Nine’s Married At First Sight advertising for next season’s singles

Website says filming is slated from August until December this year for applicants ‘actually interested in finding love’.

The first episode of the seventh season of MAFS was watched by more than 1.1m people around Australia on February 3.

Nine Entertainment's popular television reality dating show Married At First Sight appears set to return next year, with a call going out to people over 25 looking for love for season eight.

A day before Nine reports its first-half financial results, a post has been published on the website of its broadcast video-on-demand service 9Now about how to apply for the eighth season of MAFS.

"A new season of MAFS will be in the works later this year, so if you want to get married on national television, chow down on more cheese platters, and maybe just meet the love of your life - now's the time," the post said.

Nine’s post also said those interested will have to be "available for up to four months of filming from August until December of this year".

Nine will be looking to take advantage of the popularity of MAFS with advertisers, as the Australian media industry grapples with the downturn in the ad market over the past year.

Typically, Australian TV broadcasters announce their upcoming program slate at their annual Upfront event, which is attended by media buyers, advertisers and other industry players, in October.

A Nine spokeswoman declined to comment.

The call for the next batch of MAFS applicants comes less than four weeks after the seventh season of MAFS, dubbed Australia's favourite social experiment by Nine, hit the small screen. The latest season of MAFS has proved popular with viewers, generally attracting more than one million TV viewers across the nation's five metropolitan cities on Nine Network.

The first episode of the seventh season of MAFS was watched by more than 1.1m people around Australia on February 3, and was the most popular launch episode of the show since the first episode of season one in 2015. The show outperformed its major rivals, My Kitchen Rules: The Rivals on Seven and Australian Survivor: All Stars on Ten, which were watched by 517,000 and 624,000 viewers, respectively.

With some MAFS contestants being accused of going on the show for fame, rather than love, the Nine post states that people should be genuinely looking for love.

"Another thing to keep in mind is that you have to actually be interested in finding love - shocking, we know. So if you're the kind who isn't keen on the whole 'marriage and commitment' thing, maybe rethink your application."