.5 million people tuned in to watch Sam Wood choose now-wife Snezana Wood.