Television commentators have been left stunned at the “massive” ratings Australian Ninja Warrior recorded in the program’s launch episode.

The Nine Network’s new show, which pits contestants against each other on a Gladiator-like obstacle course, drew a stunning national average audience of 2.32 million viewers on Sunday evening.

Those figures saw the program blow ratings rivals House Rules – in that show’s season final – and MasterChef Australia out of the water in a highly encouraging sign for Nine executives.

Australian Ninja Warrior attracted an average 1.68 million viewers across the five capital cities, with another 648,000 tuning in from regional areas, according to OZTAM figures.

“It’s massive – it’s nearly 2.5 million,” co-editor of Decider TV, Steve Molk, told The New Daily.

“I don’t think we’ve seen these kinds of numbers for years. It certainly is a bit out of the ballpark.

“From a new franchise point of view, I don’t think we’ve seen anything that big since My Kitchen Rules in its heyday – and that’s going back at least five years.”

Watch a segment from Australian Ninja Warrior below:

And the better twin is… #NinjaWarriorAU pic.twitter.com/afekgqRDaL

— Australian Ninja Warrior (@NinjaWarriorAU) July 9, 2017

The program’s ratings obliterated Channel Seven’s House Rules, which averaged 1.14 million over the five capital cities for its winner reveal, and MasterChef Australia, with 625,000 for its Invention Test episode, B&T magazine reported.

Mr Molk said the massive audience swing came as a result of stale and unoriginal programming from free-to-air TV stations.

“I think it shows an appetite for interesting TV and that networks would be smart if they then started to look at new ideas. And not just the same stuff every year,” he said.

“It [Australian Ninja Warrior] is a new format and is probably why it has drawn the numbers and people as it has.

“We saw season five of House Rules finish last night, season eight of My Kitchen Rules earlier this year, and season ‘eleventy’ of The Block is about to start.

“It’s great that you can give us stuff that the audience enjoys but where’s the new ideas? It shows when something like Ninja Warrior pulls over two million around the country.”

However, Mr Molk said Australian Ninja Warrior would struggle to maintain those ratings – even if the program remained super popular.

“It’s running three nights a week for the next three weeks so that would be a big ask for any TV show,” he said.

“As a launch it’s impressive, but numbers like that could [not] be sustainable.”

Australian Ninja Warrior will run on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings on the Nine Network.