Rafters say goodbye to 1.3m viewers

Seven’s final episodes of Packed to the Rafters scored just over 1.3m metro viewers last night on an evening which saw the network launch reality show The Mole to only a moderate audience.

Seven concluded with two episodes of the Bevan Lee-created family drama, which ran for five years over six series. However, Seven has hinted that the Rafters family could return in the future in some other format.

The show helped secure the cast as some of the most popular with the Australian public. This year’s Encore Score placed Rebecca Gibney as the second most popular Australian screen star, after Hugh Jackman, with a 92 per cent recognition factor, 26 per cent positive rating and only one per cent negative. Michael Caton was not far behind with an 89 per cent recognition, 20 per cent positive and only one per cent negative.

Meanwhile, The Mole, hosted by Shura Taft, which ran for five seasons from 2000-2005, had an audience of 864,000 when it returned to Channel Seven at 7.30pm last night. When the fifth series of The Mole launched in 2005 it had 1.352m viewers for the first episode.