The Bachelorette tops Bachelor for debut audience while Celebrity Apprentice slides

The Bachelorette managed to secure a bigger opening night audience than any series of The Bachelor with an average capital city audience of 875,000 tuning in to see Sam Frost meet her 14 potential love matches according to OzTam overnight ratings.

That audience saw the show grab second place in its 7.30pm timeslot behind Channel Seven’s singing contest The X Factor which climbed slightly on last week to 953,000 viewers, but comfortably ahead of Nine’s renovation show The Block which had just 753,000 viewers.

It was also well up on this year’s debut audience for sister show The Bachelor, which had 846,000 viewers and built to a finale audience of 1.482m last Thursday. The Bachelorette also topped all of the advertising demographics.

However The Bachelorette, which ran until 9.20pm, was beaten in all people stats by ABC’s advertising panel show Gruen at 8.30 – 9pm, which managed 900,000 viewers, down on its audience of 915,000 last week.