Sunday night had so many ratings stories it’s hard to know where to begin…
So let’s start at the top which was another season high for The Block.
The show pulled out 1.82m viewers, including 708,000 in its home city of Melbourne. The numbers clearly indicate its traditional timeslot is where viewers like to see the all-important room reveal. It was well ahead of Sunday Night (1.28m) and Merlin (872,000).
MasterChef Australia won its slot with a big serve of 1.74m viewers over 60 Minutes (1.26m), Grand Designs (1.04m), Great Migrations (846,000) and Cannibals of the Stone Age (176,000).
But there were big lessons at 8:30pm.
Midsomer Murders ranked first with 1.15m, followed by Bones (1.07m), The Renovators (858,000), Panic at Rock Island (596,000) and Dateline (139,000).
TEN’s new reality series lost a whopping 882,000 viewers -which won’t bode well for the rest of this week given the amount of episodes the show has. Will scheduling back to back reality shows for two full weeks ask too much of its audience?
Nine’s telemovie bombed, losing 664,000 viewers.
But there was good news for SBS as Cadel Evans’ victory ride broke records again. Tour de France averaged 704,000 viewers (for its late night broadcast) exceeded Saturday night’s 690,000. It also pushed SBS’s share into double figures for the night.
The Big Bang Theory (312,000) and Formula One (261,000) did well on multichannels.
After all was said and done, Nine won the night.
I much prefer The Renovators over the Block…it’s fast paced which is a refreshing change to the 100s of recaps they do over everything on The Block. The block struggles to find content – The Renovators stuggles to pick the best stuff
The challenge on The Renovators last night:” Hammer this nail into that block of wood…..” Riveting challenge and suspense filled television!!! As I predicted last week this will be (and already is) a major flop……enough said……
Ten have no one to blame but themselves. It’s reality overkill and naturally people aren’t going learn a whole new set of people when they’re still “dedicated” to a group they’ve watched for a few months now. They should have waited until the end of Master Chef. Instead they got greedy. I just wonder how long until this gets shafted….
If the show was any good then people would have watched. 8:30pm is not a bad timeslot. Look at Downton. It easily scored 1.6m. Sorry but the show was a fizzer not the timeslot. Stop blaming the timeslot. It was the show.
I had more fun with last night’s episode of The Renovators than I’ve had all year with The Block. It’s a shame many people decided not to give it a go. Hopefully word of mouth will help the show.
Ten hasn’t really helped by airing it straight after Masterchef. They should’ve just waited a couple of weeks and let it replace the Masterchef timeslot.
I think the failure of The Renovators last night had more to do with the show itself, not the scheduling or genre saturation.
I really enjoyed Renovators, some of you should actually watch the flipping thing before writing it off.
It is completely different to the Block in tone and style and I would say even the way the two networks choose their contestants is radically different (with 10 being way out infront).
I enjoyed this more than MC last night.
I agree with mike re: The Renovators – it was just too much content for 1 hour. By the end I had no idea who anybody was – at one point I wondered why one of them didn’t seem to be doing anything and realised he was a judge. Too much to keep track of. Because of that, didn’t feel a connection with any of the contestants. Prefer The Block if I was to compare…
Written by Matt Ford. Directed by Tony Tilse, PARI is a Goalpost Pictures Australia and Gibson Group production for the Nine Network.
@Georgie – since when is 830pm too late when other shows regularly rate well in that time slot – ie Downton Abbey, NCIS.
And no, not a 9 exec – since when does criticising a rubbish program make me a 9 exec?!
David, I missed the credits. Who wrote, directed Panic…?
I’m still trying to work out the maths of how many hours they worked each day to end up with 6 hours on the final day. Still don’t see how teams are picked for each reno and how you get down to one winner with so many different skills on display.
I don’t think it will survive the next two weeks if it follows MC each night – just too much reality (and I don’t even watch the Block).
When is too much reality, too much? Right about now.
Sucked in Ten, it would have been clear to anyone that there was reality/renovation show overload. How about making a good drama for a change?
As for Nine and their telemovie, it just looked like all the typecast Underbelly actors had been put together for them to see the light before the cameras with no entertainment value there. Not surprising it came from the same people that made Scorched.
No one mentioned the Best reno seriies on TV Grand Design on 2 it rated very well,
Came home from work last night at 9.pm wife watched Grand Design, The Block, and Renovaters one after the other. enjoyed all three
No surprise here, good taste is never the status quo.
That’s a huge shock for the Renovators it was fabulous. Great format.
Very sleek and in an enormous departure from the Block the competitors actually had good taste, style and the rooms actually looked great.
After watching a few episodes of The Block here & there. Are Josh & Jenna the couple that bitch & moans the most?
Blah Blah Blah. Ratings Schmatings! The only ones who should care about ratings are the programmers who get paid to do just that and the exec of the prod company. The rest of you should go get a life….and a job. Preferably not in tv.
really enjoyed Midsomer – was expecting it to do well, given the first series without Tom
@Paul, the total budget is $100k made up of a combination of cash and vouchers, the challenge wins are additional money. I think they mentioned it in the first ep, but you can see how they are going agains budget on the website by clicking on each room
@veronica- i think you will find most of us are average TV watchers who can sense a turkey when we see one and also have an informed opionion – thanks very much.
Does anyone actually know how much each couple on the block is given for the renovations?
They continue to go on about running out of money.
But neither on the site or on the show have they told us what the total budget is?
This site is plagued by nasty insular industry types.
Bunch of haters that represent a very narrow section of the viewing public.
NJK – failure of Masterchef…..huh?
I liked the renovators but i agree that askind viewers to watch over 2 hours of simillar shows is to much ten should have waited untill MC had finished before starting renovators as for panic at rock island it was bound to flop and deserved to flop stupid idea to make a movie about a disease which infects a rock concert
Channel 9 has an inferior product in The Block (intelligence of challenges, drama, casting of contestants) compared to The Renovators but because they jumped out of the blocks a couple of weeks early they’ve managed to secure themselves some loyal viewers. Added to that Ten’s expectation that viewers will watch hours and hours of ‘same formula, different tool’ programming has fallen in a heap, at least for now. What I do like about the Renovators is the fact that the contestants seem to have some real talent in their chosen field, so hopefully that’ll convert itself into viewers once Masterchef finishes its run.
Brin,
Talking about original formats guess what…The Block is a rip off of a NZ format but still as you are probably a channel nine executive, the facts never will get in the way of spin….The Renovators was great viewing, unfortunately on way too late in the evening….it would be far better off at 7.30….
Ten were obviously planning to give The Renovators a boost with a strong lead in from Masterchef, but that backfired big time. Now they have a conundrum, do they shift to 7:30pm at the end of Masterchef and go head to head with The Block? The Block is just going to keep building from here!
It’s not just asking people to sit through two hours of reality – they are watching the block also, which means last night people were expected to sit through 3 1/2 hours of cooking and renovation – I would rather die.
Also, that time slot is never going to deliver MC level ratings. The young people go to bed/internet and the old people watch Midsummer Murders and Bones….hence 858. Also goes to prove that Twitter does not make good ratings – look at The X Factor – trended every single week…
Putting all of these factors to one side, The Renovators just wasn’t any good. Sure it had scale, class and world standard production values…. it was very TV porn. It’s just the format and challenge wasn’t thought out very well – a 48hr challenge with 26 people, a host and three judges to introduce in one hour!!!! Are you mad? Why not start with something simple like the coffee table challenge that’s coming later in the week. At least the viewers would have some chance of learning who the characters are and what the show is about. You can still have all the speccy shots in that – and you might actually get drawn in to the series.
Someone tell me if they can remember who won last night’s challenge, why they won, what they do in real life and what city or state they are from…
The Renovators is far superior to the Block. People will put the boot into the Renovators… but this is exactly the same sort of comments that were posted when MC launched.
Just watch as this grows into a juggernaught.
How the hell did Nine win with those numbers for the telemovie?
The F1 was fantastic on ONE, those early laps with 3 different manufactures vying for 1st place was the best battle of the season, shame the pit stops didn’t work out for Webber, but nice to see Vettel stuck back in the pack with a fight on his hands for a chance.
Wow – most surprised by numbers for renovators. guess audiences have had their fill of that kind of reality for the year. Have to say it is another large commitment after Masterchef has been force fed to us for last few months. Personally, I was underwhelmed by renovators – was expecting so much more – but its really just same mould different genre. Over that Shine mould now. Not new and refreshing at all. Prefer the Block and My Kitchen Rules – where less is more.
I knew it. I had this feeling it would tank and it did big time! The Renovators was horrible. Bones returns quite well but could have been more. Glad panic tanked too. I knew it was horrible and avoided it like the plague. Still don’t get why people are watching the block though. This show isn’t much better than the Renovators but I guess people like trash like this.
I checked my foxtel IQ, seems it recorded 2 “Masterchef” episodes last night, but only one of them was the correct one for that timeslot..the other was a chopped up ep of the Renovators, which i thought was sneaky… like they thought they could trap me into watching by getting sucked into another incorrectly titled/programmed Masterchef ep.
I deleted it immediately…
I too was surprised The Renovators didn’t rate better. I thought it was fantastic. It’s much better quality than The Block.
Ten’s biggest mistake (and greedy attitude) was trying to launch this before Mchef had finished its currenmt series…. They should have waited and tapped into the same audience that will then be looking for something to watch in the gaping hole Mchef would leave…..It’s unfair and Way too much to ask viewers to give over sit through over two hours a night, night after night, of similarly consructed (pun intended) “dramality” programs. And, it seems, they have paid the price. I am sure there will be panic within Ten today….
I think everyone thought Renovators would do well, hence why 9 scheduled Panic. They surely knew it was a dud but it still gave them Aussie drama points.
Considering the cost of The Renovators, last night’s result was appalling. I can’t see it improving. The characters annoyed me, the judges were boring and it just doesn’t have the same broad appeal as Masterchef
Am bummed about The Renovators figures last night. I thought it was a great show & I usually hate renovation shows like The Block. I appreciated that the majority of contestants knew what they were doing & the reveal of the house was great.
It was trending on twitter last night too- hope the rating get better as the week goes on.
I bet they’re popping corks on the 3rd floor at Willoughby for those numbers on The Block….and those numbers for Renovators.
It will be interesting to see how Renovators goes when it moves to 730pm. I think it might be too late to find an audience by then.
After watching the first ep, I still have no idea how the contestants will win the prize and what they need to do.
I’m also confused how they were suppose to work 8 hours per day but managed to renovate the house in 3 days?
Anyway, I thought it was way too cheesy and very weak. Plus, despite everyone saying this is an original format, it clearly isn’t.
i was one of the 882,000 that switched off after Masterchef- i can not do another of these shows again – im exhusted and have loved MKR and masterchef and some of the block ..but enough already…no more !…stop ….
Well as I predicted a couple of weeks ago ch9 are turning the corner and ch7 do not have a lot up their sleeve. PTTR will do well for them, I think Xfactor will fizzle and the jury is out on DinnerDate & 4 weddings, but it could be a bit of a struggle for them with no DA, AGT ending & no DWTS.
Panic was. as per the review, crap. Luckily there was F1 & TDF to watch. The one bright spot was a cameo appearance by Richard Wilkins playing the role of a dumb, ignorant showbiz reporter…..he nailed it…oscar worthy….
Wow……….bad start for The Renovators- Ten will be desperately hoping those numbers pick up when MC has finished in a couple of weeks. I had a look at Midsomer Murders – fairly boring episode, perhaps they should have instead ended it for good when John Nettles retired.
Nine must be horrified with the numbers for PaRI.
Also: Will there only be 6 contestants left by the end of the week?
Basically, poor programming by Nine almost cost it the night. A great start led by The Block was counter balanced by shocking figures for Panic at Rock Island.
I’m surprised The Renovators didn’t get better ratings. I thought it was one of the greatest reality programs on television. The room reveals were quick but I assume that is because it’s launch week. I’m sure the ratings will increase when it moves to a better timeslot
Ouch! That’s an awful start to the Renovators…I think the failure of Masterchef has hurt the whole formula, even if they have swapped spatulas for screwdrivers. Masterchef will still rate well because of its timeslot and because people are committed to see it out, even if they’re not impressed with it overall. But whether they commit to another show so similar, when the two are back to back, might indicate they’ve had enough.