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Struggle Street is now officially SBS's most successful program ever, apart from sports events such as the World Cup.
Nearly 1.5 million people have seen the controversial first episode, which is a record since the current OzTAM ratings system started in 2001 and doubtless due in large part to publicity from a protest staged by Blacktown Council.
This week's concluding, feature-length episode drew slightly fewer viewers on the night, but with on-demand viewing it will also likely to be a star ratings performer.
And now SBS bosses and management at KEO Films Australia, who produced the series, will inevitably be considering how to follow up their success.
SBS was noncommittal on the chances of a return to Struggle Street, while refusing to rule it out.
"It is too early discuss a second season for Struggle Street as it has only recently concluded," said a spokesman.
The network will, however, again explore themes of disadvantage and poverty in an upcoming episode of Insight. Insight was recorded in The Goulburn Valley Hotel, a pub in the regional Victorian town of Shepparton, last month.
Guests will include local youth, employers, federal and local elected members, and industry leaders, who will discuss issues including youth unemployment, teen pregnancies, drugs and immigration.
Meanwhile, Channel Nine has leapt aboard the poverty bandwagon by rushing to air a UK series called Life on the Dole.
"The airing of SBS's Struggle Street shows that people are interested in the subject matter, so we are taking the opportunity as the perfect time to launch our new series," a Nine spokeswoman said.
Nine acquired the six-part series, which tracks the lives of people on benefits in Britain, last year and will broadcast the first episode on Wednesday in virtually the same timeslot as Struggle Street.
However, Life on the Dole has a very different in tone to Struggle Street and appears to be more calculated to provoke outrage among viewers.
The first episode focuses on the Norfolk coastal town of Great Yarmouth and the lives of locals coping with a new punitive benefits regime in which payments are regularly reduced or stopped entirely for rule breakers.
When it was first shown in the UK, Life on the Dole sparked widespread anger, led by the nation's tabloid newspapers.
