Ten’s new project 10 News+ thrashed by SBS World News as its falls too alarming new low

Ten’s replacement for The Project has fallen to a dramatic new low in the overnight ratings – and is now being beaten by SBS World News.

Amelia Brace and Denham Hitchcock are the hosts of 10 News+.

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Just when it seemed like things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Ten’s experimental new current affairs program, 10 News+, they have.

The struggling show has continued to haemorrhage viewers since replacing the network’s axed woke nightly gibberfest, The Project, on Monday, and has now dropped to alarming new lows in the overnight ratings.

After just three nights on air, the ailing new program – that promised much and has so far delivered little – is performing so badly it is now being comprehensively beaten by SBS’s World News.

The new Ten program, which goes head to head with Seven and Nine’s established prime-time bulletins from 6pm, has proven a resounding turn-off for viewers, with audiences switching off in droves the moment it hits the airwaves.

Indeed, about half the people watching Ten’s national hour-long 5pm bulletin across the country immediately change channels the moment the network’s latest news offering, hosted by former Seven reporters Amelia Brace and Denham Hitchcock, comes on.

Just 31,000 people hung around to watch 10 News+ at 6pm on Wednesday in Sydney, even though 63,000 people had been watching the station’s preceding news bulletin when it starts, according to the latest OzTam overnight report.

Disturbingly, it was also well down – by more than 10,000 viewers – on Tuesday night’s instalment, continuing the progressive drop-off among its already small audience.

In Melbourne, 10 News+ managed to hold on to just 35,000 viewers at 6pm on Wednesday night, with about half of its lead-in audience of 61,000 switching off or changing channels – while it was also down by more than 10,000 on the previous night’s edition.

The overnight numbers were just as diabolical in Brisbane, with only 35,000 people staying on to watch the show even though 63,000 had been tuned in to Ten’s preceding news bulletin when it came on.

Worse yet, the “local” news and current affairs program was comprehensively thrashed by SBS World News across all three eastern seaboard capitals at 6.30pm.

Although 10 News+ was spared that indignity in Adelaide and Perth, the show still shed viewers at a concerning rate.

The program immediately dropped to 15,000 viewers off a lead-in of 27,000 in the west coast capital, while it hung on to just 14,000 from a lead-in of 36,000 in South Australia.

The show’s paltry numbers come as the popular Seven and Nine prime-time bulletins both continue to grow their audiences year on year, defying any suggestion the ailing Ten show’s fortunes were in any way linked to a general drop-off in free-to-air viewers.

Ten’s new show attracts only about a tenth of both the Seven and Nine audiences, questioning the wisdom of putting the show up against the two most popular – and trusted – television programs in the country.

Ten’s new show has been compared to a cut-price version of Nine’s vastly more popular A Current Affair show with Allison Langdon. Picture: Nine

The program, widely panned by audiences as a cut-price “Temu” version of Nine’s entrenched A Current Affairs, has done itself few favours by promising an exciting new world of current affairs, only to deliver tired stories, painfully stretched out to fill an hour of airtime in the most fiercely competitive slot of the night.

One network insider said the mood at the network’s Pyrmont headquarters was at an all-time low following the program’s “disastrous” launch, with many staff questioning its rushed rollout and the decision to poach Seven reporters to host the show despite their relative inexperience as presenters.