The Bachelor on Ten has fewer viewers than The Project amid fears after Cricket Australia’s failed bid

One of Channel 10’s biggest names says the network is in a death spiral after the premiere of its flagship show The Bachelors flopped and had fewer viewers than The Project.

The Bachelors launched Monday to just 309,000 metropolitan viewers, 18,000 fewer than the new, low-rated The Project that aired immediately before.

Poor ratings have worried television bosses and now staff fear for the network’s long-term future.

It comes just days after Cricket Australia rejected the channel’s bold $1.5bn offer for the TV rights from Cricket, which opted to stay on the air with Seven for far less money, with Fox Sports buying the TV rights. payment.

The insider believes the large sum was a last-ditch attempt to expand the channel’s audience reach, and that it would have been used to find new viewers to tempt them to his other shows.

“The problem is that the TV station can only promote itself to its own viewers, and now there are fewer and fewer, with no way to expand the numbers,” they said.

I didn’t even know the new season of Bachelor would start so soon, and I work on the channel. How are new viewers supposed to know?

The primetime show once had around a million viewers a night at its 2018 heyday when the NRL’s ‘Honey Badger’ Nick Cummins drew 940,000 fans in the capital cities alone.

But the franchise and Ten have been in rapid decline ever since. Last year’s premiere was billed as a disaster when it only drew 482,000 viewers from the metropolitan area.

But Monday night’s figure of 309,000 could prove terminal. The numbers plummeted further on the second night of Tuesday, to just 273,000.

It follows Ten’s new national midday news release which only attracted 45,000 viewers nationally, including just 1,000 in Perth, the hometown of its presenter Narelda Jacobs.

It was still in the top 100 shows in Australia even with that low figure, but by the next day it had dropped out of the top 200 entirely with a figure below 10,000.

“I was hoping it would go down, but not that much and not that soon,” another source said. ‘This is simply unsustainable. Something has to change.

“Home-produced dramas and reality shows are meaningless if you can’t find new viewers.

‘Ten didn’t have a single show in the top 12 on Monday, even ABC had three shows in there.

‘Sports and news dominate the top 10 ratings, but Ten can’t compete at all. While our rival news shows dominate the top 10, our 5:00 pm newscast even ranks below The Bachelor.

“Without a big news show or sports audience, the message about new series can’t get out.”

Studio 10’s new 10am timeslot has also struggled, with zero viewers in Perth and dismal viewership elsewhere.

‘Honestly, who decides to switch their TVs to 10 at 10 am for that show if they weren’t watching 10 for the news before that?’ added the informant.

“The ratings give us that answer: very few people.”

Some staff now fear that network bosses in the US will soon pull the plug on Ten’s much-maligned Paramount Plus app, which has made no headway with viewers.

It had hoped its coverage of Australian soccer A-leagues and the UK FA Cup would attract new viewers, but fans criticized the network’s coverage.

The Paramount Plus app does not run natively on some major brands of smart TVs, which means it must be viewed on PCs, mobile phones or tablets or streamed from the devices to TV screens.

The $8.99 a month app also doesn’t allow users to pause or rewind the action, further frustrating sports fans.

With NRL, AFL and cricket rights now all blocked on rival channels, there are no medium-term prospects for Ten to get other mainstream sports.

“I can’t imagine the US continuing to pour money into something that clearly isn’t working for much longer,” the source warned.

“And if they pull the plug on Paramount Plus, I’m afraid the entire network will be up for sale soon after, or they’ll just pull the plug completely and walk away.”

Ten insisted to Daily Mail Australia that they were pleased with the release of The Bachelor, saying it was a “solid result in a whole new time”.

“It was the No. 1 entertainment show among younger viewers, plus Australians were talking about the show with #TheBachelorsAU trending No. 1 on Twitter,” a spokesperson said.

‘Achieving 439,000 domestic viewers including one-day video-on-demand broadcast, it was the #1 show in 16-39s, #1 in its time slot under 50s, 25-54s and 16-39s.

It also had a whopping 37 percent business share in 16-39, 30.2 percent in 18-49, 29.3 percent in under-50, and 27 percent in 25-54.

“This viewership will only grow as the franchise typically increases over 30 percent with the inclusion of 7-day total audiences and on-demand viewing.”

Ten said that Project’s revamped lineup with Sarah Harris and Waleed Aly hosting had also been a success.

“Increased the 10am schedule by 72 percent week over week,” the spokesperson said.

“Audiences leaned into the bombshell Prince Harry interview with The Project at 7pm at No. 2 in its time slot for under 50, 25-54, 16-39 and 18-49.”

Ten declines to disclose subscriber figures for Paramount Plus, but says it is the fastest growing streaming app in Australia.

The network also stressed that they had never made a formal offer for the cricket television rights.

“It became clear that our goals and views on the future presentation of the sport and its value were not aligned,” the spokesperson added.

“Paramount congratulates the successful consortium and wishes them and Cricket Australia the best for the future.”