It’s no secret that The Challenge Australia has bombed in the ratings. However, it’s recently been revealed that the reality TV show actually clocked zero viewers in Brisbane.
The final two episodes of The Challenge aired in Australia on Wednesday night, and received a mere 10,000 viewers in Australia, and zero in Brisbane. It’s important to note that ratings are rounded to the nearest thousand, which means there were between 0 and 499 in the QLD capital.
The Challenge was expected to be a rating bonanza, and it’s cast list reads like a who’s who of Aussie reality TV. However, the show suffered such dismal ratings in the first few weeks that it was quickly pushed back to a new time slot.
Mid way through the season it hit a season-low of just 136,000 city metro viewers last Tuesday night, down 60,000 viewers from the premiere. However, the numbers got even worse this week, with the double episode receiving just 96,000 and 72,000 viewers (5 city metro) respectively, according to TV Black Box.
As a result, it was bumped from its usual Monday and Tuesday 7:30pm timeslot. It was moved back to 8:30, with a double episode airing on Monday, and no episode on Tuesday.
However, the change didn’t help boost viewership numbers, with the double episode receiving just 96,000 and 72,000 viewers (5 city metro) respectively, according to TV Black Box. Following this, it was axed from TV and available exclusively on the channel’s streaming platform 10Shake.
The finale of The Challenge Australia aired on Wednesday and The Bachelor contestant Kiki Morris and Ninja Warrior star Troy Cullen won. They will compete on the upcoming international iteration of The Challenge: War of Worlds.
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The Challenge: War of the Worlds, will see four separate countries – Australia, the UK, the US and Argentina – run their own versions of the show, which is known as The Challenge (part one). The winners from the local series will compete against the other countries in The Challenge (part two) to determine the winner.
For more on this topic, follow the Reality TV Observer.
