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2.58m: Underbelly sets new record

Underbelly's prequel breaks viewing records as the highest series launch since the introduction of People Meters, nabbing a huge 2.58m viewers.

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ubelly99The premiere of Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities soared past 2.5m viewers last night, rewriting the record books in the process.

The first hour averaged 2.58m viewers, while the second hour kept up the pace at 2.41m. It won all demographic groups and peaked at 2.8m.

So You Think You Can Dance Australia and Desperate Housewives both hovered around the 1m mark while Good News Week struggled on 761,000.

Nine’s share for the evening was a huge 39.5% share.

Underbelly now becomes the highest rated Australian series launch since the introduction of OzTAM People Meters in 2001.

Kath & Kim’s premiere episode on Seven took 2.52m in 2007 while Always Greener premiered to 2m in 2001.

The highest figure achieved for any Packed to the Rafters episode is 2.06m.

The glory for Nine’s drama is sweet after it was denied a national audience for its 2008 premiere, following legal battles in Victoria.

Meanwhile News continues to draw Australians to their screens, compelled by scenes from the disastrous bushfires.

Seven News was first with 1.73m viewers, although in Melbourne Nine News took 557,000 viewers ahead of Seven’s 440,000 and TEN’s 432,000. ABC had 409,000.

Nine now has two nights under its belt in the first week of ratings with a sizeable lead (36.8%) over its rivals (Seven: 27.3%, TEN: 17.7%) . Seven is bound to narrow that lead with its Tuesday line-up.

Week 7

53 Responses

  2. you all have to remember… its based on true events!!!
    the show is a drama!.
    i live in griffith and i know what really happened….
    some things didnt happen but thats what a drama is all about. to grab your attention.
    the way it was edited… great job!!

  3. Wonderful result for television.

    LOL @ Jean with the Obi Wan Kenobi remark – IIRC season 1 (which I didn’t see being in Victoria and all) had a bit of that ESP going on as well.

  4. Very happy to see Aussie drama doing so well.
    I enjoyed the premiere. My only criticism would be the casting of Matthew Newton. I don’t find him remotely convincing (and his NZ accent is terrible). I’ll definitely continue to watch anyway.
    I flicked over to GNW in the ad breaks. Would love to have seen it in full. Seemed like a cracker of an episode.

  6. Nine Melbourne made a big deal in almost every Underbelly ad break last night to pump their news. I hope this means they will start to take news seriously (again) every week, continuing on from their fantastic coverage of the Victorian bushfires.

  7. I wasn’t sure if it could live up to the “lofty standards” of Underbelly 1, but it did – it was awful, I couldn’t stop laughing which I don’t think is what Nine are after. The acting was ok but they didn’t have much to work with. Stilted dialogue, a distinct lack of suspense, its only slightly more sophistocated than crimestoppers.
    Its almost as if the writers were thinking “this sh1t writes itself”, and it shows.
    And if all else fails, show some nudity and people will watch. Obviously thats what happened.
    And what was with Don McKay’s wife shuddering at the time he was shot? How did she know what was going on? She was clearing the dinner plates! It was like she had Obi Wan Kenobi type extra sensory powers?

  10. I was not one of the 2.58 mill. I am sick of seeing constant ads for Underbelly as well as the in programme ads that arent even related. Whats Underbelly got to do with cricket? I am sick of seeing these ads, and I’m sick of Underbelly. Channel Nine are really overdoing it and I havent even watched a single episode and I don’t plan to. I’ll stick with Good News Week.

  12. nine may win this week with the double ep of underbelly and 3 nights of cricket. however it seems like they will struggle in the coming weeks as 60minutes is the only top show yet to return. nine’s factuals are nowhere near as successful as 7’s and their american cop shows are not as popular as in previous years.

  13. Underbelly 1 was a 9/10 for me…this one is a 7.5/10 but its early days, so lets see where they go with it…Just hope they didnt rush the job to make it for the season launch timeline…U1 seemed to start off better more values into it…. and what i hear Trimbole didnt actually own a Orange grove but that could be wrong too…its all entertainment anyway …and the site of Matt Newtons buttocks…would have bought a tear to Patti and Berts eye lol

  14. Not sure about the numbers but OzTams viewer sample, I’ve heard, is so small that something like this was bound to happen when there is a huge swing to one show.

    All it really means is that 2000 or so out of 3000 were watching Underbelly. Is that about right?

    Housewives and Dance still got nearly 1 million each. ABC did okay too. If someone can explain the system better that would be good!

  15. i agree with jerome. the hype makes people go in with such high expectations is a recepie for dissapointment.

    it seems i enjoyed it more than most people here but i agree that the hype made me believe that it it was the best thing since sliced bread, which it wasn’t. but i will continue to watch it and tape DH. i will be disappointed if the rushed production starts to show in the last few episodes.

  16. I know I seem to harp on this, but couldn’t help but notice the camera always managed to have a nipple taking up a lot of the shot! Do you think as the series goes on, the women characters will become less like porn caricatures and a bit more real? Probably not…

  17. well i can see why people wanted it to stay at 9:30. it’s not exactly family viewing they didn’t waste much time getting to the boobies.
    i didn’t think it was anything that great if it wasn’t up against other great shows i would definately keep watching it live but it back to watching DH and taping GNW for me, i will probably have to catch it on DVD sometime.

    i hope DH can recover, its such a great season and the with high quality drama. same for B&S.

  18. i thought it was OK not as good as the hype made it out to be. especially the hype that said it was better than the original. sometimes i think hype ruins things, it sure did ruin australia the movie.

    it is an interesting watch, not worth missing desperate housewives or GNW over. i’ll be watching the rest recorded and make a proper judgement then and see if the critics that said “it only gets better” are right.

  20. meh, didn’t do much for me. i taped DH and watched it after U2 it was a good episode of last night and dare i say more classy than underbelly. i’ll be back to DH next week for the fat kid episode.

  22. I agree David about being denied these kinds of figures the first time around.

    Whether it’s as good as the first is a matter of opinion but I loved it and it’s great to see a quality local show do so well.

  23. “Underbelly now becomes the highest rated Australian series launch”

    it is season 2 doesn’t that only count as a season launch, i thought series launch was the first episode ever.

    1. Tommy it’s a fair argument. UB: ATTC is being put out there by Nine as a separate series to UB presumably because it has a different cast, setting etc. Right now I can’t think of a similar precedent in Aussie TV. At 2.58m it still breaks records as highest figure for an Aussie drama, but I have no issue with your interpretation!

  25. Bah, I’ll be back to watching Good News Week next monday…. Underbelly is no where as good as the first one. ill just watch it on DVD, or download…. Would prefer to watch GNW.

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