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Channel 7’s new reality show offering has flopped on its opening night.

Blow Up Australia, a series adapted from a popular franchise in the Netherlands, sees 10 balloon artists tasked with competing in a range of challenges to win a $100,000 cash prize.

After heavy promotion from Seven, Blow Up – hosted by Stephen Curry and Becky Lucas – finally debuted its first episode on Monday night in the slot previously held by Farmer Wants A Wife.

But Blow Up’s launch deflated the momentum picked up by Farmer – which aired its finale to 668,000 viewers Sunday night – launching to just 288,000 viewers across the five-city metro ratings on Monday, ranking 19th on the free-to-air daily ratings report.

Prior to its premiere, it drew criticism for being a copycat of Nine’s popular show Lego Masters Australia, with host Hamish Blake even poking fun at Blow Up in an episode of his show last month while instructing contestants to create balloon-inspired Lego builds.

“Balloons are good for a part of one episode of a show. No, I don’t think there’s a series in them – but maybe there’s something we’re missing,” Blake said.

Channel 10’s 15th season of MasterChef, which went to air last week after it was delayed following the sudden death of judge Jock Zonfrillo, led the prime time 7.30pm slot with a decent 552,000 viewers.

As far as new offerings go, things aren’t faring too much better for Nine’s latest series The Summit, which pulled in 400,000 viewers on Monday night – the same number of people who tuned in for its Sunday debut.

The series, which will hold the timeslot until Nine’s ever-popular The Block is ready to go to air, sees 14 strangers tasked with scaling one of New Zealand’s highest peaks within a 14-day window. They all must work together in a bid to split a $1 million reward between them.

While The Summit has held steady for its first two nights, it pales in comparison to the ratings juggernaut of the network’s reality series Married At First Sight, which pulled in a whopping 1.66 million metro viewers for its finale episode in April.

It comes amid flaring tensions as networks fight for eyeballs in an era increasingly being dominated by streaming.

The long-running war between Seven’s Sunrise and Nine’s Today escalated on Friday, when Nine fiercely defended the breakfast program’s declining numbers following a report in The Daily Telegraph, in which a source said executives were worried the new look line-up with Karl Stefanovic joined by Sarah Abo “wasn’t connecting with viewers”.

The publication cited ratings for this year as the root of the concerns, with year-to-date average national audience numbers showing Sunrise holds a 34 per cent lead on Today with 363,000 average viewers compared to Today at 271,000.

But Nine swiftly hit out at the report, with director of morning television Steven Burling claiming the story was “fabrication and a distortion of the old-fashioned and out of date overnight ratings system”. Mr Burling added Today was in a “good position” in the “all important younger demographics”.

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The statement has raised eyebrows over at Sunrise’s camp, with a Seven spokesperson telling news.com.au the ratings positioning Sunrise on top were accurate.

“The numbers don’t lie. Sunrise has been number one for 19 years and is number one again this year, across the capital cities and nationally,” the spokesperson said.

“Sunrise wins in Sydney, New South Wales, Victoria, Adelaide, South Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. It is growing well in Melbourne. Today is ahead in Brisbane.”

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