Ground-breaking whodunit series Secrets & Lies, which was sold to a US network before being launched in Australia, flopped on Monday.
The Network Ten series, which incorporates a second screen during each episode and a weekly police procedural webisode, launched with 404,000 viewers to be 26th overall.
The whodunit series was seriously amiss in Sydney, where it attracted just 76,000 viewers, according to OzTAM's overnight ratings.
More people in Sydney tuned into Ten shows Bondi Rescue (137,000), The Bold And The Beautiful (120,000) and The Project (144,000).
Secrets & Lies pulled 138,000 viewers in Melbourne and another 81,000 in Brisbane, where the six-part series was filmed.
Secrets & Lies was developed by Queensland company Hoodlum Entertainment. The US production will star Ryan Phillippe and Juliette Lewis.
The show was one of Ten's marquee programs for 2014. Another of the network's major investments, Puberty Blues, returns on Wednesday.
The network has a tough battle to get close to major commercial rivals the Seven and Nine networks.
Seven reality series My Kitchen Rules won the night with 1.695 million viewers, and Nine News was second (1.235 million).
The Block: Fans v Faves (1.197 million) was third and Nine News 6.30pm (1.181 million) was fourth.
Nine's Love Child was fifth with 1.166 million viewers, and Seven's Revenge was 10th with 855,000 viewers.
Long-running soap Home & Away was squeezed out of the 10 and finished 11th with an audience of 853,000.
The live daytime screening of the Academy Awards was 20th with 506,000, while the evening repeat was 18th with 560,000 people tuning in.
