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Nearly 2 million viewers for Love Child premiere

The Nine Network has another hit Australian drama in Love Child, which drew 1.36 million viewers in the five capital cities last night.

Adding the regional audience of 566,280, the premiere of the 1960s-set series had a combined national average audience of 1.926 million.

It was the night's second highest rating show behind Seven's My Kitchen Rules,  easily beating Seven's US drama Revenge which had 1.27 million viewers nationally, 862,000 in the capitals.  

Nine's gambit of previewing the  first four episodes on Jump-in before the premiere seems to have worked.

Created by writer/producer Sarah Lambert and produced by Playmaker Media, Love Child tells the stories of young women and men fighting an unjust system in a world on the brink of change.

Jessica Marais plays Joan Millar, a smart and sophisticated midwife who returns home from London to take a job at the Kings Cross Hospital. She finds a new life for herself when Australia is coming of age and the new generation believes anything is possible in this time of ‘free love and peace’.

Jonathan LaPaglia plays the charismatic Dr Patrick McNaughton, head of obstetrics at Kings Cross Hospital, and Mandy McElhinney is Frances Bolton, the tough matron who also controls Stanton House, an adjacent home for unwed mothers.

Shawn Seet was the set-up director, working with fellow directors Shirley Barrett, Geoffrey Bennett and Grant Brown.