At least you have Steve Leibmann

Wednesday was a curiously low-viewing night across all the channels with only the bafflingly popular Customs and the milquetoast Spick & Specks making any real impression on the people meters.

The popularity of Customs was perhaps helped along by yesterday’s news story about Australia’s international terminals installing those nude scanners by next year

Only a few nights into the season and already I can see a trend emerging and a problem for programmers to solve.

Young viewers are mostly gone, at least large numbers of them are using the DVR or the internet or watching cable and the digital channels (Lost’s final season premiere was top of the digital pops last night with 216,000 viewers).

The ones that are left are spread so thinly that even youth magnets like So You Think You Can Prance are finding it hard to keep a million people in front of the box for two hours.

In their place the nets are trying to pitch to older viewers, notice how almost the hot young-skewing properties on Seven and Nine have made their way to 7TWO and GO! while people stuck with analogue TV feast on a morbid diet of docu-soaps and cop shows.

Now we have the situation where two cop shows can’t exist in the same space – look at the 8.30 aud for Cold Case, a veteran show for Nine was smothered in fourth place, suffocated by the more agile Criminal Minds – itself headed for veteran status in it’s fifth season and struggling to maintain a healthy figure.

The low, low audience for sophomore doco Gangs of Oz might suggest that people are starting to tire of this real crime stuff – seriously anyone who is way into this has an entire cable channel along with numerous shows on other channels to sift through day after day – Gangs has to be pretty special to make its mark and the problem is – it has no real hook – Crime Investigation Australia the CI series which is rerun on Nine at least has Steve Leibmann.

Why Seven has Lost it's way

Anyone whose seen Lost in Australia on Free to Air and on Cable (or DVD) will know that Seven always cuts the closing title, on a normal episode it kind of robs the show of something to lose this little moment but just now when Seven aired the season finale - they fucked up big time.

Not only was it a poor idea to split the episode into two parts (robbing it of a lot of momentum) but it even poorer form to cut the end title on this particular occassion

If you want to see the uncut ending of the episode
SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED YET
Then here it is

Numb3rs you don't want to see

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Another Wednesday night win to Seven last night. Although Thank God You’re Here was down slightly on previous performance, their post 8.30 figures lifted with Criminal Minds up 32,000 and a couple of people meters behind The Gruen Transfer, while My Name is Earl was up 64,000 viewers and Family Guy up a healthy 105,000. After a shaky start this post 9.30 lineup is beginning to acquit itself, it’s still down on Seven’s older skewing fare but with old skewing fare everywhere else they need to make up ground on the young demographics where they often miss out.

As a rabid fan of Lost I considered the intrusion of Ponderland to be an affront to people everywhere who took up this show in 2005, but I have to admit waiting around between Family Guy and Lost this odd little show has grown on me.

Also up at 9.30 was Cold Case which added 141,000 viewers week on week, all these shows are benefiting from Numb3rs a 4 year veteran for Ten which has never performed that well (usually hovering around the 800,000 mark) I would remind Ten that this is the second 9.30 show that is woefully underperforming for them, a few years ago they pulled Smallville from a 7.30 timeslot when it was getting 1 million viewers! Now they’re allowing all sorts of failure in the 9.30 slots.

Perhaps they’re hoping for a boost when the stronger SVU comes online in a few weeks to battle for the 8.30 slot, perhaps this is just warming the bench for Rush which will need a timeslot very soon if they’re going to run 22 episodes.

House also suffered an embarrassing fall dropping 91,000 viewers week on week and back under the 900,000 mark, similarly The Simpsons fell 107,000 viewers week on week making Wednesday a bad night for Ten.

It was, however, a great night for Nine, achieved somewhat at its own expense. A Current Affair ran an interview with NRL Footy Show Star/Melbourne Storm Coach Matthew Johns about a 2002 incident dissected by the ABCs Four Corners on Monday night.

That program has cost Johns two jobs and whatever good reputation preceded him. Whether its deserved or not I’m sure there are people more qualified than I to judge, but what amazes me is that Nine stands him down, he fronts up for an interview! Think about that – if you were given the sack and your employer turned around and asked you to humiliate yourself in front of the customers? Would you?

Nine should cut the guy a cheque – his bad behaviour gave the program a rare win over Today Tonight and a week on week boost of 277,000 viewers. Now it remains to be seen if this train wreck can revive interest in the NRL Footy Show – don’t hold your breath…

What lies in the shadow of the statue?

Wednesday 29 April 2009

Well one of the most shocking moves in TV land in the last year was the defection of Thank God You’re Here, a theatresports skein where celebrities imrpov their way thru a preset scene, from Ten to a much more cashed up Seven.

Seven reportedly paid between 1 – 1.3 million per episode for the rights to the show – you would think that’s a steep price but given it’s an hourlong format which will pull in excess of 1.5 million and repeats well I reckon it could actually make them a profit (provided the economy holds up) so from Seven’s end, despite the fact that it’s low, it’s a very sound business decision.

So what about Working Dog Prods?

At the time Executive Producer Tom Gleisner tried to justify this cash grab with the following…

‘‘It's quite understandable for people to assume that the only reason anyone switches networks is for money,''

‘‘But in our case the decision was based upon a desire to introduce the show to a new and potentially bigger audience. If money was our major motivating factor we would never have taken a year off making the show.''

Hmmm, OK so Seven is now going to deliver to this show an audience bigger than the 2007 season average of 1.86 million and the ratings peak of 2.13 million for the first season finale, alright lets see how they go!

Well first night in and yes there was a timeslot win and an average of 1.7 million viewers – very good, but not an increase by any means – we’ll see how it goes I guess.

As for the rest of the night, Nine scared the bejesus out of its audience first of all interviewing a NZ family affected with the swine flu (complete with face masks) which netted them 158,000 extra viewers, then What’s Good For You spent a whole half hour on the pandemic boosting that show’s aud by 258,000 week on week!

Nine suffered a drop later in the night for Cold Case with 110,000 fewer tuning in whilst Family Guy built week on week by 40,000 and Life grew 60,000, although that’s it for Life, that was the season (and possibly series) finale, a show that never got out from under the shadow of its lead-in a show which is now a shadow of its former self.

Speaking of Shadows, Lost improved slightly last night with a cracker of an episode, 'Dead is Dead' which gave some definite info on the old smoke monster, but ratings wise the show continues to be held back by one dumb scheduling move after another, look at the dismal performance of those 9.30 sitcoms - move this back to 9.30 damn you Seven, or sell the show to Ten who might treat it with respect.

Ten in general had a shocker with Masterchef falling further on its third night, there is the possibility with a more ten-friendly Thursday they could pick up, but it doesn’t look good.

The first ever widescreen episode of the Simpsons did alright as well rising 34,000 viewers week on week.

Fourth & Down

Thursday 23 April 2009

The Footy Show really did well last night in Melbourne netting an average of 413,000 viewers over an almost 2 hour span becoming Melbourne’s second most watched show of the night behind Today Tonight.

As The Biggest Loser races toward the finish line Home & Away continued to flounder, it has placed third or lower on every night this week aside from Tuesday (a night which Seven dominates) that’s a poor showing for the long running soap.

Home & Away has proven itself durable, but also vulnerable, especially to Ten 7pm flights of fancy. In the early part of this decade it was Big Brother which gave Home & Away very real problems at 7pm, with only Nine’s lacklustre 7pm performance for comfort.

These days Nine is resurgent with reruns of a sitcom which still has 2 more years guaranteed (and could conceivably run for another 4 years on it’s current form) and Ten is about to launch Masterchef, how Home & Away winds up for the year will depend a lot on how audiences take to Ten’s new reality play.

Seven continues to swing for the fences on Thursdays making it their 3rd night playing for 16-39 year olds behind Monday and now Wednesday, the return of Heroes did alright but I wonder how long it will last before getting the Lost & 24 treatment?

Something we should all Ponder

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Last night everyone had a reason to smile, and a reason to worry.

Ten can take heart that The Simpsons has settled nicely on Wednesdays and has scored some of its best numbers in years thanks to the better timeslot.

They can also worry about Life a show whose audience won't grow no matter what Ten does, it's very likely when Life leaves the stage in a week's time it will be for good, soon to be replaced by Numb3rs, so will Numb3rs improve ten's numbers at 9.30 or is the slot itself a problem?

Nine can be pleased with Cold Case which has bounced back after erratic scheduling over summer, a breif fling with 10.30, now with Seven's Gangs of Oz dispatched we see Nine dominating the post 9.30 field.

But they should be worried as to why The Mentalist seems to be fading, for the past couple of weeks it's been neck and neck with House which indicates that perhaps either its aud have lost interest due to a cliched format or worse, erratic scheduling (witness what AFL interruptions did to Life on Mars)

Seven can be happy with Australia's Got Talent which routinely been Wednesday's best performer, and ecstatic even that the channel ten megahit Thank God You're Here will be filling that slot next week.

They can also fire someone over the boneheaded decision to move their crime docos and bump Lost for a sitcom lineup at 9.30.

My Name is Earl has always gotten good ratings on Thursdays, then late 2007 Seven started fucking with success (sound familiar) by moving the show to Sundays, now it's on 9.30 Wednesdays?? I'm all for having sitcoms later into the night, but this show was a success at 8pm, why on earth would they mess with that?

Family Guy fared even worse - I can't help but think if Ten was screening this show it would be an 8.30pm hit, instead Seven, admirably keep persisting, but the old axiom that people watch shows and not networks continues to be proven false - both show and network need to mesh and Seven does not equal Family Guy.

As for bumping Lost, how do you insult fans of this show any further??, oh yeah bump their show behind a low rent comedian whose entire schtick seems to be poking fun at old educational videos.

Seven are currently at the top of the heap in TV, so these kinds of incompetent programming mistakes probably don't bother their top brass too much, but you really have to wonder if they managed to be consistent with the scheduling of their shows, how much more dominant they'd be.

Advertising on the ABC - Wednesday 19 March 2009

Well for a while myself and others in the blogosphere have been shouting at Ten to move House back to 9pm where it saw some early success this season clear of the ABC’s Spicks & Specks, well as much as I hate to admit it – moving it won’t do anything now.

ABC has filled the 9pm timeslot with the equally successful Gruen Transfer a sharp, funny show about advertising and how it works, which ironically can probably only be made on a commercial free pubcaster like the ABC. Both Shows held over 1.1 million viewers for the hour bettered only by Criminal Minds which stands at the top of Wednesday’s growing procedural pile.

Guerrilla Gardeners seems to be growing very slowly on people and had the night’s biggest lift with an additional 80,000 people watching week on week, accordingly an extra 79,000 people saw House, while The Mentalist lost 80,000 viewers and Criminal Minds lost 94,000 week on week, I guess that’s an actual Gruen transfer at work.

Less amusing is the situation with Lost which dropped back again by an alarming 80,000 viewers, the series itself is perhaps better than ever, although firmly now in the realm of science fiction rather than the action drama it masqueraded as in it’s first 3 seasons.

Even given the general antipathy towards Science Fiction in this country I cannot explain the low numbers, the show is airing only 3 weeks after the states (surely not worth wasting your broadbrand limit on) the only thing I can figure is that people are recording it to watch later, I myself watch + record the show but I do pass it along to my neighbour the next day, is it possible that this show is being taped (given the attention one needs to pay whilst watching) rather than watched live, or have Australian’s given up on the mystery?

A House built on eroding foundations - Wednesday 11 March 2009

Another night of week on week drops across the board though nowhere near as drastic as Tuesday. Today Tonight posted the biggest loss of 148k week on week, while its rival A Current Affair gained 69,000 viewers from last week, Neighbours however was down 73,000 so overall viewing was down.

Both eps of Cold Case were down week on week but still respectable, Gangs of Oz’s final instalment kept above 1 million declining by 48,000 viewers from last week, conversely Lost, which has been on the slide, lifted by 36,000 viewers.

The 8.30 slot seems to have settled somewhat with Criminal Minds boasting a comfortable lead over the competition, the (remarkably less exciting) procedural The Mentalist has grown back to late 2008 levels, no where near its Sunday episodes but on par with its Wednesday outings last year and helping Nine to a strong second place on the night.

Over on Ten, House has incredibly stabilised, and although a 4th placing at 8.30 is not ideal, 900k against two other (newer) first run US dramas is passable.

Less inspiring is the lacklustre performance of its lead-in Guerrilla Gardeners which has slipped below the 700k mark, Ten says they’re going to stick with it but I cannot see the point, on one hand it’s Thursday counterpart Bondi Vet posts less than spectacular numbers, but those numbers are stable and do not hamper its lead in, the gardening show, on the other hand, is declining from an awfully low base (from which that vet’s numbers look like lofty heights) this show may be bound for the midday Saturday death slot! (Previously occupied by such Ten luminaries as Celebrity Dog School and Teen Fat Camp) maybe Ten should do a straight swap with current occupant Star Wars: The Clone Wars, that show is a fine way to pass 30 minutes!

Stuff Gardening, get back to the House! Wednesday 4 March 2008

Last night Nine saw improvement in all their skeins from 7.30 to 11.30 with Cold Case within striking distance of Seven’s soon to be gone Gangs of Oz and the 10.30 rerun dominating the timeslot.

Week on week the 9.30 Cold Case lifted 218,000 people, the week’s biggest gain, also performing well Farmer Wants a Wife added 67k, The Mentalist added 119k and the 10.30 Cold Case rerun added 106k

Seven suffered the biggest losses with Gangs of Oz shedding 101,000 viewers, still it scraped through to a timeslot win. Lost is floundering at 10.30 coming after an incompatible lead in it sunk a further 84,000 viewers to 380,000 which surely constitutes a series low for a new episode.

House lifted for Ten but still lost out to Spicks and Specks, while Life gained 105,000 viewers week on week but only managed a distant third in its timeslot for total viewers.

Interestingly The Biggest Loser and House seem to have similar numbers watching then in between 200,000 viewers disappear at the onset of Guerrilla Gardeners – it interesting to note that city by city the biggest lead in losses are in Melbourne and Adelaide the two cities with currently the harshest water restrictions where gardening is probably the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. Still at 700k against tough competition I see Ten toughing it out for a few more weeks yet but if it stays under 800,000 after Nine’s Agricultural show disappears then my tip is for a quick return from Rules of Engagement which has just returned in the US.

Anyone for gardening? Anyone?? Wednesday 18 February 2009

Hmmm – lets get the good news out of the way first shall we – Seven can be pleased Talent, Criminal Minds, Gangs of Oz and Lost all lifted Week on Week – an impressive result.

Right that’s taken care of! Now what about channel nine…

Well… The Mentalist improved – slightly up from 929,000 to 955,000 and Flashpoint weakened from 670,000 to 632,000 but these seem to be the audiences these two programs are stuck with which is kind of sad given where they started – if only Nine had learned to keep them in the same timeslot from go to woah.

But what of Ten? For the last two weeks House had been airing at 9pm instead of the usual 8.30 and for those two weeks the show had posted figures over the million mark – now that it moved back to 8.30 the show sunk back to it’s late 2008 standard – so why?

Hmmm it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’ve lost the viewers who are watching Spicks and Specks on ABC1, in fact the irony is they probably didn’t even really lose them – those people probably record the show to watch later – they have the technology (not that OzTAM would know!).

Think about it for a second – you, humble viewer, like two shows on at the same time – one is a drama, the other a piece of fluff – which one are you going to commit to a tape? (or your DVR or whatever) Which one might you want to watch again sometime down the track – a show so disposable it could be done on radio? Or a multi-million dollar dramatic serial – I know which one I would chose – and so do about 300,000 others who have vanished from House’s audience.

David Mott (or whoever holds the cards there now) do yourself a favour and get this show back to 9pm.

Interestingly Life held almost all of the House lead-in and beat Flashpoint at 9.30 which is good for them, but like Flashpoint and the Mentalist this show seems to have found it’s level. Back when house got 1.24 million viewers (two weeks ago) Life still only managed 850k, which is also why its easier to justify this show at 10pm than at 9.30.

Anyway, that’s not even the worst thing to happen to Ten last night – their new series Guerilla Gardeners launched and then skidded across the tarmac crashing horribly into fourth place with a horrendous 645,000 viewers watching.

Now to be fair this show had three strikes against it

1) Its lead in – The Biggest Loser – was already in fourth spot with a lower than usual audience
2) Its on Ten, a network not regarded for its gardening programs, a net that hasn’t had a successful lifestyle format since the cancellation of Healthy Wealthy & Wise in 1998.
3) Promotion for the show was obtuse at best and at worst non-existant, I’m across more TV than most but I didn’t have a good picture of what the show was about until Tuesday just gone when I read a TV Tonight article – given the bulk of the population (esp those people meter folk) probably don’t follow TV industry news, then they would be in the dark about it.

This is a unique problem for Ten – if such a show debuted on Seven or Nine it would probably receive a decent sampling, but Ten is different – their primary audience is under 39 – gardening is not a popular pasttime with this group, in fact if I am representative of this age group then gardening is a chore confined to weeding and mowing the lawn (what there is of it).

When you look at Ten’s big program launches of the past 10 years you that the common demoninator is a concept that stands out to young people – young people are Ten’s core audience – the older viewers usually discover Ten shows later down the track.

Now this show does have an element that should appeal, namely that these gardeners are borderline criminals carrying out there renovations without the permission of councils or owners or anyone, that’s interesting – but then I only knew that about a day ago.

Ten might cross their fingers and hope for good word of mouth, but I’m not sure its gonna happen – we could be looking at the first casualty of the season.

First Friday, then Thursday, Now This?? – Wednesday, 11 February 2009

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but last night the audience shrunk.

On Sunday night the top rated non-news program was Border Security with 1.7million viewers, on Monday Night the top rated non news program was Underbelly with 2.5 million, Tuesday the top dog was Packed to the Rafters with 1.6 million, but last night the top draw – Australia’s Got Talent – managed only 1.3 million viewers.

There was a similar trend last week as well – with Wednesday experiencing a big drop off from the first three days. So what is going on? Is there less on Wednesdays that viewers want to watch? Is the competition much tighter? Or is Wednesday the new Thursday?

Not sure – but starting tonight I will be calculating average commercial audiences (when possible) between 6pm – 10.30pm so we can get an idea of which nights are heavily patronised and which nights are for video games!

Last night was marked by three new skeins in the mix, The Farmer Wants a Wife did respectable business but was choked out of the 7.30 slot by the aforementioned Talent quest which your truly checked out for the first time last night and, well I can see the appeal – but that’s exactly the kind of show I would love on a Saturday night, oh well.

Embarrassingly for Ten So You Think You Can Dance came fourth in it’s slot behind 7.30 Report and Spicks and Specks. House recovered some dignity for the net although it was down 163,000 viewers and next week all bets are off as it moves back to 8.30 in direct conflict with perpetual spoiler Spicks and Specks!

Life lost 99,000 viewers and Flashpoint haemorrhaged 174,000 thanks to Seven premiering the heavily anticipated Gangs of Oz – it was certainly an eye opener and managed to open an extra 426,000 pairs of eyes who weren’t watching seven in this slot (24) the week before.

Lost came back with a fantastic episode but this once megahit has seen it’s Australian audience dwindle as it veered towards science fiction – whereas season two – when it was still big – you could surmise that they only had a toe in the genre pool (four toes perhaps) this season they are fully submerged – show any viewer from season one last night’s episode and they probably wouldn’t recognise it as the same show – nevertheless I was one of the 405,000 viewers who tuned in, more still (almost 600,000 were watching Nine News)

Improving Nicely - Fringe

When this first debuted several weeks ago, fast-tracked to Australian viewers no less, I was pretty skeptical - JJ Abrams has (in spite of his track record) created exactly one series I like which is Lost, and I could see this show becoming like Alias.

The first episode had it's moments most of them extremely gross with some sort of horrific virus infecting passengers on a plane and veered into total weirdness with the shock ending of the dead FBI agent (and traitor) being revived

Only the presence of Joshua Jackson somehow managed to keep the whole thing from going off the rails.

I took a break and then came back for tonight's ep 1.04 "The Arrival" the whole story revolved around a mysteries cylinder that burst from under the ground and was set to return to the earth in 48 hours, that's if some dude wielding a very mean looking gun doesn't get to it first.

In the midst off all this is a bald guy with no eyebrows who keeps showing up at these weird events and Peter (Jackson) wanting out and away from his father.

Let me not spoil too much for the VCR/DVR crowd by just saying that even though all the elements are strange it all held my interest for the hour and held together really well, the scenes between Jackson and Noble are very well done and one particularly creepy scene involving mind reading make this one worth your while to watch.

This final scene where we get a bit of backstory on this father/son science team is intriguing and marks a spot on a much larger canvas without us having to see the big picture - much like (the oft cited) X Files in it's best moments.

If you're like me and opted out after the grossness and unevenness of the pilot then now is the time to opt back in, Fringe is starting to get good!