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The Voice roars, The Killing Field strong

The new series of The Voice trounced House Rules on Sunday night while the telemovie The Killing Field delivered impressive numbers, vindicating Seven's decision to greenlight a series.

Shine Australia’s The Voice grabbed 2.155 million viewers in the five capital cities and 736,115 in regional areas, the highest-rated launch for the year and 304,000 ahead of the show’s 2013 debut.

House Rules pulled in 1.093 million viewers in the capital cities and 1.72 million nationally, beaten by The Voice everywhere except Perth.

The Killing Field, which stars Rebecca Gibney as the leader of a task force sent to a country town to investigate the case of a missing teenage girl, drew 1.16 million in the capitals, 1.849 million nationally.

The Seven-produced telemovie was written by Sarah Smith and Michaeley O'Brien, directed by Samantha Lang (The Monkey’s Mask, My Place, Packed to the Rafters ) and produced by Bill Hughes, with Gibney as co-producer. Seven’s head of drama Julie McGauran is the executive producer.

Seven's director of network production Brad Lyons said on Sunday, "Rebecca and the team on The Killing Field have delivered a wonderful program. We are just delighted with the end result. It made the decision to commission a series very straight forward. Rebecca will continue her role as Eve Winter and will also produce the series."

The highest-rating entertainment show on pay-TV was Matchbox Pictures’ The Real Housewives of Melbourne, which had 149,000 viewers nationally on Arena.