Reality bites: Seven loses TV year ratings crown as Nine’s MAFS, Lego Masters scores, House Rules slumps

For years, My Kitchen Rules dominated our TVs — but then Married At First Sight helped Nine shed its bridesmaid tag.

2018 v 2019: Metropolitan 5 capital city (total people)

Racy reality shows have helped Nine end Seven’s 12-year ratings dominance as viewers snubbed its rival’s older shows in favour of new hits such as Married At First Sight and Lego Masters.

In a tight ratings race, the Kerry Stokes-controlled TV broadcaster just lost its crown as the No 1 network across five capital cities during the prime advertising period of 6pm to midnight by 0.3 percentage points.

Nine accounted for 29.5 per cent of the free-to-air TV total evening metropolitan market in 2019, compared with Seven’s 29.2 per cent, with CBS-owned Ten remaining in third spot with 17.2 per cent. That compares to Nine and Seven’s 27.4 per cent and 30.4 per cent, respectively, last year and Ten’s 17.4 per cent.

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However, Nine won by a bigger margin in the more profitable demographics of people 16-39 and 25-54 across metro.

But it wasn’t all bad news for Seven, which claimed the top program across metro, with the AFL grand final attracting nearly 2.22 million viewers.

It beat the first match of the NRL’s State of Origin three-game series, which had an audience of 2.19 million viewers.

Different story at breakfast

Seven continued to dominate across breakfast TV with Sunrise, hosted by Samantha Armytage and David Koch, and its evening news program consistently beating Nine’s offering, Today.

Ben Willee, general manager and media director of ad agency Spinach, says Nine has beaten Seven by “the slimmest of margins”, but that could change under Seven West Media’s new boss James Warburton next year.

“Don’t write off Seven just yet. They have a new CEO who has come out swinging, describing their performance as ‘unacceptable’.

“I have no doubt some very experienced TV executives are working very hard to take control of your remote,” Willee told The Australian.

“So while congratulations are in order for the team at Nine, media buyers still face the challenge of navigating through the many facts and contradictions associated with the battle for eyeballs in a myriad of video formats.

“The good news is we can trust TV because the ratings are still subject to a robust collection methodology and independently verified,” he said.

Reality familiarity breeds contempt

Metro TV viewers were bored with Seven’s long-running food and renovating competition shows such as My Kitchen Rules and House Rules, which had an average metropolitan audience of 897,000 and 704,000, respectively.

Its reality dating shows, The Proposal and The Super Switch, also failed to impress. Instead, they favoured Nine’s raunchy reality dating show MAFS and Hamish Blake’s Lego Masters, which had an average metropolitan audience of more than 1.4 million and 1.39 million, respectively.

Cyrell Paule and Jessika Power on Married At First Sight.

With this year’s disappointing evening ratings evident by August, Seven parted ways with its boss Tim Worner just before its grim ­financial results were delivered to the market, and swiftly appointed James Warburton to turn its performance around.

Warburton, who declared he was on the acquisition hunt shortly after taking over on August 16, has made a raft of organisational and programming changes, including the proposed acquisition of regional broadcaster Prime Media for $64m. He has also struck a deal to sell its Pacific Magazines division to Bauer Media for $40m and offload its West Australian radio assets Redwave to Southern Cross Media for $28m.

Seven wields axe

In a bid to cut costs and overhaul its 2020 program line-up, Seven last week axed a raft of long-running shows, including its current affairs program Today Tonight in Adelaide and Perth, plus Sydney Weekender and several state-based travel shows.

Nine’s strong evening performance also hurt CBS-owned Ten, whose 11th season of MasterChef trailed well behind Lego Masters and The Voice. The cooking show had an average metropolitan audience of about 644,000, compared to Lego Master’s 1.39 million and The Voice’s near 1.03 million.

MasterChef hosts George Calombaris, Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston’s failure to gain a pay rise saw them quit the show in July.

And with the well-known chef Calombaris getting into trouble over underpaying his restaurant workers, Mehigan and Preston have signed up with Seven to front a cooking show next year, as part of Mr Warburton’s efforts to build the broadcaster’s audience.