Shane Warne’s toothy avatar sends Aussie viewers scurrying

MELBOURNE - Shane Warne may be known as the king of spin but his relationship with Aussie viewers is clearly being tested - after shedding half of his debut audience of 854,000 people last week.

These are the kind of figures, which should see him dropped from Nine’s schedule.

But the former Australian spinner is expected to survive the axe, despite halving his audience and pulling an abysmal 486,000 viewers nationally, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Criticised for his amateur interview style and distracting appearance on debut last week, Warne bumbled his way through awkward chats with Sting, Dannii Minogue, Kevin Pietersen and Mark Webber.

While he batted away a nation-wide bagging of his blindingly white teeth, frosted hair and overly-tanned skin, it was his interview technique which exposed him this week.

Ploughing over old ground with Sting and his history of tantric sex, Warne forced the issue until the former Police frontman gave the spinner excruciating detail of how the spiritual sex technique works.

It was still lost on the former Test cricketer and allegedly reformed text sex addict.

It was unclear whether his gushing reassurance of Dannii Minogue was for her benefit or his image as a mate of the A-list.

Almost 200,000 viewers, who watched Nine’s ‘Top Gear’ (672,000 viewers), were turned off by ‘Warnie’, with Ten’s ‘Rush’ taking the timeslot from ABC’s ‘Rake’ and Seven’s movie ‘Meet The Parents’.

His figures placed the program outside the night’s top 20 shows. (ANI)