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.

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.

Extra Viewers No Reason - Thursday 15 January 2009

It seems a lot of OzTAM families are back from Holidays...

The only change to the night was move of Sudden Impact to Thursday Night (due to the Tuesday night Cricket)

This paid a dividend for Nine with an extra 100K tuning in, although that could have just reflected the additional numbers tuning into television last night, Eli Stone, Temptation, Seven News, Cold Case, How I Met Your Mother, Secret Millionaire – week on week all of these shows were up by around 100,000 viewers.

The biggest improvers were Today Tonight up Ugly Betty, up 293,000 viewers week on week and Ugly Betty which drew an extra 167,000 viewers for the season finale.

Nine puts cart before horse and kills news but wins night - Tuesday 14 January 2009

If there’s one thing that Nine won’t be looking forward to in the 2009 television season, it is Tuesday nights, with Seven’s behometh Packed to the Rafters and channel ten’s one successful show NCIS squeezing them out of this valuable night

Well last night I think they hit on the solution – a weekly Twenty20 cricket match every Tuesday should be enough to see off the competition!

If only Cricket wasn’t a summer sport because last night Nine racked up a 44 share across prime time so far being the only program to take down NCIS this summer with the drama losing 286,000 viewers week on week (although recovering 63,000 of those in it’s second hour.

Strangley Eli Stone actually slightly improved – suggesting that although it has a smaller audience, they are much more loyal.

Whatever Nine is doing right in the cricket – it is struggling in the news department, after a week of good news ratings on the back of a cricket lead in, this week they are under the hammer – with Seven maintaining their share while Nine’s news goes backwards, ACA was beaten by Ten News FFS! Since when has that ever happened!?

Go with what you know - Tuesday 6 January 2009

Reruns and factuals are the order of the day, Tuesday night once again belonged to NCIS with reruns of the veteran drama pulling the best audience post 7.30. Next Week Ten ditches In Plain Sight (which has shown some growth but not enough) in favour of a second hour of NCIS.

For Seven the start of Tennis cannot come soon enough - Eli Stone has been a flop - perhaps if they played it back when they promoted it last year.

Seven's move of more factuals at 7.30 has turned that hour from Nine dominated into a level pegging contest, that this many people in summer, are interested in this sort of television either says a lot about the tastes of the viewing public - or a lot about the lack of any viewing alternatives.

The Arnie flick Collateral Damage did alright for Nine with their Tuesday movie keeping them in the game, perhaps with the take no prisoners opposition of Packed to the Rafters and NCIS, Nine will stick movies on this night as a defensive position, which is frankly - not a bad way to go.

Karma’s a Bitch - Tuesday 3 December 2008

So the bitches at Seven have swiped Thank God You’re Here from channel ten, well something happened last night that I expected, and a few things that I didn’t expect.

What I expected

‘The In-Laws’ wouldn’t impress, that’s a given – movies have very rarely ever worked on Tuesday nights, Nine is clearly surrendering this night to it’s competitors and will continue to do so in the new year.

The Chopping Block held it’s numbers from the regular season – indicating a core audience who were interested in the premise. If Nine wants a third shot they’re going to have to find a way to attract more casual viewers to the show without upsetting what is a decent base.

NCIS would wipe the floor with it’s competition, that was also a given – what I didn’t expect was an incredible 93.5% retention to the 9.30 hour.

What I didn’t Expect

The 7.30 Report NEVER outrates ABC News, let alone wins it’s timeslot, I’m impressed.

A special about Britney Spears outdid Ugly Betty – didn’t see that coming, especially given that Seven had the greater opportunity for promotion.

Dirty Sexy Money completely bombs, worse than The Ex-List (which is saying something) after a much better lead-in to boot, they lost 45% of Eli Stone’s audience, a sad sad result which explains the performance of the 10.30 shows across the networks.

Friends, improves both day on day, week on week (with Will & Grace) and on it’s lead-in. Seems like one of my shakier predictions might come to fruition – that How I Met Your Mother viewers might slowly realise they’re watching a rip-off of Friends and migrate back to the original. Last night’s 7pm timeslot belonged to the ABC (and probably will all summer) but between the commercial nets it was as close as could be.

Rush for the exit - Tuesday 25 November 2008

Last regular Tuesday of the year and Seven cleans up marking an unbeaten run on this night since the Olympics. Aside from Seven’s supercharged Tuesday the other top performer (again) was NCIS with an outstanding 1.35 million against the week’s toughest competition.

The same cannot be said for Rush, the show has one of Ten’s best lead-ins yet the viewers are not sticking around.

At one point it looked as if Rush had fairly good retention out of NCIS but now that NCIS’s figures have been improving the picture is becoming clearer – Rush has a core audience that has settled at 800,000 viewers and the fly-by-nighters tuning in for NCIS are not sticking around for the follow-up act.

The big question (which will be answered next week) is, will a timeslot free of local competition (9.30 Wednesday) encourage new viewers to sample the show? Or is 1,000,000 the true upper limit of Rush’s reach?

Stay tuned for that one, Although NCIS has weathered Ten’s season of hell, the same can’t be said for The Simpsons which took a beating at 7.30 back into fourth place – this is in great part thanks to the paucity of Ten’s entire schedule sucking the oxygen (and buzz) out of the network – can anyone even recall the last time they saw a promo for the Simpsons? I can’t and I don’t know if that’s due to Ten not promoting it or me not watching enough ten??

Nine barely showed up last night but luckily for them they have enough people tuning into their news and current affairs hour to keep them respectable.

What happens next week on Tuesdays depends entirely on whether people want to see Ugly Betty and Eli Stone – watch this space…

Seven's Schedule - Now Twice as Ugly!

So what's Seven up to this summer? Lets check it out...

SUNDAYS
Looks like a very old skewing mix to me, continuing The Outdoor Room and then Hot Property - Hot Property seems to do well every summer that they wheel it out - but who is going to want to watch this orgy of auctions and house renovations whilst house prices across the nation are falling. As a social indicator - the ratings for this program will be very interesting.

At 7.30 Seven brings on a limited run BBC doco about various industrial marvels, followed at 8.30 by Holby Blue, the now cancelled spin-off of Holby City, itself a spin-off from the long running Britsh hospital drama Casualty.

I remember back in 1994 Ten attempted to foist the cheapness that is Casualty on unsuspecting Australian audiences - you know it's a bad sign when the set looks like cardboard and you're in the year nineteen hundred and ninety three. Who knows their may have been a decent story in there somewhere but I couldn't get past the Doctor Who production values.

A Touch of Frost rounds out Brit night on Seven, all of these shows should seal a comfortable lead in total people and over 55s (almost one and the same these days!)

MONDAY
With Home & Away taking the summer off, 3rd year sitcom How I Met Your Mother steps into the slot in an effort to give the show more exposure and expand the fan base - all useful causes. It's main genre competition is the remarkably similar Friends over on Ten.

The Rich List continues at 7.30 and Bones takes it's second hour away from Thursdays and over to Mondays, I'll be curious to see how this CSI-lite goes against the real thing, it is in vogue this year so anything's possible.

Late Night Monday we can see Scrubs followed by the US Kath & Kim, damn it to hell it should've been Scrubs in the 7pm timeslot many years ago, one of the most finely crafted sitcoms on television probably has more followers from DVD than actually on the television.

TUESDAY & THURSDAY
Yep twice a week Seven is throwing a lifeline to Ugly Betty - a first season hit whose second season return was horribly botched (by the network, not the show itself) joining it at 8.30 is Weirdo Lawyer Dramedy Eli Stone which was first promoted by Seven all the way back at the end of 2007. Has it taken them this to find the tapes they dropped down the back of the sofa in the green room? Sloppy Seven.

TUESDAY
Dirty Sexy Money is back, perhaps fast-tracked (not sure), itself followed by Prison Break which will also be pulling double duty on Wednesdays. This is surely Prison Break's last gasp - a show whose premise justified exactly ONE SEASON has stretched onto it's fourth!

WEDNESDAY
Air Crash Investigations has gotten a headstart last week, as has The Unit, Las Vegas takes the 8.30 slot to play out their final season (or at least some of it) there was a point (When Vegas aired 7.30 Thursdays) when it was a timeslot winner and a solid rater - but like so many imports on Channel Seven they had trouble sticking to ONE TIMESLOT and the viewers quickly found other things to do.

THURSDAY
The Amazing Race moves back an hour with Heroes staying on through the summer - that's one lesson it would've paid Seven to learn last year when it counted, now Heroes (like so many others) has faded away.

FRIDAY
Apart from Better Homes & Gardens reruns (oh sorry "Summer Series") nothing else is locked in - first week back though we get the 24 movie, which is handy, after a sixth season which started out ludicrously and got worse ('I held my mud') I'm not holding out much hope for a return to the greatness of season 5, but I guess we'll see what happens...

SATURDAY
Two unknowns here - a British drama called Brittania High followed by a short lived US game show called Dance Machine, not sure what the purpose of either is and perhaps Ten should've kept MacGyver on and run a marathon from 6.30 to 10.30 - if this is all Seven have got for competition on this night - it's not looking good.

If Ten is loading up on reruns to lock in a schedule for 2009 and Nine is just regurgitating failed series, then Seven's sked feels the most like summer, a whole bunch of shows we wouldn't see otherwise, nights and lineups completely remade and almost all of it imported. There is also still a very good question mark over the non appearance of Reaper another show which was heavily advertised LAST summer.