Love Child wins 1.35m as Seven’s Revenge falls to 862,000

Nine’s anticipated new drama Love Child won 1.354m metro viewers for the first episode last night finishing the second most watched show of the night as My Kitchen Rules continued to lead the ratings with over 1.9m viewers.

The drama, first launched on Nine’s online channel Jump-in last week, knocked over 300,000 viewers off of Seven’s Revenge in the 8.40pm timeslot and was second in the network’s key demographic of people 25-54, preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTam show.

The series created by Playmaker Media stars Jessica Marais as a midwife who returns from London to Kings Cross Hospital in Sydney in 1969, and her story intersects with that of the hospital’s head of obstetrics Dr Patrick McNaughton, played by Jonathan LaPalgia, and matron Frances Bolton, played by Mandy McElhinney, who runs the adjacent home for unwed pregnant young women.

Nine made the first four episodes of the series available to stream from February 9 before the first episode went to air last night against Seven’s Revenge which dropped from 1.184m for the first episode to 862,000.