the bachelor bachelorette australia tim robarbs

Australia’s First Bachelor Tim Robards Weighs In On Whether The Show Should Get Axed

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While the current season of The Bachelorette has been praised by viewers as the best season of the show in years, there’s no denying that the entire The Bachelor format is getting stale.

With The Bachelorette currently airing its seventh season and The Bachelor completing its ninth year on air, there aren’t many Australian reality shows that have run longer than this franchise.

First debuting in 2013, the early seasons commonly garnered ratings above 1 million viewers per episode, but the 2021 seasons have seen the lowest ratings ever. Jimmy Nicholson’s season’s ratings plummeted to as low as 360,000 viewers for one episode, and Brooke Blurton’s journey has fared even worse, with one of the least-watched episode only reaching 249,000 viewers.

The drop in ratings is, of course, not solely Jimmy and Brooke’s fault — the ratings have been steadily declining for years. Gone are the days when The Bachelor finale was a cultural event watched by a million Aussies, Jimmy choosing Holly Kingston in his finale only managed to draw in 629,000 viewers.

So what went wrong? Australia’s first Bachelor, Tim Robarbs, has weighed in on why the show is no longer the pop cultural phenomenon it once was. “When a show has been going for so many seasons, it’s a lot,” Tim told the Daily Mail. “I guess with formats they have got to be fresh, so that’s always going to be a challenge with something like that.”

Tim went on to say that when it comes to reality TV, viewers grow bored of seeing the same format every single season. “We were the first one, so it was fresh. But you see it with all the different shows. Sometimes they have a break for a while, then they rejuvenate and bring them back out, or put a bit of a twist on it. Look at Big Brother, The Voice — they tweak them, and give them a break for a little bit,” he said.

Ultimately, both The Bachelor and Bachelorette have to compete with the likes of reality TV juggernauts like Married at First Sight and Love Island, which often provide more drama and conflict. “It’s one of those shows that can be fun and a little love story, but is that what people want?” Tim added.

Tim also addressed whether the show should be cancelled, telling the news website, “It’s not really my place to say on a show like that, but I think it’s a hard one. It’s up to Channel 10.”

Despite low ratings, Channel 10 have confirmed that both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette will return in 2022. Let’s pray that the network takes Tim’s advice and tweaks the format, which is in desperate need of an overhaul.