Seven's awkward dating format First Dates posted a solid second season launch, attracting an average metro audience of 703,000 and a national audience of 1.1 million last night.
This is 10% down on last seasons average of 785,000 but high enough to win all of the key advertising demographics (25-54s, 16-39, 18-49 and grocery buyers) in the 7.30pm prime time slot, although the ABC's posted a higher metro audience of 789,000.
It's also lower than Nine's Married At First Sight launch of 820,000; which quickly snowballed to become a huge hit across a similar target audience.
The show helped Seven hit commercial shares hit highs of 38.5% for women aged 16-39 (29.5% across all FTA shares) and 33.9% for people 16-39 (26.1% across all FTA shares).
The episode featured an awkward pash between Sanjay and Caitlin – the latter also struggled to pour wine into her mouth during the hot date (see below).
“It’s the number one show for the night in every key demo. Young viewers are still in love with First Dates,” Seven's director of programming Angus Ross says.
Last night's viewing was dominated by news and current affairs shows nine of the top 10 slots, including an eye catching Four Corners episode about how Facebook turns private data into profit.
Nine's main channel had the largest audience share with 18.9%, the ABC came second with 17.5% followed by Seven with 17.1%.
Seven told AdNews last night's episode of First Dates is a teaser of how it will crank up the cringe factor in its regular slot after Easter.
Caitlin's inability to hold her wine enraged some social media armchair warriors,
but who hasn't dribbled a bit of red before?
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