Fake Hair is preferrable to Hot Hair

That's one of the many conclusions I can draw from last night's ratings where 20 to 01 trounced Australian Idol. I wonder (aloud) whether Idol is still profitable with a million viewers and 16-39 wins only - it seems to be on the decline - Mathison's departure and Sandilands' exit haven't helped it much and there's little to no buzz about the show at the moment.

20 to 01 meanwhile is a show that is totally reliant on it's competition if it's up against two good shows there's no hope, but if there's a weakness, a gap somewhere - it just soaks up the remaining audience - such is it's watchability.

Whether you're watching to catch the seams in Bert's hairpiece or trying to guess how they'll work a Heath Ledger reference in this week - you know it's easy entertainment - TV junk food as it were.

Elsewhere Nine has problems at 9.30 - I have no idea why, surely with a choice of All Saints and NCIS there's an under-served audience somewhere in there - whoever they are aren't willing to commit 2 hours on a weeknight to a rerun movie. Honestly aside from the odd Friday/Saturday movie I cannot think of any other night suited to two hours viewing of anything - there's so much 'else' to do, internet, videogames, hell even sleep! Speaking of which...

It's all about to change

It’s worth noting that the often repeated Harry Potter franchise has finally reached the point of diminishing returns for Nine, not one of the reruns has average a million this year, not even on the high traffic Tuesday night.

Next week they’ll be going for gonzo with the US reality train-wreck Dance Your Ass Off – which can be neatly described as The Biggest Loser meets Dancing with the Stars! The fact that this show featured neither Darryl Somers nor Ajay Rochester is a plus and I wish them all the best!

Ten and Seven were neck and neck – at least across the night, with Masterchef blowing away it’s competition early on and NCIS shoring up the late hour, though Seven feasted on Prime Time with the return of Surf Patrol making a strong impression and Packed to the Rafters dominating the 8.30 hour.

At least for Seven this is the last week they’ll have to worry about Masterchef spoiling their Tuesday, for Ten the question is, was NCIS’ poor performance due to ‘special time’ or is this a sign of things to come?

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.

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.

Note to Nine: Viewers are not idiots

Tuesday 21 April 2009
First Tuesday back from the break and a real surprise in a new makeover show (yes that’s a genre now) called Ten Years Younger in Ten Days. It’s a rare occasion that a 9.30 show out-rates its 8.30 lead in but there you go, not only is that figure remarkable but the boost it delivered to Eli Stone was quite substantial.

One can imagine that if the show holds these viewers in a few weeks time it may get the switch to 8.30 bumping the Saints back.

This is the fourth week with no Packed to the Rafters and still Nine has failed to capitalised, new episodes of Two and a Half Men should be pulling significant audience but ill-conceived lead-ins and an over-saturation of the show have led to the bizarre situation where a 5 year old rerun beats a new episode!

While I’m at it – what is the deal with these horrendous shows at 7.30? Commercial Breakdown?? Isn’t that kind of cheap and nasty programming the reason Seven’s Sundays were a basket case throughout the 90s, just awful cheap filler and viewers know it too.

Show's Over, everyone spread out - Tuesday 31 March 2009

First Tuesday without Packed to the Rafters provides an opportunity for channel Ten to grow at Seven’s expense.

NCIS grew 159,000 viewers to a massive 1.55 million, Bondi Rescue followed it right up the charts growing by a whopping 345,000 viewers week on week. 132,000 of those came from Wipeout whilst 204,000 of them came from Find My Family which suffered slightly from the loss of its lead-out, confirming that at least some of the people were hanging around for the following show.

Two and a Half Men also gained week on week with an extra 134,000 viewers at 8.30 whilst All Saints saw a modest increase from its 9.30 numbers – all in all 426,000 metropolitan viewers deserted FTA at 8.30 with the conclusion of Packed to the Rafters.

Bondi to the Rescue – Tuesday 17 March 2009

Sometimes you wonder why ten, a network focussed on youth demographics and differentiating itself from its opposition would continue to bother churning out factual programs and then you see a result like last night where Bondi Rescue put on a healthy 279,000 viewers week on week

Non fiction programming also fared well elsewhere with Find My Family adding 15,000 viewers, RSPCA adding 87,000 strays and The Biggest Loser putting on 93 kilos week on week

Perhaps the family pitched Wipeout will soon have to front up to Find My Family as a further 42,000 people quit the obstacle course, it’s a pity because the show is getting a lot slicker several weeks in than on its stilted debut.

For Fictional Programming it was more of a mixed bag, NCIS, Lie to Me, All Saints and Two and a Half Men all lost viewers week on week while Today Tonight actually gained an extra 107,000!

Nine’s new 10.30 entrant Bridezilla’s (an old cable staple from Arena) turned out a disappointing 379,000 while Ten’s News and Eli Stone both had marginal increases.

The Biggest Losers - Tuesday 10 March 2009

Viewing was down across the board last night with all networks losing audience week on week, the biggest losers were (in order):

Bondi Rescue down 183k
Two and a Half Men 7pm rerun down 171k
Seven News down 155k
Home & Away down 132k
Lie to Me down 130k on last week’s NCIS rerun
Neighbours down 124k
Wipeout Australia down 110k

Phew – and that’s just the big losses! The only show to gain viewers in any meaningful way were the 8.30 episode of Two and a Half Men which 41,000 folks from last week, and Ladette to Lady which also had an extra 40,000 watching.

Special Mention to All Saints which stayed relatively steady week on week to eek out a timeslot win.

Do you laugh or cry? Tuesday 3 March 2009

I’m sure Ten’s programmers wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry – laugh because a rerun of a five year old drama takes down All Saints, or cry because their acclaimed local drama Rush couldn’t do the same.

At any rate it’s wonderful that two dramas can bring over 1.2 million each to the screen at 9.30, in fact viewing across the 5 capitals was up week on week with an average of 147,000 additional people tuning in between 7.30 and 10.30.

Seven’s early evening benefited immensely with Seven News recording a whopping 238,000 gain week on week. Nine’s news also gained an extra 134,000 viewers.

Kudos goes to Wipeout which built on its audience by 75,000 viewers and the new ep of Two and a Half Men increased it’s aud by 109,000. Although Ladette to Lady continues to disappoint in total people terms, at least its not going down, and I can’t see it doing much better given that the Tuesday night game is really between Seven and Ten.

Ten News won the battle at 10.30 – in fact the surge for news across the board indicates intense interest in this unexpected attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan.

Saints beat sinners - or is it just a lie? Tuesday 25 February 2009

Word has it that Nine have already greenlit a second season of Ladette to Lady (for those of you playing at home “seasons” are now about 6 episodes long, 22 episodes is so 1990s)

You’ve gotta wonder whether there’s a meeting somewhere in channel nine today where they’re looking for a way to get out of those contracts, this reality show has settled below 900,000 (which we’ll assume is the new pass-mark) now 800,000 is probably enough to keep it at 9.30 but Nine won’t be feeling too good about a renewal.

Over on Seven we learn the value of overruns, on most ratings reports this morning you will see a figure for All Saints of 1,223,000 Indeed I did and was preparing to write a paragraph on how All Saints has finally bested upstart Lie to Me, but word comes down from a reliable source that the 1.2 million figure represents 9.30 – 10.30 whereas All Saints ran from 9.45 – 10.45 and between those times Seven netted a still impressive 1,135,000 viewers.

Lie to Me was still bested in its timeslot due to the Packed to the Rafters overrun. Given that rarely anyone (including myself) checks back at the end of the week to see adjusted figures we can see how nets can use rubbery scheduling to spin the numbers their way.

Fortified to the Rafters – Tuesday 17 February 2009

This is the first day we’ve gotten a look at a regular Tuesday sked for all three nets and Nine is learning the price of coming late to the party.

Seven’s Tuesday was according to the script – they are virtually unassailable from 6pm to 9.30pm with their gooey family line up but then look at 9.30 – what is happening there? All Saints has lost its punch.

Now given that All Saints probably runs on the smell of an oily rag and is still pulling over 1 million I doubt that it will be given the chop, but Seven must be seriously considering a timeslot change to have something else take advantage of Packed to the Rafter’s massive lead-in.

Over on Ten all of their shows bar Neighbours suffered audience drops as younger viewers leaked over to Nine, but not enough of them to cause an upset, although Bondi Rescue dropped by 292,000 viewers week on week as people decided splashing around in a big pool was preferable to a day at the beach!

Wipeout was Nine’s only bright spot, their decision to blow new eps of Two and a Half Men at 8.30 Tuesdays is turning out to be a costly decision, these eps on a different night could attract a much larger number but instead Nine is both limiting their reach and contracting their run of new eps (already shortened due to last year’s unnecessary fast-tracking)

At 9.30 Nine’s game of ‘follow that show’ has backfired with Aussie Ladette to Lady recording a 519,000 viewer night on night drop. Thanks Ladette’s – its been real.

Primetime Preview: Tuesdays

7.30 – 8.30
RSPCA Animal Rescue/Find My Family vs Wipeout vs The Biggest Loser/Bondi Rescue

OK, now we’re talking competition. Seven is wasting no time and is bringing back their mega-Tuesday without delay. Both the pet show and Find My Family were big drawcards late last year and Seven is looking to keep the buzz going. Both Nine and Ten are reviving their Tuesday success stories from last year to compete with an Australian version of Wipeout and ten’s Bondi Rescue returning for a fourth season.

The hot tip…

Seven will win, but they will be strongly challenged by Wipeout which has a suitable hosting team (James Brayshaw and Josh Lawson) and is one of the few fun family shows on TV (sorry seven watching sick pets or families in despair is not fun). Bondi Rescue is likely to falter with the factual aud disappearing up seven’s fundament.


8.30 – 9.30
Packed to the Rafters vs TBA vs NCIS

Do I even need to analyse this? Nine is competing at first with an Adults Only Two and a Half Men but no word on whether that will continue beyond one week.

The hot tip…

Rafters first, NCIS second, Nine third.


9.30 – 10.30
All Saints vs TBA vs Lie to Me

Again no idea what Nine is screening in this slot - but I'll hazard a guess and say that a retooled All Saints will romp home the winner, Lie to Me may be good or whatever - but we seem to be chock-a-block full of quirky weird dude procedurals right now, plus Tim Roth - he may be in movies but he ain't no star.

The hot tip...
All Saints, until Ten put NCIS reruns back in the slot, then they are frakked!

Curious Phenomenon - Tuesday 18 November 2008

Another Tuesday night of wall to wall Seven dominance. You know a night of TV is big when people you know start talking to you about it apropos of nothing!

So it was last night with All Saints lifting for the last episode with actor Mark Priestley who died shortly after the Olympics in an apparent suicide. This help to subdue the figure for Rush, ten’s strategy for a quick summer turnaround for the Melbourne based drama is a welcome move – getting it out of the path of Seven’s steamrolling Tuesdays.

At least Ten has the one show that can weather a Seven storm in NCIS, occasionally this show, a procedural laced with sarcasm feels like it’s straight out of the 80s, which makes sense as it’s from Don Bellisario, the creator of such 80’s highlights as Magnum PI, Airwolf and Quantum Leap and although he has long since left NCIS (over a dispute with series lead Mark Harmon) the tone of the show is unmistakeable.

In the US NCIS is proving to be indestructible with reruns outperforming other new series wherever they land and the series itself standing up against megahits like House and American Idol.

Here in Australia it has been Ten’s most solid import, while their other big draw House implodes NCIS goes against the toughest show of the week and shines.

This week we can also bear witness to that curious phenomenon of the 8pm episode of The Simpsons outrating the 7.30pm episode. Anecdotally this makes a lot of sense, viewing generally (but not always) peaks at 8.30pm because with people working later and commuting longer they are often not ready to watch TV until later in the night.

For Ten this has been a factor for years – they used to show Everybody Loves Raymond after Becker on Tuesday nights because Raymond could net the larger audience – amazingly it has never occurred to anyone at channel ten to post the New Simpsons episode at 8pm and see what happens!

Seven's problems are other nets fantasies - Tuesday 28 October 2008

Last night was a very low rating night – unless you were channel seven that is with Packed to the Rafters and All Saints boosting their numbers from last week.

The biggest drop was to The Simpsons which lost 125,000 viewers week on week whereas it’s stablemate Kenny’s World actually got a lift as did The Chopping Block, however with both shows staying under 900,000 I doubt either will earn a second season.

8.30 seems to be a major switch on point and it’s a fair assumption to note that there a lot of people who on average now are only watching one hour of TV per night – that has probably always been the case to some extend but the proportion of folks who only stay for the 8.30 hour is growing.

At 7pm the 3 commercial nets attracted 3,084,000 people to the box, at 8.00 that number grew to 3,549,000. For the 8.30 hour it pumps up again to 4,133,000 essentially adding 500,000 people per hour, then an 9.30 a million people take off leaving only 3,163,000 holding a remote which is tuned to 7, 9 or 10. It’s a good bet that not all of these people are heading to bed – a good proportion would be headed to cable, with a lot more firing up the internet, even DVDs and Video Games would get a look in – the choice is endless. In the future 9.30 programs pulling over 1 million are going to get a lot rarer.

What about the retention from 8.30 to 9.30 – well unsurprisingly Nine fared the best but only because they had the least to lose with 20 to 01 retaining 91.3% of it’s lead-in, Rush retained 78.8% of it’s lead-in – you would think Ten would be aiming for at least 85% given the strong NCIS marquee and the fact that Rush is a similar show in content, but no amount of promotion seems to able to give it a lift – the show appears to have found it’s audience and is settled between 900,000 and 1 million. Ten needs to put in a concerted promotional push to get new viewers to sample the show because Rush is now decoupled from it’s lead in.

All Saint fared the worst in terms of retention with only 67% but it almost doesn’t matter because the show is streets ahead of it’s rivals – it does however present seven with a future dilemma – here they have a show, a steamroller in Packed to the Rafters which could be used to launch or boost anything on their schedule, yet if they move either it, or All Saints they risk killing the Golden Goose – of course, Nine or Ten would kill for a problem like that right now!