Channel 10’s new breakfast show’s low audience on Monday was just the latest in a string of ratings disasters for the network in recent months.
Channel 10 has been on a ratings rollercoaster over the past few months.
From plummeting ratings threatening The Project, a dismal last season of The Bachelor and yesterday’s record-low start to its new breakfast offering, 10 News First: Breakfast, the network has been in a fierce battle against its competitors for viewers across the board this year.
But not all is lost for Ten, with MasterChef clambering to the top of prime time viewing early this week, and the impending Bachelor season with its unusual format representing some hope for bosses.
MasterChef steadily improving
Channel 10’s tentpole cooking competition had a bumpy start for this year’s Fans vs Favourites season, but it appears to be climbing back up the ladder at the pointy end.
With contestants in Tasmania this week, it won both Sunday (611,000) and Monday night (624,00) in its timeslot across the five major metro cities.
It comes after MasterChef sunk to just 376,000 viewers across the five metro capital cities in April.
The season had bleak beginnings, opening to 545,000 viewers across the five city metros – the lowest premiere viewing figures in the 14 seasons of the franchise.
As we head towards the finale, Julie Goodwin, Sarah Todd, Billie McKay and Daniel Lamble remain.
Record lows for new show
Channel 10’s attempt to enter the breakfast market kicked off to a record low start, with its new morning program attracting a dismal 44 viewers in Sydney last week.
In what could potentially be the worst ever ratings in Australian TV history, 10 News First: Breakfast debuted at 8am last Monday and according to The Australian, it recorded just 44 viewers in Sydney on its second day on-air and only reached a further 224 viewers in Perth, per official OzTAM data.
The new program fills a 30-minute slot previously held by Studio 10, which now kicks off at 8.30am
The show, helmed by Lachlan Kennedy in Sydney from Monday to Wednesday and Natasha Exelby in Melbourne on Thursday and Friday, recorded an average of just 17,000 viewers in its first five days across the five major metropolitan cities.
It came up against Seven’s Sunrise and Nine’s Today which both air from 5.30am with loyal viewers spanning decades. Meanwhile, ABC News Breakfast has emerged to compete with them in recent years.
Despite the low ratings for week one of 10 News First: Breakfast, a Ten spokesperson told the publication that the network was “happy” with its opening week.
“Network 10 is happy with the launch of the 10 News First: Breakfast,” she said. “It has lifted the 2022 timeslot average by 13 per cent in its first week.”
The Project suffers all-time low this year
It comes a few months after a similarly disappointing result for The Project earlier this year, with numbers dipping to an all-time low one Sunday in March while competing with Nine juggernaut Married At First Sight’s final commitment ceremony.
The Channel 10 current affairs program – which was hosted by Hamish Macdonald, Lisa Wilkinson, Tommy Little and fill-in presenter Jan Fran at the time – scored a dismal 185,000 in the 6.30pm timeslot in the five-city metro market on March 20.
This figure slightly rose to 265,000 by 7pm.
Last year, OzTAM ratings revealed theThe Project had lost almost a third of its audience since 2011, sending speculation soaring about the future of the program.
Metro ratings plummeted to just 367,000 in 2021, a 30 per cent decline from its five-city audience of 538,000 a decade ago, making it the lowest-performing nightly program on commercial TV.
In response, a spokesperson for the ViacomCBS-owned station told podcast That’s Entertainment in November: “Recent media reports inferring that The Project will not be on 10 in 2022 are completely fabricated, false and misleading.
“The Project has just celebrated its 12th birthday and is here to stay! At a time when information, context and understanding is more important than ever, The Project will continue to provide Australians with their dose of news delivered differently.”
The comments came at the end of a horror year for MasterChef, The Bachelorette and The Bachelor, which were all once huge-hitters for the network.
With MasterChef results now improving, the network will likely be hopeful success will continue through to The Bachelor’s upcoming season.
Can The Bachelor crawl back to its former glory?
In a world first, The Bachelor Australia will premiere with three leading men for its 10th season.
In May, host Osher Günsberg revealed the trio of suitors on The Project, promising an“electrifying” season with 27-year-old marketing manager Felix Von Hofe, 25-year-old musician Jed McIntosh and 35-year-old restaurant manager Thomas Malucelli at the helm.
“No one in the world has ever had three bachelors and so, therefore, the way it works, the way everyone gets to know each other is very different this year,” Günsberg teased.
“It’s already been fascinating. We’ve been going [filming] for a little while now and it is already just electrifying what we’re seeing.”
It comes as ratings for once-beloved reality show have steadily declined over the past couple of years.
Last year’s finale, in which Jimmy Nicholson chose Holly Kingston, clocked just 629,000 metro viewers.
In comparison, 879,000 metro viewers tuned in to Locky Gilbert’s last episode in 2020.
The Bachelor’s glory days would see finale numbers easily surpass one million.
At its peak in 2015, Sam Wood’s finale drew a whopping 1.482 million metro viewers – the highest Bachelor Australia finale to date.
So why have viewers switched off?
Among criticism of the show’s “tired” format, and the mounting competition against streaming services in the timeslot, the Bachelor has also drawn backlash for its lack of diversity. This year’s cast saw no exception.
Among those to voice their disappointment about the three men cast as The Bachelor was former Bachelorette Angie Kent, who voiced her opinion in a column for Yahoo.
“Last year we had our first-ever queer Indigenous Bachelorette [Brooke Blurton] with ratings at an all-time low … Jimmy [Nicholson’s] season has also hit rock bottom,” she wrote.
“It really makes me sad to think that as a nation, do we really need to get rid of this diversity for the average gamer to tune in? The proof seems to be in the pudding, and by pudding I mean ratings.”
Abbie Chatfield also said on her Hot Nights radio show: “Why is there not one person of colour?
“I’m hoping at least one of them is bisexual. I’m just hoping that there’s something going on here.”
Network 10 has stood by its choice to cast the trio.
Speaking to TV Tonight, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer of Paramount, Beverley McGarvey, said, “Diversity looks at many things, and even to cast the way that it’s been cast, those guys don’t necessarily all print like your typical Bachelor of years gone by.
“There’s whole significant portion of that cast still to come, which will make people probably slightly rethink their position.”
She continued, “It’s about cast and crew in representation and we do feel that it matters, and we’ve demonstrated that clearly with all of our casting choices.”
“This year, we were trying to do something different with Bachelor, even just in terms of the age range, which allows us to cast different types of women as well.
“We’re just going to stay quiet on that and then once people see the entire cast, then they will see that the entire cast is very representative of the Australian population.”
Originally published as How Channel 10’s dismal Breakfast News result will impact the network this year
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