The third installment of Channel Nine's blockbuster Underbelly series delivered a spectacular result in last night's TV ratings, watched by 2,237,000 viewers nationally.
The result will effectively silence media speculation that the third series would fall short of the results obtained by its two predecessors.
Nine's launch of Underbelly: The Golden Mile kicks off one of the most competitive weeks of the ratings year, with Nine unveiling the refurbished Hey Hey, It's Saturday, Seven launching its big-budget war epic The Pacific and a revamped Australia's Got Talent and, next week, Ten's launch of the second series of MasterChef.
Underbelly: The Golden Mile picks up where the second instalment, A Tale of Two Cities, left off. It is set in Kings Cross between the the years 1989 and 1999.
It stars Emma Booth as Kim Hollingsworth, Firass Dirani as John Ibrahim, Peter O'Brien as George Freeman, Dieter Brummer as Trevor Haken and Damian Garvey as Chook Fowler.
The first two episodes, aired as a telemovie, knocked the competition out of the park. Seven's Bones attracted only 1,172,000 viewers, while Ten's hit series The Good Wife took the hardest hit, dropping to 809,000 viewers.
The Underbelly "effect" also buoyed Nine's struggling current affairs franchise, 60 Minutes, bolstering it to an audience of 1,496,000, one of its best results this year. (Credit: Fairfax Media)
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Underbelly
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