Channel Nine's Married at First Sight (MAFS) has once again dominated Australia's TV ratings with a reach of 2,461,000 viewers for the season 11 debut.
The show beat out Network 10 and Channel Seven's heavy hitters Survivor Australia and Australian Idol, and the ABC's political documentary Nemesis.
MAFS follows pairs of strangers who first meet at their "wedding" before living together for several weeks. Each season is full of drama, including affairs between couples, leaking OnlyFans images and participants throwing drinks at each other.
For the number of people who are watching, there are often just as many calling for it to be cancelled.
Although MAFS topped the overnight ratings, the fact that season 9 of Idol reached 1.7 million viewers and season 9 of Survivor reached 1.1 million, shows that there is a strong appetite for reality TV in Australia.
Editor and co-creator of TV Blackbox Steve Molk said this is because of the way reality TV allows viewers to "take a sneak peek into other people's lives".
"[It allows viewers] to find joy in their happiness and to find joy in their sadness sometimes," he said.
A Nine spokesperson said MAFS engaged Australians year on year "and continues to become a part of the cultural conversation that captures the Zeitgeist".
Whatever the reason viewers tune in for, MAFS will certainly be bringing joy to Channel Nine's bottom line.
"This is its 11th season, so by now they are deep in relationship with advertisers," Mr Molk said.
"They know how to integrate products into the show relatively seamlessly. It's a known entity in the advertising market.
"So if you've got a product that you want to get in front of the most viewers at this time of year, that's the show that you want to target."
The rate of return is likely massive for Nine. Compared to scripted drama, there can be real cost savings in reality TV.
"It costs a lot of money to make these [reality] programmes," Mr Molk said.
"In the case of MAFS, where they've got 10 couples, there's a cameraman and sound guy and a producer with them for the best part of 18 hours a day.
"And then there's an army of editors, producers, executives and a whole bunch of people in the background ... all of which exist in the scripted drama environment.
"The key thing that is missing is script writers, and we still need a cast and we pay actors more than we're going to pay reality participants."
He said reality TV also had the added bonus of being able to easily integrate sponsored content into the show to increase their bottom line.
Reality meeting quotas
Commercial networks are required under the Broadcasting Act to provide 55 per cent overall Australian content on their primary channels between 6am and midnight. Reality TV is just one way they fill that quota.
Coming this year, streaming services which tend to have a larger portion of scripted drama shows, will also have to fulfil local content quotas.
Mr Molk said the benefit paid streaming services have over free-to-air was the amount of data they have available about viewers, making it easier for them to commission drama more specifically.
And while streaming on-demand services continue to be popular, the 7:30pm time slot remains vital for free-to-air networks.
"Reality at 7:30 has become not only a standard but a necessary standard for the commercial networks.
"They know if they get the right formula or the big new thing, they'll get a big audience guaranteed."
But as is with any show, there comes a point where audiences start to wane.
"The magic of television programming is working out when to cancel it or to move it on before it fades," Mr Molk said.
"And every year for the past three years I would have said, 'This is it, they can't do anymore, get any more outrageous, get any bigger than this with Married at First Sight'.
"And yet, every year the casting just continues to surprise us and deliver a massive series."
Mr Molk said Channel Seven's revamp of Australian Idol was likely giving the network diminishing returns year on year and was an example of a show that would be at a crossroads of rejuvenating or dropping.
"We saw that with MasterChef particularly, it was huge for about five or six seasons then it started to fade.
"They made some changes, some didn't work, some did... it's done OK, but it's never really hit those heights again."
However, Mr Molk said he expected MAFS will be around for many seasons to come.
"While there are people that are willing to debase themselves in an attempt to become famous, Married at First Sight will always have an audience," he said.
"It will always top the ratings now until it goes beyond the pale, until someone does something that causes enough, broad outrage that the show gets 'cancelled' I think it'll be hard to stop."