Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Hope for the late night dustbin - Monday 16 March 2009


A little late to the blog for Monday’s ratings but sometimes the real world takes priority over your internet world! As far as I can see the story of Monday is not the mega lift given to Customs (up 123,000 viewers on weeks) or the relatively insignificant slide for Underbelly (down 93,000 viewers) but between 8.30 and 10.30 Ten is improving – Good News Week was up 85,000 viewers week on week and has seemingly beat 4 corners (which was once the monkey on its back) into submission in 4th place.

At 9.30 NCIS is slowly resuscitating what was a disaster hour for ten with the timeslot up another 93,000 week on week, as you know Dexter’s move back to late night proved a weird success also retaining most of the show’s fan base, so all in all it was a positive move and Ten’s Monday share is now at 20% which is a pass mark more or less.

Of course Dexter started out as a late night show on Ten (after a cable run on the top-tier Showcase) and was trialled this season in Prime Time eventually flopping, another show, Scrubs which started out during Summer, underwhelmed Seven’s programmers and found itself in all manner of late night timeslots eventually found traction on DVD where it’s season box sets have become some of the best selling entries for the medium.

Last summer Seven decided to move it from the no-man’s land of 11.30pm to 10.30 and the result was phenomenal with episodes pulling upwards of 500,000 viewers in the slot, hence a show which for all intents and purposes was dead has been restored to prime time by Seven in its final season

The result was that Seven took a hit week on week of roughly 89,000 viewers but considering the episode they bowed with (where main character JD was absent save for a voice over) it’s a pretty good result, hopefully it can pick up and allow this often ignored series to go out on a high note.

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