In the battle of finales, MAFS dominates Survivor

In a battle of finales between two reality TV programs, where one of the opponents is Married At First Sight, there can be only one winner. And come one, it was always going to be MAFS, which last night drew 1.663 million — 1.207 million in the metros (number one in both) and number two in the regions with 456,000. That will end up above 2.2 million nationally when the seven-day viewing and streaming data is released in a week’s time.

Meanwhile, over on Ten, Australian Survivor ended its 2022 season with an average of 746,000 for the lead-up (finale) and the winner’s announcement.

It was Nine’s night, easily, with the second episode of Underbelly: Vanishing Act holding on to its Sunday audience, and in fact adding to it — 1.075 million, up from Sunday’s 1.041 million.

You must wonder why Ten went head to head with MAFS — an act of weak TV programming. After all, tonight Ten is offering The Dog House Australia and NCIS. You’d have to think that Ten ended Survivor on the same night as MAFS just to try and blunt the Nine program rather than maximise the audience for its own product.

Still, Ten ended up topping Seven in the main channels to run second behind Nine, as the Kerry Stokes-controlled network ran deader than dead. But you wonder if Survivor would have done better with clear air tonight. The seven-day data for both programs will be worth analysing, as some viewers could have watched one on free to air and streamed the other (done that!).

Network channel share: