Going out with a whimper

Packed to the Rafters had a triumphant return in Melbourne with a whopping 665,000 viewers tuning in south of the border, clearly having to wait an extra week did that much more to whet the appetite of Victorian viewers.

Rather than subjugate everything else on TV, Rafters had an effect of a rising tide with several shows up week on week including Talking Bout Your Generation (up 4.1%), Masterchef (up 13.6%), The Zoo (up 6.6%) all of these show pulling over one and a half million viewers.

HomeMADE is now finished, going out with a whimper on 900,000, a disastrous figure which also dragged down the rest of their lineup - especially Two and a Half Men which reran episodes seen only months ago to an underwhelming result. A new episode of 20 to 01 managed only 902,000 though a lot of those stuck around for the Nine premiere of Little Britain - 579,000 viewers being a fantastic result for 10.30pm.

Even SBS are knocking on the door

You can imagine that Seven will be pleased that NCIS just had it’s season finale and their own Rafters is coming back soon, the beating they are taking on Tuesdays is pretty harsh though a lot of their troubles can be explained by a weak 9.30 hour – don’t expect a second season of 10 Years Younger in 10 Days, the show only barely managed to beat HomeMADE something which must be sending shivers down the spines of the powers that be.

Although Ten will keep NCIS on in reruns (why wouldn’t you with ratings like that) the return of Seven’s megahit should get them over the line on the Tuesdays to come.

Seven’s woes on Tuesday, however, are chickenfeed compared to Nine’s structural problems.

HomeMADE, meanwhile continues to sink, it’s not enough that Seven’s factuals and Ten’s quiz show are kicking the reality skein – now Kezza has joined in on the fray with Utegate adding the 7.30 report to the list of shows HomeMADE can’t challenge!

It was worse for Two and a Half Men, all three editions of the sitcom were beaten by Auntie and they want to add more episodes on a Wednesday!?

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Going Up
Grand Designs up 45.35% on Around the World in 80 Gardens
Lateline up 23.15% week on week
The Simpsons 6pm rebroadcast up 14.16%
HomeMADE elimination up 12.78%
7.30 Report up 11.07%
Masterchef ip 8.59%
Neighbours up 5.39%

Going Down
Two and a Half Men ® 8.30 down 11.5%, 9pm down 8.52% 7pm down 6.48%
Today Tonight down 10.89% week on week
The Zoo down 9.95%
Home Made 7.30 down 7.56%

A Double-Barrell shot of WTF

That’s right not one but two shocks as the cold weather sets in and the nation gathers around the electronic fireplace.

The first surprise is the behometh average for Ten’s Masterchef pulling an outrageous figure representing a massive 37.56% increase in audience week on week, that huge figure pretty much gave ten the night, with them recording their biggest audience for Rove in quite a while with 1,271,000 tuning in, Ten was only let down by the dissappointing US Biggest Loser which only managed an average of 443,000 viewers for the night.

Seven can be happy with their timeslot winning Bones/Castle duo with Bones recording one of it’s biggest audiences ever (1,349,000) this one time also-ran is now one of Seven’s star performers while former hits either struggle (Grey’s Anatomy) or have dissappeared without a trace (Lost, Prison Break, Heroes).

But the real story of Sunday Night was channel Nine, while CSI is still in the doldrums, a pitiful 771,000 tuned in to a new ep of CSI Miami, the scheduling here is completely baffling – in the past three weeks all three CSI’s have been in this 9.30 slot and none have performed well.

But I digress, the real story was Nine’s strategy to move the anaemic HomeMADE away from their premier night, they replaced it with a new reality skein – Random Act of Kindness. First of all I did not see it – but the haphazard scheduling combined with the cookie cutter concept and Seven & Ten’s dominance of 6.30 in the past few months made me think that we could expect another dissappointing failure.

Not so, Nine’s Random Acts randomly boosted their performance in the slot by a staggering 45.87%, that will probably hold up as the biggest increase of the week. What’s good about it is while Sunday Night dropped in total audience, it’s other competitors Merlin and ABC News both grew week on week meaning Nine’s show succeeded in (as Joe Hockey likes to say) Growing the Pie!

Sunday 14 June 2009
Scoreboard

Going Up
Random Acts of Kindness up 45.87% over HomeMADE
Masterchef up 37.56% week on week
Nine’s Sunday Rugby League up 29.98% week on week
60 Minutes up 27.52%
Nature’s Great Events up 22.53% over Bear Man of Kamchatka
The Simpsons (6pm rebroadcast) up 21.78%
Bones up 20.12%
Rove up 19.45%
3 Act of Murder up 18.59% over Ballet Shoes
Ten News at Five up 18.41%
CSI up 17.65%
Castle up 16.3%
Nine News Sunday up 15.78%
Merlin up 13.32%
CSI: Miami (10.30 episode) up 12.66% over CSI:NY
ABC News up 10.72%
Compass up 10.12%

Going Down
Today on Sunday down 57.79%
Serious Crash Unit down 11.16%
The Biggest Loser (USA) down 10.32%
Weekend Sunrise down 9.64%
Sunday Night down 9.25%

CSI: Time of Death

Sunday 7 June 2009



First of all, Monday is a public holiday - which automatically means that Sunday audiences will be down as people go out to fireworks or nightclubs or whatever. So even though the bulk of shows lost weight over last week it was to be expected, well mostly anyway.

Just like last week Ten did well with Merlin, Masterchef and Rove (and their decision to run Rove long won them the night) and Seven had great success with Sunday Night, Bones and Castle.

But Nine, Nine was having some trouble. Already they chosen to correctly single out HomeMADE a show which was a bit too late to the housing boom, that show is getting banished to Tuesdays, Nine's worst performing night.

But Nine's best minds need to now focus on what the fuck has happened with CSI!


This was once their flagship program, they have a rare commercial advantage with this show in that unlike NCIS, the Law & Orders, Bones, Desperate Housewives and half a dozen other current dramas, Nine is the only place on TV where you can see it. CSI does not show on cable, so it's audience can't be diluted by conventional means.

So what's going on? 810,000 viewers for two new episodes is a disaster! Plain & Simple. 4th place is a major disaster! I'm gonna call it...

Time of death 29 March 2009: that was the airdate of the first episode without Gil Grissom, which seems to be the moment a lot of viewers decided to say goodbye to the show.

Scoreboard

Biggest Drop
The Bear Man Of Kamchatka
ABC1 - 7.30pm
Fell 27% week on week on last week's Doctor Who Special

Biggest Lift
The Biggest Loser USA
Ten - 9.50pm
Rose 3% week on week

Nine Blocked from Success

Sunday 24 May 2009
A very good night last night for both Ten (winning the night with 29.3% of the 5 city audience between 6 and midnight) and Seven, both nets stomping all over Nine’s former stronghold.

The drama, Merlin, had it’s best week yet for Ten rising 127,000 week on week, similarly Masterchef rose 215,000 week on week with what surely must be its biggest aud yet.

Rove even lifted 177,000 week on week. And Biggest Loser (spread over 90 minutes) improved on Harper’s Island which was shifted this week to a post-midnight timeslot.

Seven too found a rising tide with Seven News, Bones and Castle all up by 100 grand week on week. While Nine continues to suffer in silence, with HomeMADE losing a further 28,000 in the face of an improved news lead-in and a lift in the overall available audience. (Remember yesterday’s blog – last Sunday viewers watching broadcast = 4.8 million, last night it went up to 5 million)

Nine will soldier on with HomeMADE because it has to but the Sunday show dropping under a million is a worrying development. I can’t help but feel sorry for them, in 2003 they struck reality gold with The Block, a show perfectly timed to capture the insane orgy of home renovations taking place under a rapidly escalating property market.

The creators of this show were hailed as heroes and the concept talked up by the media as if it were the television equivalent of the second coming, to tell you truth I never watched it, but I know it was popular, that first season managed to net a whopping 2.2 million viewers average to the exploits of those apartment renovators.

Nine tried to emulate what Ten does quite successfully parlaying a reality hit into a long running series, but unlike Ten whose shows are build with profitability in mind, Nine was still huge in the ratings and in the habit of spending $4 to make $5, when the second season didn’t meet up to high expectations (the finally still netted 2.2 million viewers!) they were quick to swing the axe.

Ever since then Nine has been trying to recapture the phenomenal success of The Block, not a season goes by without Nine trotting out the line ‘This is the new “Block”’ or ‘From the creators of “The Block”’, like Al Bundy, fixated on his six touchdown streak in a high school football game, Nine can’t get past the success of this show and it’s holding them back from better things!

Still the one for programming disasters

Tuesday 19 May 2009
Well Ten won Tuesday night with ease on the back of a killer quadruple of Masterchef (up 39k week on week), Talkin’ Bout Your Generation (up 12k), NCIS (up 191k!) and Lie to Me (up 186k).

Seven too made gains on last week with The Zoo (up 45k), Find My Family (up 76k), All Saints (up 38k) and 10 Years Younger *up 76k) all putting in a solid night.

These gains by Seven and Ten were at the direct expense of Nine and the ABC, last week ABC had the Federal Budget which lifted their night considerably, with that out of the way the audience deserted Around the World in 80 Gardens (down 41k) and Mumbai Calling (down 111k).

But the real disaster of the night was Nine, the 7pm rerun of Two and a Half Men was the last time they saw a million, HomeMADE incredibly sunk a further 27,000 viewers week on week, the Tuesday edition a sad 140,000 viewers behind the Sunday show, suggestion that maybe it’s not the show, it’s the timeslot, although really it is the show also!

Two and a Half Men was back in reruns in the 8.30 slot giving 292,000 people an excuse to find other entertainment at 8.30. Meanwhile the continuation of Underbelly reruns at 9.30 is still the most baffling programming choice of the entire week, why are they persisting with two hours of this when they could…

a) Run Ramsay everywhere
Kitchen Nightmares might be played out but a fresh reality skein has got to do better than reruns of a drama that most people have seen – Nine would have been better holding off from rerunning the original until they could clear a broadcast in Melbourne, they risk instead tiring out the other markets, the Sydney audience of Underbelly is shocking, even for a rerun a drop of 42% from Two and a Half Men is just terrible.

b) Run Survivor
Hey remember Survivor, that reality comp on an island that still packs em in over in the states, a more natural fit with Nine’s reality night and a fresher alternative to Ramsay – plus there’s about a gazillion episodes in the can still waiting for an airing.

c) Run E.R.
Oh remember ER? Onetime anchor of Nine’s Thursday night, it finished last month in the US after 15 seasons, again, there’s a tonne of episodes, the chance of catching some of that All Saints crowd and still legions of fans that would probably like the chance to see the once great show at a decent time.

High Expectations

Sunday 17 May 2009

Second week in and HomeMADE continues to disappoint just scraping in at the million mark. I know 1 million viewers isn’t anything to sneeze at but for this show in particular it’s not a good thing.

Ever seen a promo for HomeMADE, you know a show has expectations for it when the sponsors’ logos appear in the promo. You know those expectations are huge when there’s about 4 or 5 logos along the bottom of the screen! That’s the kind of sponsor action you only see on big sporting telecasts! So I expect unless this show can pick up over the next 7 weeks then the good people at Nine will be giving away some free spots on their sked to some upset advertisers!

Merlin continues to buck two trends against, a) Scripted Drama before 8.30pm and b) Fantasy/Sci-Television, turning out to be a surprise Sunday night hit for the network, as is Masterchef. In fact Ten would probably kick arse on Sunday nights were it not for failing upstart Harper’s Island, in it’s second week the show dropped 151,000 viewers, I don’t expect it here for a third.

Seven, however, did well will their new starter Castle, the second star vehicle for Nathan Fillion who is familiar to Buffy fans and anyone who made the effort to watch Firefly, though Castle wasn’t as popular as the Bones rerun it replaced (shedding 73,000 viewers week on week) it’s still a promising start for this well promoted show. If only Seven put as much effort into promoting their long running imports (Lost, Desperate Housewives, etc) as they do their shiny new shows.

Memories of Pete and Tina

Tuesday 12 May 2009
Just look away now! Those numbers are horrible!

No not the federal budget! I’m talking about the paltry 889,000 who turned out for the second episode of HomeMADE.

This is no cheap and cheerful show , described as “The Block on steroids” it’s a home renovation competition where designers compete in teams making over neighbouring houses each week. Apparently the competition runs for 8 weeks, so we’ve just had week one.

Now I’m not keen to diss on a show that gets over a million viewers, as this program did on Sunday night, but last night 131,000 people abandoned the show for the alternatives on other networks, a sad, sad result more reminiscent of the HotHouse than the Block.

Elsewhere Talkin ‘bout Your Generation proved it wasn’t a fluke only down 48,000 week on week, by contrast Seven’s The Zoo was down 154,000 on last week’s Lion special.

The ABC had a decent hour at 7.30 with the Federal Budget Speech and the Kerry O’Brien afterparty pulling a decent crowd, although both were (puzzlingly) outgunned by the preceding news bulletin, I guess once you’ve the gist of what’s going on you don’t need to listen to a politician talking out his arse for 30 minutes with the constant chant of “hear, hear” in the background!

Realty Reality Bites

Sunday 10 May 2009

Another Sunday, another round of series premieres, this time Nine debuted it’s great white reality (or is realty) hope for 2009: HomeMADE.

It had the perfect lead-in for once Nine’s 6pm news tied Seven in Sydney, won in Melbourne and Adelaide with only Brisbane and Perth letting down the side, but it was a great aud for Nine news which at 6.30 – completely falls away.

HomeMADE from the much ballyhooed creators of The Block lost 471,000 or 31.5% of its lead-in, by contrast Sunday Night, Seven’s current affairs beast lost only 17% from Seven News, was up a whopping 336,000 viewers week on week, within millimetres of a timeslot win and for the first time that I’ve noticed, actually eclipsed 60 minutes in the audience stakes, with the 30 year veteran only managing 1,181,000 off the back of the HomeMADE lead-in.

Ten, however, has the most to smile about, Merlin, a retelling of the medieval tale made all the more better by the lack of Sam Neill represented a massive switch on for ten with an additional 725,000 tuning in after The Simpsons finished, representing a lead-in “retention” of 225%

Now for the real shock, Masterchef, with no Logie awards in its way, raised 376,000 week on week for an average aud of 1,470,000. The Ten reality machine has done it again!

The only thing that prevented them from winning the night was the non-performance of new limited-run serial thriller Harper’s Island, only 576k tuning in at 9.30 for the murder mystery proving that Aussies prefer to see old British geezers get offed, rather than young American hotties! (Well maybe not – I’ll leave that kind of deep cultural analysis to Tribal Mind!)

I wouldn’t be surprised to see this at 10.30 in the coming weeks, the problem is, what the hell do you put after Rove, Rove is, as a show, essentially a late night format, yet it airs at 8.30, Ten have tried just about every format under the sun after this show and nothing seems to take, part of the problem is that once you get to 9.30, the teens start going to bed for school the next day, I don’t know the demographic breakdown of Rove, but I’d imagine they make up a sizable proportion given the audience drop-off that seems to take place no matter what show follows, whatever Ten puts at 9.30 Sundays, they’re going to need something that will entice older adults to switch over from the opposition.