Frankly, it’s an easy sell on paper: Extremely fit people get thrown through an ungodly difficult obstacle course, either achieving glorious success or falling flat on their goddamned faces.
But I dare say no one would’ve expected it to go this well.
The premiere episode of ‘Australian Ninja Warrior‘ on Channel Nine last night has apparently become an instant and mind-boggling hit for the network, with the debut episode pulling in a whopping 2.328million viewers nationwide.
The average national viewership included an eye-watering 1.68million viewers across the five major metropolitan cities, with a further 648,000 people tuning in from regional centres.
Last night’s debut of #NinjaWarriorAU drew an average national audience of 2.328m (5 City: 1.68m Reg: 648,000) pic.twitter.com/7PTWAjz1ms
— Nine Comms (@9Comms) July 9, 2017
To put that in perspective, that’s 350,000 more viewers than the finale of ‘The Voice‘ managed to pull in in the same timeslot last weekend.
It goes without saying that the show kicked the living piss out of its rivals last night; Seven‘s ‘House Rules‘ winner announcement pulled in a relatively-meagre 1.142million, while the incredibly bland season of ‘MasterChef‘ on Ten continues its streak of getting utterly trounced with a mere 625,000 people tuning in. Let’s see you put that in an ice cream, Arum.
Anyone who’s ever wandered over to the wondrous joy-filled funland that is SBS2 (just quietly the best free-to-air channel getting about, run at me) will already be well aware of the format. The show is based on the brutal Japanese show ‘Sasuke‘, and was subsequently franchised out to the US as ‘American Ninja Warrior.’
Last night’s debut episode – hosted by Rebecca Maddern and Ben Fordham with the inexplicably hired Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff filling boundary-reporting duties – featured a swathe of competitors trying to complete the incredibly not-easy stage one course, with a pair of parkour-running twins making the whole thing look outrageously simple.
And the better twin is… #NinjaWarriorAU pic.twitter.com/afekgqRDaL
— Ninja Warrior (@NinjaWarriorAU) July 9, 2017
Yeah nah, it’s cool. Whatever. I could totally do that. I just don’t *want* to.
‘Australian Ninja Warrior‘ continues on Nine tonight and tomorrow at 7:30pm.
Eagerly awaiting the debut of the salmon ladder, to be quite honest.
Again, could totally do that. But, like… who’s got the time?
Source: Nine/Twitter.
Photo: Twitter.
