The debut episode of The Bachelorette attracted 631,000 viewers last night, making it the lowest launch episode ever of the reality franchise in Australia.
Starlet Ali Oetjen is the fourth Bachelorette and faced strong ratings competition against last year's Bachelorette Sophie Monk, which pulled an audience of 951,000.
The year before, in 2016, Georgia Love's first episode gained 655,000 viewers and Sam Frost's season debut pulled 875,000.
While the overall ratings lagged, the Bachelorette was the most watched program in the key advertising demographics of 19-39 and 18-49. It's also likely streaming figures will make up for the shortfall in the initial free-to-air audience.
Despite the figures, a Network Ten spokesperson tells AdNews that The Bachelorette Australia launch “clearly struck a chord” with the younger viewers.
“We also saw great engagement on social with the #BacheloretteAU hashtag trending #1 across Australia. Seven out of 10 trends last night were about The Bachelorette," the spokesperson says.
“Each of our Bachelorette leads have had their own unique story on their journey to find love and as Ali’s season goes on, she will surprise many.”
In the same timeslot, Nine's The Block topped the Bachelorette with an audience of 918,000 and Seven's Highway Patrol attracted an audience of 491,000.
The Bachelorette season comes off the back of Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins' season, which delivered strong audiences for Ten, despite his decision to not pair up with any of the contestants.
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