Australian Ninja Warrior (ANW) has shown that terrestrial television broadcasts can still deliver massive audiences. The series – which has had a tactically short run across 3 weeks so as to focus hype – has exceeded all audience estimates with each episode averaging 2.45M viewers watching on TV in Metro & Regional. 9 claims that this is the biggest launch of a series since 2012 & that the audience numbers are bigger than 2016 Rio Olympics.
Australian Ninja Warrior proves that TV delivers
Our take
Audiences want to experience ANW “live”, or as near live as possible so as to be part of the social conversation. We witnessed engagement beyond the TV viewing experience with massive online consumption of short form ANW videos and, ANW is also the top trending topic in social. Ninja Warrior shows that, even in a fragmented media environment where consumption is moving to on-demand, a property can still cut through and become part of the current zeitgeist.
David Lodge