Boys retreat to digital

You know how I can tell that Seven has the female audience stitched up on Sundays? Look at the digital channels, male skewing shows dominated with 7mate's entire night, Big Bang, Top Gear all peaking over 300,000 viewers.

First Blood (aka Rambo) absolutely dominated digital on the night, how many women would be watching that? Instead they were all glued to Downtown Abbey on channel 7.

By contrast any digital channel going specifically after women last night bombed. 7TWO would do better running a test pattern on Sundays rather than persisting with Royal Upstairs Downstairs. Meanwhile GEM's The Reader bombed despite being the most recent movie to screen last night!

Think Small

Well there's no stopping Seven - the week's top shows read like a list of Last Week's top shows...

Dancing with the Stars, Downtown Abbey, Australia's Got Talent, Masterchef, Winners & Losers, Amazing Race and Glee.

So lets look instead at Digital TV and what's working and what's struggling.

Sunday:

Lots of movies on this night so digital dominance is never assured, if you're after a mature drama then GEM is your option, more brash blockbuster fare lives on GO!, 7mate and Eleven.

The abject failure of the night is Royal Upstairs Downstairs on 7TWO, surprising and yet not, because most of the potential audience for this crap would be watching Dancing with the Stars in prep for Downtown Abbey. A case of Seven cannibalising its own lineup.


Monday:


GO! back when it started was something fresh and exciting, now it's more or less cheap and nasty. The number of original series on the channel has nosedived and those that are left are victims of wildly inconsistent scheduling.

GO! is now a dumping ground for channel nine reruns, specifically Top Gear and the Big Bag Theory, propped up with Movie reruns (some quite good) and timeshifted stuff from the main channel (like Come Fly with Me in this particular night).

What happened to the GO! that drew me away from cable with TMZ, Seinfeld and a dozen shows aimed away from the mainstream?

At the first sign of competition these things were junked in favour of Top Gear reruns.

Abject failure is oddly enough on GO! which has hollowed out it's sked so much that any sort of regularity or consistency is roundly ignored by viewers - hence the poor performance of the Funniest Home Vids daily show (basically FHV without the crap about competitions or corporate sponsors)


Tuesday:


Seven's schedule on this night is still britcoms but is a slightly different shape than Autumn's lineup giving a bit of breathing room to 11 which has picked markedly this week.

Even The Office on a lowly 111K is posting its best result all season, but Ten's attempt to go retro and replace Raising Hope with Frasier bombed losing over 20,000 from its leading and knocking Nurse Jackie (which is now airing 1 day after its US broadcast) and Californication out of contention.

Special Mention has to go to BIG on GEM, a reality show (also on Nine - there's that timeshifting at work again) evidently so boring that nobody can be bothered to even make a wikipedia page about it, and it charted so low that it didn't even make the digital top 100 - surely a sign that your show is a waste of everybody's time.


Wednesday


You know if I ever bothered to watch GEM - I think I would grow to hate myself, If GO! has turned into a clearing house for hits you've seen before, GEM has turned into a 24/7 Fly on the Wall channel, and the flies are all over this one - with titles like "The World's Hairiest Person and Me", "Embarrassing Teen Bodies" and "Brothers & Sisters In Love" if there's such a thing as hell, this is surely the only channel they can get there - well, this and C31.

I have to give a shout out to Jersey Shore over on Seven Mate - its one of the biggest TV phenomena in the US to come down the cable in some years, by the same channel (MTV) that gave the world The Osbornes, a show that has had so much impact in the US has fizzled out here - yet the reasons are obvious, anyone who wants to have seen it - has seen it.

MTV on Foxtel plays this show constantly, everyone else would've torrented the thing two years ago, (which is an appalling wait for Australians in this day and age)


Thursday


On Thursday's everyone gets a turn, the older skew on the night seems to throw up a situation with lots of shows scoring decent numbers and nothing really failing (Except for Heli-Loggers whose potential aud probably went to bed at 9.30 - quick Seven better slot in another rerun of Family Guy)

Monday May 9th, 2011

Good ratings for The Big Bang Theory in the face of the all conquering Masterchef. But Masterchef's highs still aren't rubbing off on the rest of Ten's sked.

Especially sad is GNW which didn't even air in the AFL states.

All I can personally say is thank FRAK that Seven has the AFL rights next year, they consistently have the most boring and stale lineup (from a 34yo male perspective anyway) and so I won't care one iota when AFL storms in on a Monday or Thursday night to disrupt the regular schedule.

Over on digital it was all 7TWO with GO! suffering a particularly bad night (only Top Gear appeared in the top 50) part of the blame there has to lay with their scheduling - to the casual observer GO! appears to have 4 shows: Top Gear, Big Bang, Two and a Half Men and Wipeout! and their scheduling has all the consistency and predictability of a game of roulette.

Nine outta just pick a night for each of these shows and use them to promote their less popular shows and stop peppering them all over the schedule.

Once again we were kings

Winners & Losers continues on from its strong debut with winning ratings. Seven is just dominating this early part of the year and there's almost nothing the other two nets can do to stop them!

Ten must be counting down the days until Masterchef - but at this point I wonder whether the audience for that show will have already gotten their fill for culinary action by the time My Kitchen Rules bows.

Over on digital television Survivor puts in an excellent performance, just like The Amazing Race there are still decent audiences for these shows and while they might not look too spectacular on the analogue channels, on digital they are kings.

Pricing yourself out of the market

In Mediaspy today there's an interesting report about the impending AFL rights negotiations with Citigroup warning that the asking price of 1 billion dollars is too high.

You can read that story here Citigroup issues AFL TV rights warning: $1bn is too high

Increasingly I think the commercial networks would be mugs to pay $1b for AFL rights. The ratings for AFL keep sliding down the slope each year and you have the added logistical headache of finding alternative programming for Sydney and Brisbane. Last Thursday’s match was beamed live into Sydney on channel One, only 9,000 people watched! How the AFL thinks they sustain 2 teams in that city let alone justify a billion dollar price tag for the rights is beyond me.

Ten will want to be involved again because they have the sports channel (I believe they’re also going after Rugby League which they had during the 80s), current Seven is suing Ten so I’m not sure that they’ll work together, but Seven needs a partner and I don’t think it will be Foxtel, unless Foxtel just partners up with Ten (I don’t think Nine will be a player in the negotiations)

You only have to look at the (non) performance of One HD which regularly nets only 1 or 2% of the Audience vs channels like 11 or GO! which get up to 5 or 6% to see that live sport is no longer king in this country.

No Losers for Seven

Tuesday, 22 March 2011



A very big debut for Seven's new series Winners & Losers ensures the best possible start for the Packed to the Rafters substitute.

It doesn't hurt either that My Kitchen Rules is now a major hit with 1.5 million metro viewers.

Over on Digital TV, GO! had a big night with Survivor: Redemption Island pulling a respectable 260K over 2 hours.

What turning a blind eye gets you

Monday, 7 March 2011

Now here's an interesting twist. A Current Affair, which has been languishing in the ratings since the season began, decides to wheel out a story from last year that captured national attention, the so-called "Hey Dad Scandal" so named for the old Channel 7 sitcom (yes it was as bland as it sounds) where it seems the youngest cast member was allegedly sexually abused by her TV patriarch.

Nothing particularly new was added to the story - police are still interviewing people and are yet to file charges, but the victim has decided not to wait for them and to bring civil action against her abuser and the folks who enabled this travesty.

Why I have nothing particularly enlightening to add to this case, from a television perspective its interesting to note that Hey Dad is one of the longest running shows ever on TV, at 291 episodes there's an awful lot of material in the can and yet its barely ever been rebroadcast, and now with this history unearthed which just leaves a bad taste in your mouth, the chances of it turning up in reruns anywhere are nil.

What broadcaster would buy rerun rights to this now? A series with this kind of success should normally expect a pretty decent post-release income from reruns and DVD sales, that's all gone for this show, done.

Maybe in future producers will report this kind of on-set behaviour to the police rather than turn a blind eye.

From Old and Bloated to Trim and Teriffic

Thursday, 3 February 2011

The Biggest Loser is just going from strength to strength, 1.3 million viewers is outstanding for a show that last year looked shell shocked from being pushed to 7.30 to make room for the 7pm project.



A year ago Loser was struggling to break 900,000 viewers per outing. This year they've made the show leaner with 4 1 hour installments a week helping to shore up Ten's typically weaker back half of the week with older demographics.

Seven looks like it is using the night to play the demographic game putting the younger skewing Mother and Greys skeins as well as Desperate Housewives which for me is in that category: "Is that still on??"

Similarly why are the CSI shows still going? Surely they're played out by now. Nine skews old with these dramas and Getaway - the show that's so old it's forgotten half of it's length - ready to be picked up by RBT - a show with a premise that's simultaneously stupid and yet so brilliant you wonder why nobody thought of it before!

Nice to see Stargate and Star Trek the Next Generation doing well in their slots on Eleven - Australian TV needs all the sci-fi it can get.

Outside the primetime grid there's a lot of blog chatter about the performance of Ten's new newshour - 6pm and 6.30 News - which has dropped week on week from the mid 400's to the mid 300's - its way to early to call these shows either a failure or success, my sincere hope is Ten will succeed with this venture - their decision to deal themselves into the 6pm hour is the biggest shakeup that the TV schedule has had - and in the long run it will put their prime time schedule on an even footing.

Monday Night Boner

Monday, 31 January 2011

That's more like it!

This time last week Glee could only manage 659,000 viewers this week the audience almost doubled with 6 shows after 7.30 pulling above 1 million.



My Kitchen Rules looks entrenched - not bad for a show which last year had a sense of the "me-too's" about it as Seven tried to emulate the success of Masterchef.

Bones continues to lock David Boreanaz into a boring procedural but still people watch it in droves.

In the 'stuff I'm watching' department - Shit My Dad Says (yes I swear by the original title!) had an encouraging start retaining most of it's lead in, in fact it's probably one of the best debut performances on the back of Two and Half Men that we've ever seen.

Like I said - sitcoms are back!

No way to Garner viewers

Saturdays, err, I mean Wednesdays are turning into a 3 horse race with Ten's Masterchef and Seven's The Pacific both flanking Nine's Hey Hey revival - although Hey Hey is softer now that viewers know they can always catch it next week, at least Nine has gotten out 2 hours over 1 million viewers, the rest of the night on seven was decidedly ordinary with the reality skeins at 7.30 being locked out by Masterchef and Criminal Minds being beaten by Nine's US version of another SBS hit - Who do you think you are.

Ten deserves a rap over the knuckles for wasting a decent lead in on a pathetic movie - I've never heard of PS I Love You but from my channel surfing the other night I determined that it involved Jennifer Garner which is your first indication of FAIL.

You might be looking at the chart and wondering why I have a picture of Eddie McGuire next to the EPIC FAIL for Deal or no Deal - well Andrew O'Keefe is currently having is arse handed to him by Eddie's Hot Seat and if this keeps up for the rest of the season we could see Seven packing up the suitcases.

Sunday Rant

That's right the RANT is back - let's jump into it!

Sunday 15th November 2009
Sunday night was good for Seven and bad, bad, bad for everyone else.


At 6.30 Ten’s Electric Dreams almost got done by Wipeout on the increasingly strong GO! While even the combined auds of 20 to 1 and Wipeout couldn’t match the might of Sunday Night with almost 1.3 million tuning in!


The Magic continued for Seven at 7.30 with Border Security and The Force proving that there were still people using their televisions in November, while 60 minutes really struggled, despite having a well balanced show. Australian Idol continues to be a disappointment, no amount of promotion seems to be able to interest viewers in this clapped out old format, yet still they talk about renewing it for 2010.


Bones was the only game in town at 8.30, Nine fell right off the map with some unknown telemovie, get used to it because this is the season when Nine starts trotting out bad first run Australian movies to shore up their drama quota (there’ll a forthcoming rant about that!) for the year – you’d think with Underbelly, Sea Patrol and Rescue Special Ops they wouldn’t have to do too much this year but we’ll see…


At 9.30 Castle almost broached the million mark, if only it could hold its ground in the US market! The final Rove managed only 760,000 viewers, imagine what they could’ve pulled had they promoted the move beforehand.

Continuing the debacle

Well, they've done it Ten has won a week of television, I don't think that's happened since the final week of summer 08 (Jan 2008).

Seven didn't help their case at all with the continuing debacle that is Prime Time Rugby Union, this time the game they play in heaven (and really expensive schools) pushed Seven's news in Sydney and Brisbane back and back, by which time everyone seemed to be tuned to either New Tricks or Harry Potter.

Also I take back my quip about Harry Potter's diminishing returns, although movies 1-3 seem to be played out - the fourth installment "The Goblet of Fire" can still draw a crowd and for a long night running to 10.55pm!

Million Dollar Bogey

It’s an ironic twist that certain events have conspired to make me miss yesterday’s deadline forcing me to post two days worth of results on the one entry.

The reason is posting them together allows me to outlay a huge contrast in the fortunes of channel ten and channel seven and their dealings with production company Working Dog.

Working Dog productions is the boutique television company behind TV shows such as The Panel, The Hollowmen and Thank God You’re Here.

Thank God You’re Here was a megahit for channel ten, over the course of two years (2006-2007) the show was a top ten mainstay with in excess of two million viewers on several occasions.

After spending a year away from the screen the show’s producers late last year moved their skein to the Seven sked for an undisclosed sum which has been speculated to be up to one million dollars per episode.

At the time this was seen as yet another nail in the coffin at channel ten, the perennial third-place network was well on it’s way to coming fourth in 2008 with it’s major 7pm franchise Big Brother having failed resulting in the collapse of their Prime Time schedule.

For the last 13 weeks of the 2008 season it was rare for Ten to have more than four shows post more than 1 million viewers.

While one could look at the Working Dog decision as having the appearance of rats fleeing a sinking ship and on the other hand representing incredible business nous with the company parlaying a show nurtured by a rival broadcaster into a multi-million dollar payday, Thank God You’re Here producer Tom Gleisner sought to dampen the angry internet chatter by famously claiming that the move to Seven was about exposing the show to a wider audience.

Now 2008 rolls around and ten feels like they’ve got their mojo back, they were always going to have a respectable first quarter with The Biggest Loser a popular 7pm switch-on for the net, but it has been the performance of their Big Brother replacement, the cooking competish Masterchef, which has caught everyone by surprise.

Then there’s the case of Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation, an amiable nostalgia themed quiz show hosted by the normally avant guarde Shaun Micallef taking a rare paddle down the mainstream. It’s likely that with Thank God still on their roster, Ten wouldn’t have taken a chance on this show which was reportedly a spurr of the moment programming decision (producer Granada wasn’t even looking to pitch the show to Ten execs) but the gamble has paid off richly for the net giving them a stranglehold over Tuesday nights.

As for Thank God You’re Here. The show has performed well, but it has been repeatedly dogged in it’s Wednesday timeslot by Masterchef.

Masterchef’s second half hour on Wednesday has been butting up against the 4th season show dragging it’s ratings down significantly in the first half, last night was the first time Masterchef took on Thank God for the whole 7.30-8.30 hour and the result was an emphatic win to ten.

If the yet to be seen 7pm project is a success then Ten have indicated that skeins like Biggest Loser and Masterchef will be 7.30 starters next year, making prospects for a next season a lot bleaker for the Working Dog people

Payback’s a bitch I guess…


Tuesday 16 June 2009

Going Up
Masterchef up by 8.11%
The Bold and the Beautiful up by 7.24%
Today Tonight up by 6.96%
Around the World in 80 Gardens up by 6.83%
Ten News at Five up by 6.22%

Going Down
A Current Affair down 17.64% week on week
HomeMADE (7.30pm) down 14.93%
Artscape down 13.49% on Jennifer Byrne Presents
Two and a Half Men (8.30pm down 13.42%/7pm down 12.04%/9pm down 10.01%)
Mumbai Calling down 11.06%



Wednesday 17 June 2009

Going Up
American Dad up 103.54% over Prison Break
Masterchef up 71.49% over All New Simpsons
Masterchef up 24.78% over itself week on week
SVU New Episode up 16.36%
The Morning Show up 13.84%
SVU 9.30pm rebroadcast up 10.52%
Sunrise up 10.16%

Going Down
Cold Case down 28.37% on The Mentalist down 20.10% on itself week on week
Prison Break down 26.11% week on week
RPA down 25.31%
The Cook and the Chef down 18.82%
The New Inventors down 17.76%
Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union down 16.81%
Thank God You’re Here down 15.67%
7.30 Report down 11.36%
Two and a Half Men rebroadcast down 10.35%
Spicks and Specks down 10.11%

The Shape of things to come

With Masterchef picking up all sorts of steam in the run up to it’s finale Ten is on an absolute roll with Good News Week posting great figures and extending from 75 to 90 minutes tipping the network over the edge for a rare Monday win (All people and key demos from 6pm – midnight)

Seven and Nine both must be hanging on for dear life waiting for this cooking show to end so their early evening shows can breathe again, How I Met Your Mother did only marginally better on Monday than in it’s 10pm Wednesday slot languishing in 4th place, pitting this show against Two and a Half Men (and now Masterchef) has been an absolute disaster for Seven, the network is still Number one by a comfortable margin but like Nine in the 90’s this is actually more by virtue of its News/CAF hour than anything happening after 7pm.

Seven has already made several moves this year remeniscent of Nine in it’s heyday – chasing diminishing ratings with big dollars (Thank God You’re Here), shafting series back to 11pm at the drop of a hat (Heroes, Lost) and counterprogramming for spite.

Oh yeah, spite, what the hell am I talking about? Well simply put spiteful programming sees a network take on a successful show with a show that would appeal to the exact same audience with the object of railroading the original timeslot occupant, Nine was a master at this tactic, one of the most famous examples was taking on Ten’s US Hit NYPD Blue with their own Megahit ER on Thursday nights, we all know who won that battle, but it’s a good bet that most of the people who watch ER would also watch NYPD Blue, Nine forced viewers to choose.

Seven has tried the same crazy game of chicken here this year with ‘Mother’ and they’ve flopped spectacularly.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Seven emulates Nine’s old tactics (the very tactics that used to piss viewers off and led to that famous label “Nein”) because half of the Nine Network is now on the Seven payroll but for god’s sake Seven please – you don’t have to become them to beat them, you’ve already won!

Split up and siphoned off

Every commercial network split their schedule last night – Ten for the obvious reasons (the start times for AFL and the fact that movies rate better for them in Sydney) Nine too was split by start times for it’s international cricket coverage, while Seven split up for the rugby union – which has more of a following in Sydney and Brisbane than the AFL but not much more judging by these figures!

Excluding news programs there were seven shows that beat the Rugby Union in it’s heartland, including such unbeatable favourites as Gardening Australia and a rerun of the kids movie Zathura.

The game is by definition included on the Anti-Siphoning Legislative Instrument which restricts Foxtel from bidding on sports rights where there is a significant national interest in the sport. Ironically with only 372,000 viewers – that’s only slightly better than Foxtel in terms of audience size – and completely pathetic in terms of Free to Air, and especially for Seven, the market leader.

Saturday 13 June 2009
Scoreboard

Going Up
Richard Hammond Engineering Connections up 57.54% week on week
Talk to the Animals (Nine) up 39.67% week on week
Gardening Australia up 23.72% week on week

Going Down
Seven's Rugby Union down 8.82% week on week

Something like a phenomenon

Monday 8 June 2009

It was good news for all networks last night thanks to that phenomenon known as the public holiday!

The same event which suppressed the audience on the Sunday night served to boost it to new heights on Monday.

Early evening shows got a huge boost with people indoors earlier due to the bad weather, the football and the day off work.

Ten recorded it’s biggest audience yet for Masterchef, an average of 1.8 million viewers over the hour representing a 22% increase week on week.

Remember last year when this project was being mooted and people just shook their heads thinking it would never work? Well you should all consider yourselves told! Masterchef is the surprise hit of 2009!

Also making an impact – Seven news, 555k clear of channel nine and almost 1 million viewers clear of channel ten!

It used to be that Seven was winning night to night but Nine News would win on public holidays – the theory being an improved turnout among working stiff who would normally be commuting at 6pm.

Well that situation has well and truly reversed – Seven is now the choice for the bulk of the workers too! They are, for lack of a better word, entrenched.

Finally the other big thing to happen last night was Millionaire Hot Seat venturing into prime time giving some 1.2 million viewers a chance to sample the show, Hot Seat won Melbourne and Brisbane but ten Recruits took the other cities.

I wonder if this is a push for yet another prime time game show or Nine’s way of promoting the show to a wider audience. Either way they could consider it a success, though here’s a sobering thought, Hot Seat recorded it’s best ever 5.30 audience with 812,000 viewers, in the same timeslot Ten News brought 1,167,000 while Deal or no Deal pulled in 1,075,000! Still some room to make up there.

Scoreboard

Going up
Hot Seat (5.30pm) up 23%
Masterchef up 22%
Scrubs up 18% (excluding Melb market)
Today Tonight up 15%
Deal or no Deal up 14%
A Current Affair up 14%
Seven News up 13%
Media Watch up 13%
Desperate Housewives up 12%
Recruits up 11%

Going Down
Jonathan Ross Show down 11%
Top Gear Australia down 8%
Supernatural down 8%
Good News Week down 4%

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