Ninja Warrior survives for a second run on expanded course

Nine Network will bring back its smash hit program Australian Ninja Warrior for an expanded second season.

Stephanie Magiros on Australian Ninja Warrior.

Nine Network will bring back its smash hit program Australian Ninja Warrior for an expanded second season and possibly for some international specials, Media has learnt.

The network would not confirm a second series is in the works, but executives privately confirm it and are exploring the possibility of sending the finalists overseas, possibly to Japan to compete in an international tournament.

Expect to welcome back favourite contestants who will try to beat the course or improve their placings from the first series.

Its ratings, ranging from 1.68 million to 1.47 million over three nights, surprised everyone — and its cultural impact is set to be on a par with standout programs such as Big Brother, Australian Idol, MasterChef and The Voice.

Peter Newman, head of unscripted content at production company and format rights holder Endemol Shine, received an early indication of just how big an impact the obstacle course competition was going to have on Sunday evening when he allowed his children to watch the program for the first time. After sending his nine-year-old twins to bed he followed them upstairs to investigate some banging and crashing, only to find the pair on their bunks attempting to emulate the parkour feats of 22-year-old Brodie and Dylan Pawson, who aced the heats that night.

Did the ratings surprise Newman the next morning? “Yes.”

“We were hoping it would definitely go over a million and to see the reaction of social media it was clear this was bigger than we thought it was going to be,” he said. “Ninja Warriors is definitely going to make everyone sit up and think, what other areas can we take a bit of a risk on usual reality genres?”

Endemol Shine holds the local rights for the format, created by Japanese network TBS when it first screened Satsuke, the genesis of Ninja Warrior, in 1997.

“We shipped the obstacles in from America and the construction of that set is very expensive, — it is a big part of the budget,” Newman said.

For the filming last December, Endemol Shine moved its production offices out to Sydney’s Cockatoo Island, a world heritage site run by the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust. Filming ran from 8.30pm to about 2.30am every day for about nine nights in December, avoiding summer downpours. Two blocks of audiences would come to the island with the later block camping in tents overnight.

“When you stand next to the course you realise just how awesome the obstacles are — the warped wall is 4.2m and it really is daunting and I take my hat off to the men and women who take this on,” Newman says.

Tonight will be the final heat and the semi finals start tomorrow. Another section of the course opens up and challenging obstacles presented to competitors. In the finals the full course opens up.

Ninja Warrior folklore has it that only 10 competitors have triumphed in the course and it took the Americans seven seasons for someone to defeat the course. Did Endemol Shine make the Australian course easier? “No.”

ATS, the US company that creates the challenges, came over for an inspection. “It was definitely blown away by the standard of the Australian competitors,” Newman said.

Part of the program’s appeal is its refreshing format, said Sian Thomas, head of brand and content partnerships for the media and marketing agency Initiative. “We are in an age of reality shows that have been beaten to death that have a nice fresh format that still plays on the nostalgia of Gladiators and It’s A Knockout.”

“There is a bit of recipe there that Australians love with a mix of entertainment and sports. There has been a large gap in that format in broadcasting, so a reinvigoration has come.”

Culturally, the program taps into the booming health and fitness market. “Fitness has become an indication of social status,” says Thomas, referring to the Instagram currency of fitness selfies.

“This show is a bit of celebration that we are elevating everyday athletes and celebrating their performances, which is a very different take on something like The Biggest Loser.”

This year, Ten attempted to reinvent The Biggest Loser (also produced by Endemol Shine), which has aired since 2006, but the experiment bombed.

Thomas says another factor in the program’s success is the role of women. “Women’s AFL has shown a growing appetite for women’s sport and the program is very gender neutral. That is refreshing to see and it’s not dialled up in the show.”

Unlike other versions of the program show overseas, Nine’s version has a female host Rebecca Maddern alongside Ben Fordham and cricketer Andrew Flintoff.

Adrian Swift, Nine’s director of content, production and partnerships, cheerfully admits his prediction for its ratings was totally wrong. “My prediction for the numbers was achieved in Sydney alone,” he said.

“Hugh (Marks, Nine chief executive) thought it would do that well, the rest of us, those that commissioned it, were not as bullish because you just never are. It’s a really good show and the audience loves it and that is a good day in TV.”

Ratings surprise: Adrian Swift at Nine Network's offices in Willoughby, Sydney.

Both Nine and Endemol are reluctant to talk about the expense of making the program, although Fordham told The Australian it was the “biggest TV show ever made in Australia”.

“Cost per hour makes it one of the most expensive in Australia, I don’t think it’s the most expensive,” Swift said. “It’s the biggest standing set in Australia. In set terms it is significantly bigger than The Voice.”

The reason Nine spent a fortune acquiring the rights and building the vast set and filming the program was its need for another “tentpole” program.

“Free to air is coalescing around a couple of things. Sport, news and those big programs such as MasterChef, The Voice, The Block and My Kitchen Rules that get everyone talking. Beautiful shows such as RBT and Border Security are still doing well, but are not driving the really big numbers that free to air needs,” Swift said.

The four-year decision to commission the program was due to several reasons. “We were baulking at the cost and in some ways we didn’t need it,” he said.

Some commentators think Nine was slightly timid in scheduling the program over only nine weeks. “It was always going to be short run because it’s event TV,” Swift says.

Newman says the nine-episode run was the result of considered conversations about requirements for the first year of a program.

Swift compares and contrasts Nine’s other hit of the year and references the South American soap opera format with a predetermined number of episodes. “Married at First Sight is a tele-novella. Ninja is much more a big sporting event. Ninja is heats semis, finals, winner, thank you.”

Thomas believes the short run was a cautious play by Nine in the wake of the failure of The Biggest Loser. “I think there would have been a reticence to back it.” Thomas says Nine went for a “short sharp, get-in-and-get-out run and see how it resonated”.

“I still reckon there’s a missed opportunity there — they could have got more mileage.”

Nine tinkered with the format and introduced more personal stories about the contestants than other countries. “It is wonderfully real, this is not your confected reality show,” Swift says.

Program director Hamish Turner says Nine is “having a conversation with Australia about healthy lifestyles in the same way MasterChef did with food”.

Thus Australians can learn if they can skip, hold a plank position and do push ups and pull ups non-stop for five minutes, all requirements for contestants before they will be considered for the program. Newman said the success of the program is a positive for the entire industry.