Good start for Rake

The ABC comedy Rake debuted with a peak audience of 938,000 and a 20 percent five-city share and a 302,000 audience in Melbourne alone.

“I am thrilled with the audience response to Rake and we are already in negotiations with the producers for a second series,” said ABC1 controller Brendan Dahill.

The executive said scheduling the show on Thursday was “risky” because the ABC had not aired a drama on that night for a long time.

“But I felt viewers wanted some fun later in the week and this wonderfully irreverent drama series fitted the bill perfectly,” he explained.