Y So Sleepy?

The combined audience at 7.30 - approximately 5.5 million
The combined audience at 8.30 - approximately 4 million
The combined audience at 9.30 - roughly 2.6 million

Now the drop between 7.30 - 8.30 I get, I was a kid once, 8.30 is a popular bedtime for kids who need to be at school the next day.

But 8.30 to 9.30?? Are there really that many adults going to bed at 9.30? That's a huge drop off for audience figures and its reflected by the pathetic viewer numbers of post 9.30 shows.

Ten's new drama the Defenders may as well be on oneHD with its Offspring lead-in counting for nothing. Similarly Criminal Minds is suffering from the same rerun fatigue as NCIS.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Well I can't ignore them any longer, not when they get results like that - I'm putting ONE on the chart.

Sons of Anarchy had an excellent debut on the HD channel, outrating other new entrants Spartacus: Gods of the Arena on GO! and Jersey Shore on 7mate.

Indeed Ten might like to consider swapping the Bikie drama (which has 3 seasons worth of eps to get through) with Lie to Me which is dying a slow and painful death on the main channel. 347,000 isn't an acceptable figure at 9.30 on analogue TV.

For that matter, Glee isn't doing all that well either - losing 600,000 viewers from its lead in. Ten needs to a) look at what breaks they are putting between shows - they shouldn't be giving viewers a chance to switch over and b) keeping shows in CONSISTENT timeslots - how many times has Glee been moved now? Whereas Criminal Minds has pretty much been on Wednesdays (with occassional sojourns to Mondays) since the dawn of time.

No gimmick to speak of

What the hell? How on earth did Farmer Wants a Wife net more viewers for the reunion special than at any point in the entire season?

Is this a case of people saying en masse: "cut to the chase"?

Of course they were helped out no end by the moribund Lie to Me, a featureless crime show with a gimmick, drowning in a sea of crime shows with gimmicks. At this point people have to realise that these shows need engaging or interesting characters to stand out, much like a lot of Ten's procedurals the characters in this just seem to blend into the background, against Criminal Minds, a show whose premise contains no gimmick to speak of, yet their ensemble cast is a group of characters each of whom could carry a show, the difference is there for you to see on the chart.


Over on digital it was great night for Eleven and 7TWO and Decent for 7mate and GO! though how GO's programmers think its sustainable to run so many movie slots is beyond me, its almost programming by panic.

Still when you see the alternative, a steady schedule - as demonstrated by GEM, then maybe panic is the way to go, GEM's post 7.30 lineup across the week has more or less fallen off the map.

The Shape of things to come

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Interesting that Thursday nights in the US are also a fight between Grey's Anatomy and CSI, also interesting that just as in the states both show are hurtling towards irrelevance at a breakneck speed.



Still they're doing better than The Good Wife which the space of a year in looks like its on the way out or at least to a later time.

At the moment with Ten if it's not NCIS its not attracting viewers to 8.30. In fact across the networks' extensive roster of US dramas only the long established shows are doing the business. Bones, NCIS, Criminal Minds - all these shows are old and replacements like Blue Bloods, Parenthood and Hawaii Five-O are struggling in comparison.

This does not bode well for the future when these aging hits finally shuffle off to cable reruns.

Over on Digital personal favourite Star Trek - The Next Generation is struggling inder the weight of its woeful early episodes, best for 11 is again The Simpsons, 7 can be happy with The Next Karate Kid which almost doubled the audience of last week's Karate Kid III and The Big Bang Theory continues to shine on GO!

My Kitchen Pwns

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

I had no idea that My Kitchen Rules was supposed to be on 3 nights a week - but why not with ratings like this - the reality skein just goes from strength to strength taking out not only the Biggest Loser - knocking it under a million but also (incredibly) a new episode of The Big Bang Theory.



Big Bang's lead-out, Mike & Molly held up well considering the depressed lead-in and Farmer Wants a Wife actually improved on the figure slightly but Nine won't be happy with its performance.

Indeed given the amount of advanced promotion (an admittedly stupid promo though) that Farmer has received compared to Criminal Minds - they really got shafted.

Almost tying Farmer Wants a Wife for second in the slot was the new Adam Hill's show which posted a really good (for the ABC) 889K.

City Homicide will soon be drawing a chalk outline around itself with a woeful 663K but then again nothing at 9.30 did that well even the usually reliable RPA faltered with only 744,000.

On digital Neighbours was again the top show with 7TWO's British dramas and All New Simpsons rounding out the top five - look at how an all new Simpsons ep reduces the audience for Family Guy by 50,000 viewers!

Finally it's worth noting that Two and a Half Men lost 140,000 from ACA and came fourth in its slot behind the 7PM Project, Nine might have to start looking for a 7PM alternative which is not going to be easy.

Never mind the Vicar

I don't know what's more appalling - the performance of Criminal Minds and The Amazing Race (both have seen better days) or the fact that reruns of ancient Britcom The Vicar of Dibley managed to fend off Nine's Getaway!

The tragedy is there are so many hilarious new entrants to annals of British comedy that get ignored by the commercial nets until the ABC or SBS make them into hits (you may remember the Vicar's lineage goes back to Saturday nights on the ABC)

Frankly by my estimation the shows that did well last night (a grand total of 3 of them) were well promoted as opposed to the non-existent promotion for other shows on the dial.

Fans of Glee will be happy to note the good ratings which represents Ten's first high-school hit since Dawson's Creek (yes - that long ago!)

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.

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.

Despressing Stuff

Somedays you look at these charts and get depressed, I mean look at it...

Two and a Half Men, a rerun at that, is pulled out for it's 10th showing in the space of a week and equals the new hit World's Strictest Parents

This stellar performance does nothing for the lead out which more than halves the audience, if Australia's Perfect Couple teaches us anything - it's that no-one likes perfection.

The Librarians and Tara stumble badly - in fact the trend this week seems to be audiences deserting post 9.30 shows left right and centre, a worrying trend given there's no holidays, good weather or ashes to pin the blame on.

Law & Order UK continues the hex on Ten's Wednesday night - remember when Ten owned Wednesdays with The X Files, and then again with The Guardian, and then again with House? They desperately need a boost on this night - Celebrity Masterchef at 7.30 might do them some good - but as we can see in various spots on the grid - the lead-ins mean nothing.

Over at 7pm - the 7pm Project seems to have settled on a stable number now - though there's problems with it, mainly the beating it's taking in demos against Seven and Nine in the slot - Ten needs to find a hook to promote the show because despite the content having improved the ratings have not (although they have at least stabilised).

Criminal Minds is one of a handful of shows doing well whether it's new or rerun, also NCIS and Two and a Half Men fit this bill, but check back in two years for the inevitable erosion when not even new fasttracked eps will break a mill - that's my prediction

See - it's easy to look at the results and get depressed...

End of Story

OK - Channel Ten - now would be a good time to panic!

The 7pm Project - 3rd night in experienced a massive drop night on night shedding 18.55% night on night and 31.98% on the premiere two night ago. This is a bad result.

Of course we've seen shows rise and fall on the strength of other shows on their night, and as it stands - Wednesday is not Ten's strongest night.

The Simpsons was the only thing keeping the dream alive for Ten with both episodes scraping in over a million, also Neighbours has some how chiselled out a big following for itself this year parlaying the gravitational pull of Masterchef into what has been a reportedly compelling storyline which has kept viewers with the show - a good result.

But this good news was completely counteracted by what's going on after 8.30.

Law & Order SVU is tanking, the show is a veteran - it's been on our screens since 2000, and arguably it's heyday was in 2003/04 when it gave ER a hiding in the 8.30 Thursday slot, that was the ratings peak and as hard as it is to keep viewers with a serial, it's even harder to convince the aud that's deserted a procedural that they haven't all seen it before - especially when it's main competition is a darker, sexier beast in the form of Criminal Minds.

Even worse is the result for House. The show is still a top draw in America - but ever since the cast was diluted with an extra 3 people they've struggled to hold the interest of Australians.

I think Australian audiences have a good sense of when a show jumps the shark, at least American shows, shows like Murphy Brown, The X Files, Lois & Clark, Beverly Hills 90210, NYPD Blue all vacated primetime very soon after they stopped being relevant. This phenomena still doesn't explain why crap like Getaway or The Footy Show continue unabated, but perhaps Australians are blind to their own shortcomings.

Of course these are just House reruns and scuttlebut says Ten is trying to bed down the timeslot in preparation for September, but an unwavering figure under 600k speaks for itself - the audience has moved on. End of Story.

Elsewhere Nine continued to embarrass itself through bad experiments with reality, this time Australia's Perfect Couple, I'm not even going to give that shit oxygen.

Seven meanwhile didn't pull 1.8 million (The Aud for the sneak peek), but did almost as well with Strictest Parents which gave them the night in overall terms.

ABC dominated the 8.30 hour but The Chaser is well away from its best figures, with next week being the final episode for the series I'm curious to know if ABC will give it any publicity or if the audience will even care?

Finally ACA had one of those rare wins over Today Tonight, again thanks to one of their big ongoing stories this year, the weight loss journey of Magda Szubanski, now if only we can all lose our collective memory of Magda Funny Bits we'll all have something to celebrate!

Timeslot Flop

Wednesday 28 May 2009

Biggest Disappointment
Law & Order Special Victims Unit
Ten 8.30pm
Down 460,000 viewers on last week’s House season finale

Biggest Improvement
The Chaser’s War on Everything
ABC1 9pm
Up 228,000 viewers on last week’s Gruen Transfer season finale

Well The Chaser is back and in ratings terms at least (haven’t watched the ep yet, but I’ve heard some worrying things) it was a success.

The ABC’s comedy double caused some headaches for the commercial networks, well actually know that’s not accurate – it caused some headaches for channel ten. The very people who form Ten’s core audience all flee to the ABC at 8.30 whilst Ten is now playing a game of crime show chicken which it cannot seem to win!

You’ve heard of the phrase “timeslot hit” it was common parlance in the 90’s when NBC had a Thursday night comedy lineup consisting of Friends at 8pm and Seinfeld at 9pm, the joke was they could stick a test pattern at 8.30 and 9.30 and they would still be in the top ten for the week!

Well now we have a new term – a “timeslot flop!”

SVU has been put headlong against two crime dramas and the ABC’s most watched hour all week.

One of factors working against House in this slot was that it was a 5 year old show against two relative newbies, Criminal Minds in its fourth season is arguably at the peak of its powers, House had a refit back in season 4 and it has seen the show stumble with Australian audiences, Criminal Minds has had only one cast change (in season 3 Joe Mantegna subbing for Mandy Patinkin) and hasn’t skipped a beat, rookie drama The Mentalist is one of the year’s few shining lights out of the US.

Now Ten is replacing House with an even older drama, SVU is in its 10th season and unlike other Law & Order shows the cast of SVU have remained with the show throughout its run and the show is more character based than its sibling shows.

The 9.30 episode of SVU actually increased over the 8.30 one by 165k and over the previous week’s Numb3rs by 200k, it took Cold Case down by 110k week on week and My Name is Earl down by 114k. There is one conclusion I can draw from this, people like SVU still, there’s an audience for it – but at 8.30 that audience is watching other shows, SVU probably won’t cut through that clutter.

The only thing that could help Ten out here is that Nine and Seven will very soon be running out of episodes of their skeins, both having been fast-tracked last year, maybe Ten should put up some SVU reruns until then!

One final note, remember we're still waiting for this great new channel seven audience to surface Working Dog. If it wasn't for SVU, Seven would have recorded the night's biggest drop with Thank God You're Here plummeting 169,000 viewers week on week! Well done chumps!

Still waiting... Dog

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Well week two of Thank God You’re Here and we’re still waiting for that massive audience that will discover the show now that its on the Seven Network! Seems like some of that aud has discovered Masterchef, the cooking game show virtually tied with the defecting superhit in the 7.30 – 8pm half hour!

The Simpsons has proved a good move to Wednesday nights with the aging show pulling some decent numbers as opposed to its more subdued Friday night outings – I expect it to stay on Wednesdays for the remainder of the year.

More troubling is the performance of House, the show is stuck, Grey’s Anatomy like, just below 1 million, it’s going to get worse next season when Seven has two shiny new medical dramas to dilute the market with (the paramedic themed Trauma and a nurse-centric Mercy both of which have been picked up by NBC and are made by NBC-Universal)

Actually I can see why viewers are flocking to The Gruen Transfer (a very smart and easy to watch show) and Criminal Minds (which I occasionally watch, and saw again last night. Flicking between Criminal Minds and House last night (sorry but couldn’t less interested in The Mentalist) the FBI drama just seemed punchier and less predictable than House which feels played out, at one point House was even talking to a ghost??? Cuz yeah that really worked for Grey’s Anatomy!

The night’s other FBI drama, Numb3rs didn’t fare too well, partly because with all of ten’s launches this week it’s been a little under the radar, and secondly, the show has always struggled here for some reason – it’s a pity because it’s one of the more inventive procedurals out there.

In other news My Name is Earl went up by 79,000 viewers the night’s biggest week on week increase, of course this good news is tempered by the news in America the show is teetering on the edge of cancellation.

Nine moves up the dial 22 places - Wednesday 8 April 2009

Wednesday

While Ten scores with reruns on Tuesdays, Seven drops the true crime chicanery and dishes out a double Criminal Minds with great results - at 8.30 they were only bettered by the ABC's light entertainment double, then at 9.30 they owned the hour.

Ten's House and Guerilla Gardeners were both up week on week, although Guerilla Gardeners fate has already been sealed with a move to 6pm Sundays in the wings after Easter.

Meanwhile check out the performance this week of The Simpsons and Neighbours in the 6pm hour - are the school holidays helping these shows or what?

Channel Nine meanwhile had a good night until 8.30 - a new double of What's Good For You and RPA (somewhat reminiscent of the old Our House/Money Wednesday fixture I guess) won the 7.30 - 8.30 hour, then at 8.30 everyone had the night off - Southern viewers were subjected to a two hour Footy Show, though this sort of Wednesday stunt is quite common at this time of year the Footy Show is no longer the major draw it once was, perhaps its time to limit the number of 8.30 screenings of this stuff which, rather than win local market ratings, seem to just disrupt the networks programming.

In fact Sydney - with The Mentalist and Cold Case was the only Market which resembled the network last night, Brisbane viewers got some sort of local fashion awards??!? Is this channel nine or channel 31?

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!

Crowded House - Wednesday 15 January 2009

Sometimes television forces you to choose between three good shows facing off against one another.

It gets interesting when the shows are of a similar genre and the viewers have to make a difficult viewing choice.

There is a truism about television – you don’t want your really big shows to go up against your opposition’s really big shows because you might hurt your own show in the process.

All the same, it’s extremely difficult to knock off strong competition without using a really big show to do it.

Late last year this game of ratings chicken moved to Wednesday nights as Viewers had to chose between long time champion House, high rating freshman Criminal Minds and newcomer Fringe

Viewers decided that House beats Fringe but Criminal Minds beats House

Eventually nine got sick of losing and subbed in fellow newcomer (and the biggest new show in the US) The Mentalist.

Right there in one slot we had three shows which, on their own, are capable of drawing 1.6 million viewers all fighting for the same block of prime time ad space.

Nine’s move with The Mentalist was a blow to the show (it aud going from 1.4 to 1 million) but it repaired their share in that slot and took the edge of timeslot leader Criminal Minds. House meanwhile, as the oldest kid on the block, continued to dwindle as viewers checked out newer, shinier shows.

This summer has seen a continuation of this 3-way jam with House again suffering at the hands of it’s competitors, the timeslot winner has been CSI Miami, which is an older show than House but has spent the last two years with erratic scheduling and a waning audiences – it looks as if people are rediscovering the series, the runner up has been Las Vegas which seems to have a core fanbase willing to see out the series despite it being cancelled in America some time ago.

However last night we got a rare look at the drama pecking order in this country, with House moving to 9.30pm for a second rerun – it audience increased! Seems that people still like the doctor, they just also like the other things that are on, but when it gets to 9.30 and the other options are ER (an aging drama whose entire cast has been replaced) and The Unit (a violent Action/Soap with seemingly limited Aussie appeal) then a rerun of House wins!

There’s still life in the old show yet I guess…

Finally – Wednesday 26 November 2008

It took some yahoo at channel nine to schedule complete shit and ABC to pack up Spicks and Specks a week early but finally Dr House got back in the black – for his final new episode this year.

The medical drama roped in over 1 million viewers, a first for its current season – another beneficiary of Nine’s stupidity (Christmas with the Kranks?? I mean come on!) was Seven whose Criminal Minds enjoyed a boost of 179,000 viewers week on week.

Nine can be happy with the performance of The Big Bang Theory which has better audience retention from Two and a Half Men than previous tryout Til Death and is pulling respectable numbers. A timeslot change is in the offing with this pair of sitcoms now moving to Sundays and Mondays at 7.30pm where I expect they will continue to rate well.

Seven held their nerve (much like Ten has with House I suppose) with The Unit and it paid off with the military drama coming a close second to surprise timeslot winner Life – see what happens when you ease the glut of dramas in the same timeslot. No such luck next week as Life makes way for Rush and Nine enters the fray with ER.

Futurama continues to be a puzzle – the show single-handedly kept ten’s 2005/06 summer afloat (along with short-run hit Surface) yet now with new episodes it seems to be floundering, I’m putting the blame squarely on lead-in Will & Grace which in four weeks has failed to fire. When your main 7pm comedic rival is doubling your audience and then continuing into the 7.30 timeslot then Futurama has zero chance of building a lead. Honestly though will Friends do any better over summer.

Here my advice ten – if you want your nights to succeed – then PROMOTE Friends – not just with some one size fits all ad, but with a new commercial for EACH EPISODE run it all through your news and then start the promos for the next nights show all through primetime – the only way your gonna make people want to watch a show they’ve watched before is by reminding them how good it was – and the only way you’re going to do that is by promoting the S H 1 T out of it.

As a last note the return of Prison Break did really well and bodes well for Seven to dominate late night over the summer.

Hamish & Andy hit for six - Wednesday 19 November 2008

Some different things happening last night. The Big Bang Theory was given a new tryout behind Two and a Half Men, and had a fairly decent 83% audience retention, I think Nine will stick with it through the summer and end up reaping some good results.

Ten scheduled a one-off Best of Hamish & Andy special at 7.30 which gave them their best ratings on a Wednesday for what seems like eons and took a chunk out of Two and a Half Men. That makes 6 shows over 1 million viewers this week making it the best turnout Ten has had in a long time – probably since the Olympics.

Unfortunately Hamish & Andy proved no lead in for House which is stuck in second gear hovering under the 900,000 mark, this is a terrible situation for a once popular series although it must be said that it’s lead-out Life is enjoying a spectacular audience retention.

Seven started summer early this week with perennial Wednesday gap-filler Air Crash Investigations landing smoothly at 7.30 but a new trial of The Unit (the Semi Fast-Tracked 4th Season Premiere) fizzled losing almost half of it’s Criminal Minds lead in. It’s a pity too because although the opening minutes of the episode were pedestrian to say the least, after the opening titles the show grabbed this (first time) viewer by the balls with a high octane plot with Terrorists assassinating the Vice President and Vice President Elect and this specialist military Unit (apparently based on the real life US Delta Force) sent in to rescue the President-Elect and take down the terrorists in what looks to be a season-long storyline.

It’s great action movie fare and I recommend everyone check it out – that’s if it’s still there next week!

Dead in the O.R. – Wednesday 12 November 2008

Oh my God, make it stop!

Let’s all take a deep breath and look at the positives…

Two and a Half Men, this US comedy continues to dominate Wednesday nights with the lions share of 7.30 viewers tuned in, the rest all split between Seven and the ABC.

Criminal Minds, still a hit but it is quickly being matched by The Mentalist. Although The Mentalist is not attracting the sort of Audience it did on Sunday nights it’s still a hell of a lot more respectable than the turnout for Fringe so it has achieved it’s task.

Spicks and Specks – this show which I’m happy to admit I have never watched continues to attract a dedicated 1.2 million viewers every week.

Stupid Stupid Man – I’m not sure what this show rated when it was on TV1 but it’s been nicely multiplied by being broadcast on Free to Air TV and frankly stands as a model on how to justify for spending by the cable channels on original Australian content. If a drama or comedy from Foxtel can be repurposed on Free to Air TV six months later it sounds like a good deal all around.

Now the worrying signs…

A Current Affair is struggling and problem originates from WIN territory, the two Bruce Gordon owned network stations are underperforming (especially the local Perth version) It’s a pity no-one publishes overnight for the RegTAM the numbers from the network O&O NBN alone would probably eclipse the woeful performance in Adelaide and Perth.

9.30pm is a basket case timeslot, in fact total audience after 9.30 almost halves from it’s 8.30 figure, very shocking, the slot is still deadlocked between 3 cop shows with Seven coming out on top (as usual) , someone should throw something different in here to attract a different audience to the slot.

Finally, here goes – the elephant in the room…

Channel Ten. After last night’s performance they have gone from the mat to dead on the operating table, this is just awful.

For NEW episodes of Futurama (albeit available on DVD) in Widescreen no less to only attract half a million viewers is shameful.

For Neighbours to be their top rating show yet again is deplorable.

But the real sting is with House. This was once a top ten show. Upwards of 1.5 million would tune in each week to see it – it has been Fast Tracked for several weeks now and not one instalment has reached over 1 million viewers, last night it sunk to an all time low. This is the kind of baffling performance that should have Ten’s lawyers meeting with OzTAM’s lawyers, except that the performance of everything else on the night is just as bad.

Ten need to pull the show immediately, rest it over summer, find a decent timeslot and promote the hell out of it’s return, DON’T WASTE ANY MORE EPISODES!

Lifeless - Wednesday 5 November 2008 (US)

And I thought Life was doing badly in Australia! Man Alive, they just switched slots in the US from Fridays to Wednesdays but the news was all bad. The only thinkg Life has going for it right now is that NBC has nothing in the cupboard.

Just as in Australia it is pummelled by Criminal Minds which is the night's top 18-49 network show. The other notable performers of the night were Bones and CSI New York while CBS' comedy hour remains in the toilet, NBC's Knight Rider has already dissappeared up the S-Bend.

So much for viewers seeking out lighter fare in tougher times - looks like it's crime procedurals all round folks!