Sunday Bloody Sunday!

A return to Monday nights is just what City Homicide needed after being put under the pump on Sundays earlier this year.

Seven's cavalier attitude to scheduling sometimes does more harm than good, Homicide at one time owned Monday nights before Seven decided to move it to Sundays out of the way of Underbelly, probably a shrewd move but given that Homicide's core audience is over 50 that sort of timeslot juggling doesn't go down well with that crowd.

At any rate after the ill fated Sunday experiment the show is back and returning to prominence on Monday nights, more importantly it is reviving the fortunes of Seven's Crime Investigation Australia ripoff - Beyond the Darklands, itself a victim of a catastophic Sunday sojourn earlier in the year!

Ten, riding low at the moment thanks to the slow-burning 7pm slot (yes I'm being generous here) almost, almost had a good night with Idol and Good News Week both doing nice numbers.

I say almost because the whole thing was brought undone with Dexter. This show has an admittedly clever premise (the hero is a serial killer who only kills bad guys - yay!) but it has three strikes against it:

a) It comes on after 2 hours of family friendly light entertainment, the endless pile of carcasses of high-brow shows after Rove on a Sunday night should be an indicator of what happens to this kind of show on Ten
b) It's already aired on (Premium) cable
c) It's already out on DVD - you only have to witness the buzz about True Blood, a violent, sexy vampire epic from HBO which was unleashed on DVD barely a month ago to realise that people who want to see these shows are seeking them out and not waiting for the networks to get around to it.

Even more baffling is that Ten decided to schedule it 9.30 Mondays after it failed earlier this year also at 9.30 Mondays!!! There's just no excuse!

Nine was engaging in some state to state weirdness last night - the show Drop Dead Diva has been dropped in some (read WIN) markets in favour of The Mentalist (like that hasn't been repeated enough!) while Adelaide inexplicably dropped The Big Bang Theory for a reality show called Animal Emergency - what on Earth were they hoping to gain from that?

Good News, Bad News - Thursday 2 April 2009

A Week on Week comparison for channel Ten obviously sees ten down without the aid of AFL footy but away from that schedule upheaval Ten has some good news and some bad news...

The Good News
Law & Order SVU got the better of Nine's 20 to 01 with probably its biggest audience of the season, helped along by (of all things) Bondi Vet!

Dr Chris Brown is finally over the million mark and no doubt a second season confirmation is only a formality.

For a show which is not a typical Ten format (and has therefore struggled for attention) it has grown consistently each week. Last year it seemed like the whole "Bondi" franchise would be dead on the tarmac with the abject failure of Bondi Rescue Bali, but the success here must surely be encouraging someone to hunt for the next Bondi reality skein, Crime & Investigation channel looked like they were getting in on the act last Thursday with The Bondi Gay Murders, but that was just a one-off CIA ep!

The Bad News
Oh Yeah - the disruption (two pre-emptions for AFL matches so far this season) has not been a good thing for Life on Mars which this week finished its run in the US, not sure if this show will see the other side of easter at 9.30 - we may be looking at a 10.30 move.

Some are even suggesting a Friday night swap with Medium (Personally I would swap out the male-skewing Law & Order to take it away from male-skewing sports), other have reasonably pointed out that Ten has not been so quick on the trigger this year - and that is true - but remember they still moved Dexter out of prime time and in a few weeks Guerilla Gardeners (which has been treading water at 700k) is moving to 6pm Sundays (replacing a low-rating Simpsons rerun) so even though Ten is more patient this year, I still think Life on Mars may see out its run in a different slot.

Spac Filler of the week - Monday 23 March 2009

The ABC had a big week on week improvement with The 7.30 Report booking over 1 million viewers (which doesn’t happen often), Australian Story recording what must be it’s biggest aud so far this year with a reportedly thought provoking case examining the aftermath of euthanasia.

The spotlight on idiotic Judge Marcus Einfeld (a speeding ticket ffs!) gave a boost to Four Corners lifting it by 210,000 viewers, in turn struggling drama The Cut lifted by 72,000 viewers to something approaching a daytime audience.

Good News for Scrubs fans the show rose 36,000 viewers into respectable territory which should keep the wolves at bay, rising too was Desperate Houswives (by 24k) Seven seems to be digging in to keep viewers interested in the show, running weekend marathons, putting the episodes online, you name they’re doing it.

Meanwhile Underbelly dropped to its lowest aud ever with 100,000 less viewers than the previous week, that is still a good audience but it has been in decline for several weeks now.

Time to give out the spac-filler award, much like the putty you would use to repair holes in plaster walls, network programmers occasionally have to resort to cheap reruns to paper over holes in their schedule, occasionally these changes produce very good results like today’s award winner NCIS…

NCIS was moved to this timeslot 3 weeks back to sub for Serial Killer drama Dexter which had sunk to the unsustainable low number of 506,000 viewers, NCIS improved week on week by 151,000 viewers, building an additional 393,000 on Dexter’s last primetime figure to outrate it’s lead-in and Brothers and Sisters! Outstanding!

Sunday 22 March 2009

Sunday again continues to be close struggle for all the nets with only the 7.30 hour putting Seven out in front. Viewers have well and truly put aside 60 minutes for the more visceral experience of Seven’s factual offerings.

Meanwhile Dexter’s ratings last Sunday looked to be a mirage, either the show dropped by 342,000 viewers week on week or it was initially timecoded wrong resulting in an inflated rating for the first week.

The tussle at 8.30 continues to be tight with less than 3,000 viewers separating the crime shows. Backyard Blitz, now rumoured to be axed lost 84,000 viewers week on week while The Biggest Loser picked up an extra 94,000 and Sunday night brought in another 129,000 (the night’s biggest increase)

Hope for the late night dustbin - Monday 16 March 2009

A little late to the blog for Monday’s ratings but sometimes the real world takes priority over your internet world! As far as I can see the story of Monday is not the mega lift given to Customs (up 123,000 viewers on weeks) or the relatively insignificant slide for Underbelly (down 93,000 viewers) but between 8.30 and 10.30 Ten is improving – Good News Week was up 85,000 viewers week on week and has seemingly beat 4 corners (which was once the monkey on its back) into submission in 4th place.

At 9.30 NCIS is slowly resuscitating what was a disaster hour for ten with the timeslot up another 93,000 week on week, as you know Dexter’s move back to late night proved a weird success also retaining most of the show’s fan base, so all in all it was a positive move and Ten’s Monday share is now at 20% which is a pass mark more or less.

Of course Dexter started out as a late night show on Ten (after a cable run on the top-tier Showcase) and was trialled this season in Prime Time eventually flopping, another show, Scrubs which started out during Summer, underwhelmed Seven’s programmers and found itself in all manner of late night timeslots eventually found traction on DVD where it’s season box sets have become some of the best selling entries for the medium.

Last summer Seven decided to move it from the no-man’s land of 11.30pm to 10.30 and the result was phenomenal with episodes pulling upwards of 500,000 viewers in the slot, hence a show which for all intents and purposes was dead has been restored to prime time by Seven in its final season

The result was that Seven took a hit week on week of roughly 89,000 viewers but considering the episode they bowed with (where main character JD was absent save for a voice over) it’s a pretty good result, hopefully it can pick up and allow this often ignored series to go out on a high note.

To Catch a Killer (in a later timeslot) Sunday 15 March 2009

Uh wow, I never thought I could declare Dexter a timeslot winner, but I guess moving to 11pm does wonders for a show, what’s more bizarre is its against the show which consigned it to late night to begin with!! Most of its followers having followed it to Sunday Night

Rove too had an impressive night for a late start. Starting after 9.30 doesn’t tend to favour that show but somehow he pulled off a nice win, perhaps an increase in younger viewers confined to the house in light of bad weather in the nation’s two largest cities is to blame.

City Homicide sunk beneath CSI both of which are far away from their series’ peaks, meanwhile Border Security continues to go from strength to strength and in a surprise result Domestic Blitz had a revival after looking very poor the previous Sunday.

With so many shows inexplicably up or down on the previous week the only trend that seems to be emerging on Sunday nights is a very close contest from all networks, Programs are winning timeslots with barely a hair’s breadth between them.

Auntie takes a beating - Monday 9 March 2009

Another Monday, another large body count and another channel nine victory.

Underbelly actually grew week on week by another 34,000 viewers while Desperate Housewives dropped by 39,000! Meanwhile timeslot also-ran Good News Week built an extra 44,000 people onto its base registering over the 800,000 mark and back out of danger, 4 corners was hit hard with 85,000 viewers tuning out week on week.

In fact the ABC has taken quite a pummelling on Monday nights in recent weeks – especially considering their relative strength last year, case in point is 9.30pm:

There were more people watching TV at 9.30 last night than were watching at the comparable hour last week, Brothers & Sisters was up 22,000 viewers, Crime Investigation Australia lifted a whopping 193,000 week on week (the night’s best improver) and a rerun of NCIS brought an additional 149,000 people who couldn’t be stuffed with Dexter the previous week, yet ABC’s 9.30 entry – The Cut actually lost 81,000 viewers week on week??? This is after losing 83,000 viewers the previous week – there’s not a lot of people left to lose here!

Now I haven’t seen it so I cannot judge whether it’s a turkey or not, but bleeding viewers at a regular rate is not exactly a vote of confidence.

In fact thinking about it – I don’t even know what its about, I’ve never seen a promo and I watch the ABC sometimes for 7.30 report and Lateline - perhaps the ABC’s lack of in-show breaks is hurting their ability to promote new shows, we’ve become so trained to hit the remote the moment a program finishes that we no longer stick around for the coming attractions.

I watch even less SBS but I can tell you more of what they have on just by virtue of promos during the programs. Sounds like a tricky problem for the ABC for the years to come.

Monday 3 March 2009

Viewing on the whole was down on last Monday night with the biggest week on week hit going to Nine’s 9.30 hour which sunk, last week Nine followed their megahit Underbelly with a rebroadcast of the Oscar ceremony, this week forced to find a suitable lead-out for the country’s number one show they settled on Crime Investigation Australia, a doco series repurposed from the Crime & Investigation channel.

At first glance you would think that a true crime documentary would be a perfect fit with a true crime drama but it seems that it isn’t, the doco lost a whopping 1.161 million viewers (51.99%) from it’s lead in.

You would also think that Nine would want to use the most valuable real-estate on television right now to promote something that would continue on after the first 12 weeks of the season, what that would be exactly is unclear, the channel nine vault doesn’t seem to be bursting with hidden treasures lately.

Seven’s Brothers and Sisters got the predictable lift with the female skewing Oscars out of the way, while other 9.30 entries stagnated, The Cut can be considered a flop and Dexter, why Ten is persisting with this when surely there is an audience for them at 9.30, especially considering the sub-par competition, is beyond me. Call me crazy but if the mass-audience dropped Lost, Heroes and Prison Break, what makes Ten think they’ll pick up a violent, adults only serial a year into the storyline?

Some good news for Ten was that Neighbours gained while both it’s current affair competitors lost audience in the 6.30pm slot with ACA down 93,000 and Today Tonight down 121,000 – Neighbours was up 72,000 viewers and is tantalisingly close to that million mark – perhaps old Harold was holding them back!

So You Think You Can Dance appears to have fallen into a similar patters as Australian Idol last season where the Sunday show posts an acceptable figure of 1.2 – 1.3 million and the results show hovers around the 900,000 mark – given that this seems to be the pattern Ten needs to shake this up when Idol rolls around – maybe move the results show back a day or two (probably Wednesday their other struggling night) this would clear the decks and give ten the chance to develop something substantial for Mondays which could carry through the whole year, if they were game.

Meanwhile How I Met Your Mother seems to have also settled around the 900k mark which is not a disaster by any means but with Seven blowing two new eps a week they’ll run out of fresh stock before Nine run out of Sheen, that would be a massive miscalculation on Seven’s part – find a show to go at 7.30 and save the new Mother ep for 8pm, moving it out of the way of it’s main competitor – I guarantee it’s figures will look healthier – in fact I wager that if Seven split their reporting into two half hour eps we would probably see an improvement between ep 1 and ep 2.

Serial Killer found bludgeoned to death with gold statue - Monday 23 February 2009

Underbelly continued its stride into the record books with a third week over two million, although losing 174,000 viewers week on week. Perhaps they were watching the season finale of Top Gear on SBS which ran for 90 minutes and clocked an extra 190,000 on the meter.

Customs and Two and a Half Men both dropped slightly also, affected by the driving show, whereas offerings on the other three nets held their ground from last week.

Good News Week has some minor good news lifting 65,000 viewers while Four Corners dropped by 193,000 but the real spoiler of the night was the Oscars which caused a minor drop for Dexter (yes its still on) 23,000 viewers and a significant drop for Brothers & Sisters (which would be pitching to the same aud) 130,000 viewers – the Sally Field borefest should stabilise next week when Nine plays it safe with Crime Investigation Australia – but with that move we can consider Dexter cooked.

Nine’s unconventional strategy of airing the Academy Awards show live and then fitting a prime time replay around their schedule paid off nicely allowing them to capitalise on the awards twice over without disrupting what is currently their biggest night.

Bad News Week - Monday 16 February 2009

Underbelly virtually held all of its gargantuan audience second week in. This is certainly shaping up to be high watermark in Australian television and channel Nine’s best chance at promoting their 2009 lineup, infact anyone with their TV tuned to Nine last night would have been inundated with promos for their struggling Wednesday lineup.

A decision which, a few weeks ago, I blasted as being sheer idiocy has actually worked out well for Nine (just a moment whilst I fetch a hat to eat) that decision being the axing of The Big Bang Theory replacing it with a hastily cobbled together factual series Customs, err sorry Vince Colosimo: Customs! I wish Nine had persisted with Big Bang in this slot because it strikes me that this Customs show is attracting a lot of folks waiting around for the next program, but anyway – despite the short-term thinking the move is still a great success.

Also a success is the Australian Ladette to Lady – question is can they carry that across to Tuesday nights and how long does the series even go for – the opening scenes suggested that the course at Eggleston Hall ran for four weeks – that doesn’t seem like a very long series to me.

Desperate Housewives lifted a little last night and incredibly Brothers & Sisters retained 94% of its audience which must be some kind of record. I fully expect to see 11 more weeks of Friday/Saturday encores for these two shows to keep the viewers up to speed while they flirt with the crims over of Nine.

Speaking of Encores, the remaining 500,000 people who haven’t seen Dexter on DVD or Showcase were entertained I guess – but Ten is hurting badly on Monday night – even after what was a fairly solid start to the evening by Neighbours and So You Think You Can Dance.

Good News Week has dropped week on week by 61,000 viewers while Four Corners rose by 143,000. Indeed these two shows seem to be fighting over largely the same audience and seeing as the ABC ain’t gonna budge it might be wise for Ten to move GNW to 9.30 (there’s a lot of Ex – Enough Rope viewers looking for something to watch) and Dexter to 10.30.

Of course that leaves the 8.30 problem – given that the slot will be a loss for the next 10 weeks anyway, why not encore screenings or Out of the Blue!! (OK maybe that’s going too far!)

Primetime Preview: Mondays

7.30 – 8.30
How I Met Your Mother vs Two and a Half Men/The Big Bang Theory vs So You Think You Can Dance

Ouch – we have so few sitcoms on TV right now – why do the networks insist on pitting them against each other.

Part of me feels that after a successful summer at 7pm, How I Met Your Mother will have the chops to take on the Charlie Sheen laffer, but then I saw the promo for the first new episode next Monday – look how big Jake has gotten!!! The fact that puberty has finally hit that kid will have me and every other sitcom fan tuning in next Monday night

The hot tip…
Two and a Half Men in first place with So You Think You Can Dance in second, How I Met Your Mother in third and The Big Bang Theory bringing up the rear (it deserves to be a timeslot winner but it still hasn’t fully caught on yet)

I’m very interested to find out what Seven will schedule after How I Met Your Mother, or if they’ll be showing hourlong installments (which would burn through them awfully quickly)

8.30 – 9.30
Desperate Housewives vs Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities vs Good News Week

So Nine really wants that Monday win and they’re going about it well too – Underbelly in 2008 was a megahit even without viewers in it’s home state – the new version should have a big turnout for the premiere – what happens after that depends a lot on the quality of the series and the intrigue of the storyline.

Desperate Housewives jumps forward in time by 5 years which sounds like a cool idea for a fifth season but it will struggle to garner attention against Nine’s local spectacular.

Finally Good News Week returns after a year of decent performances (but never setting the world on fire) given the competition this is Ten’s smartest move leaving the drama to others and offering a fun alternative/

The hot tip…
Underbelly, for 12 weeks anyway, then Housewives when it vacates.

9.30 – 10.30
Brothers & Sisters vs Aussie Ladette to Lady vs Dexter

At least you can say there’s something for everyone here, Brothers & Sisters which is a soap opera I guess should hold enough housewives viewers, the Underbelly audience may split up with those interested in violence heading over to Dexter which is a US premium cable serial about a police forensic/serial killer who only kills criminals (that’s one way to keep the prison population low), and those interesting in T&A moving on to Aussie Ladette to Lady. If ever there was a reality show that I didn’t expect a local version of – this was it!

The hot tip…
I’d like to think that the more conducive timeslot and better promotion would get Dexter over the line but something tells me that this local version of Ladette to Lady will be a minor hit, Nine have shown the nous to use the British instructors from that show which will help them immensley as their starched demeanour provides an excellent source of comedy against the louts that come through that finishing school!

All shows will benefit from the absence of Andrew Denton who retired his Enough Rope program late last year.