Nine's second episode of Australian Ninja Warrior season two has won in all key demographics overnight, taking out the top spot with 831,000 metro viewers.
Despite winning the timeslot for the second night in the row, the show slid below prior benchmarks once again, dropping off by close to 100,000 viewers.
The Nine show narrowly defeated rival Ten's MasterChef by 1000 viewers, as the reality cooking show pulled an audience of 830,000.
Nine program director Hamish Turner told AdNews, that while the show didn't live up to the monster ratings of the season one premiere, the network was confident it would grow viewers over time.
"We're not too worried at this point. This is sometimes what happens and we think it could very well have a different trajectory to what it did last year," he says.
"It was an exceptional number last year and there was the expectation that it might drop off a little this time around, so we'll just see how it tracks with the rest of the season."
See: Nine reveals Ninja sponsors, promises to up the ante in 2018
Monday night's competitive battle between Nine and Ten in the primetime slot proved too much for Seven's House Rules, which came in third, with 768,000 viewers.
Ninja ultimately led Nine to victory in the main channel overnight share, with the network beating both Seven and Ten, taking a 20.2% share.
Seven came in second with an 18.8% share, with Ten trailing with 14.6%.
As the 2018 FIFA World Cup comes to a close, SBS has dropped back down to its average single-digit overnight share, with the main channel taking a 4.7% share.
Overnight TV ratings are just one part of the increasingly digital content plays from TV networks, with live streams and catch-up TV becoming a bigger part of the equation. Speaking to AdNews on its Love Island hit, Nine said it had revised its entire network 'blueprint' to target the sought-after demos of 16-39. See here for more.
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