Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Serious Trouble - Wednesday 5 November 2008


Memo to Nine, movies shown in midweek timeslots have not worked for years, and so it is with their latest Wednesday movie – Talledega Nights. It must be especially frustrating for Nine given that the lead in was the unstoppable Wednesday edition of Two and a Half Men, they must have thought some people would stick around for the comedy movie but clearly only 46% of their 8pm audience were interested in the prospect.

Even more damning is my memo to Ten, documentaries about Animals do not work – at least not on channel ten and here’s why

a) Animal or Nature docos appeal primarily to an older viewing audience
b) At any given time, channel Ten’s share of over 55 years old viewers rarely gets above 11% therefore it’s likely the intended audience would never have seen any promotion for the show.
c) The under 40 audience avoid these shows like the plague (hence the high numbers for two and a half men ever since Jamie Oliver showed up)

Ten is in serious trouble right now – there is no good way to spin it, their most popular program of the night was outside of Prime Time (the 5pm news), Neighbours posted a good result then the whole night fell in a heap, never lifting beyond it's 6.30 "high".

These are some of the worst numbers to come off the people meters for them since the introduction of people meters, ten need to use the summer for a complete reboot otherwise they will quickly see their share decline even further in the new year, just waiting for So You Think you can Dance and The Biggest Loser to pull them out of the hole is not going to be good enough – they need action ASAP.

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