Saturday, May 9, 2009

Give the People What They Want


Friday 8 May 2009
When in doubt go with what works! Channel Nine has, for weeks now, struggled to get any sort of traction in the southern states to complement their Friday Rugby League dominance north of the Murray, we last night saw the dropping of Til Death moving The King of Queens back a half hour and putting in an extra Two and a Half Men.

The additional Two and a Half Men came second in Melbourne and Adelaide enough turn up in the top 30 on the back of only three cities. They're putting an extra episode on Mondays as well, replacing one of those factuals, that will make 8 episodes a week/9 in southern markets!

This is all well and good but I'm starting to recognise eps that I've seen before, and I'm more generous on reruns than most people so Nine is getting into dangerous territory here, betting that this sitcom has the legs of The Simpsons, all I'd ask them to do is look at what happened to Seinfeld, a show which you just can't stip early evenings anymore (save for the niche market of cable) because everybody seen the episodes three times over!

As I suggested Law & Order has hit the ground wheezing, it would be the perfect series for Friday nights, were it not for its even older skewing opposition and the fact that men are well served between Midsomer and various football codes, not to mention those war and sex docos on SBS, the real available audience is women and Medium didn't do it for them, neither do movies (it's rare that one pops into the top 30 on a Friday) the question is - what do women want?

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