‘Married At First Sight’ Renewed For Two Supersized Seasons By Lifetime On Heels Of Series High Ratings
Click here to read the full article.
EXCLUSIVE: Lifetime has ordered two new seasons — Seasons 10 and 11 — of its flagship reality series Married at First Sight, which is getting supersized with more couples and longer episodes. The news comes a week after the Season 9 Decision Day finale of the Kinetic Content-produced show last week hit a series high.
Starting with Season 10, which will be set in Washington D.C. area and will debut in January 2020, Married at First Sight will feature for the first time five new couples — up from three in Seasons 1-7 and four in Seasons 8-9 — and two-hour episodes, up from an hour originally and 90 minutes most recently. Season 11 is expected to take place in New Orleans. Seventeen two-hour episodes have been ordered for both new seasons.
More from Deadline
Married At First Sight, in which couples meet for the first time at the alter, has ranked as Lifetime’s top series for the past two years. Last Wednesday’s Decision Day finale episode drew 1.51 million total viewers in Live+Same Day, a series high for a Married At First Sight episode on a single network ever. (The series started off on A+E Networks’ FYI before getting a simulcast on A&E and ultimately moving to Lifetime.)
The Decision Day episode also hit season highs in A25-54 and W25-54 demos, with 992K and 772K viewers, respectively, and propelled Lifetime to rank as #1 network in the time period in both demos.Overall, MAFS S9 averaged 684k with women 25-54, up 10% from last summer’s S7 (622k) and up 2% from S8 (669k). Season 9 was the strongest season of MAFS ever on a single network with both W25-54 (684k) and Total Viewers (1.7m in L+3).
The Decision Day episode also was strong on social media. Married at First Sight was the country’s top twitter trend, generating three of the top four trends for the night, as fans watched Deonna and Greg, and Jamie and Beth choose to stay married – while Iris and Keith and Amber and Matt chose to get a divorce.
MAFS also helped the season 1 finale of Marrying Millions hit a season high with all key demos, delivering 433K with W25-54 in L3. Marrying Millions grew an additional +199k in its season finale in L+3, marking the highest lift of the season. Season 1 of Marrying Millions averaged 331k with women 25-54, making it Lifetime’s strongest unscripted non-spinoff freshman season in over 3 and a half years in that demo, as well as A25-54 and total viewers.
“We’re thrilled to see Married at First Sight achieve record ratings in its ninth season, with great things to come in 2020 as we expand the format even more. It’s become destination viewing for Lifetime,” said Gena McCarthy, EVP and Head of Lifetime Unscripted.
A social experiment, Married at First Sight revolves around single strangers matched by experts. The series follows each couple’s journey as they go from wedding, to honeymoon, to the daily struggles of working on their marriage. After several weeks together, each couple must make a decision to remain together or divorce. Through nine seasons, the show has married 29 sets of strangers, with 8 of the 29 couples still together.
Married At First Sight is produced by Kinetic Content, a Red Arrow Studios company, that is behind the top 3 shows on Lifetime, MAFS, Little Women Atlanta, and Little Women LA.
Executive producers are Chris Coelen, Eric Detwiler, Ally Simpson, Jason Sands and Kelly Montalvo from Kinetic Content and Gena McCarthy from Lifetime.
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
