Walk don't Rush

Masterchef had a 90 minute edition and walked over everything else, pulling a season high 2.3 million viewers, definitely one of the largest audiences all year and certainly the largest haul for a Thursday night.

Not one of it's direct competitors made it to 1 million viewers, that is now the sheer power of this show.

Seven had two season finale's - Ghost Whisperer and Grey's Anatomy, while Ghost Whisperer floundered against it's competition, Grey's Anatomy lifted handsomely to post it's highest numbers for the season. Not a bad way to end the year for them, you only have to know a women in their 30s to know this show still has a large fan base, but the Thursday timeslot tends to work against it, meaning if OzTam ever take to measuring PVR or VCR timeshifting they'll find this will be one of the shows that gains big time.

Grey's Anatomy delivered a smackdown of sorts to Rush, the action drama, which struggled on Tuesday nights in it's freshman year and embarrassed itself in summer reruns, couldn't have asked for better exposure coming right after one of the top rating hours of the year.

It's therefore a little dissappointing to see it lose 50.5% of its lead-in, but still 1.1 million was better than anything Rush was doing last year and better than most of the 8.30 ratings ten has had this year so there's hope for it - but Nine's upcoming rescue show (the name of which currently escapes me) could act as a spoiler dragging down Rush by oversaturating the sub-genre.

Speaking of Nine, were they even on last night, that has to be one of their worst Thursday showings ever, I know they mostly have Masterchef to thank, but at least Seven was acle to work around that - Nine seems to have given up the fight.

Fight or Flight

Real quick blog on last night's action

When ever you have a major event on one of the networks, especially one on a weekday, the opposing nets have to consider their best option, fight or flight.

State of Origin has always been huge but it has been only recently that Nine has started airing the game live in southern states, even so both Seven and Ten gave a little bit of fight and a little bit of flight - and here's what happened...

7.30 hour up against Nine's Pre-Match and the Game proper
Ten aired Masterchef (a 90 minute special from 7pm) in all markets, this may go down as one of the boldest moves ever made against State of Origin and it paid off big time, beating Nine's pre-match coverage and becoming the number 2 show of the night helping ten to a number two overall and emphatic nightly wins in all the southern markets.

Seven aired Thank God You're Here in southern markets with Ghost Whisperer subbing in Sydney and Brisbane, Thank God will bow in Ghost Whisperer's slot this week for those markets. This was less successful, although Thank God came second in the southern markets, the female friendly alternative of Ghost Whisperer didn't raise a murmur in League heartland. Given the steamroller effect of Masterchef perhaps seven should consider moving their big 'investment' to another night in all markets.

8.30 hour
The only real competition here was from the ABC whose 8.30 hour barely missed a beat from two weeks ago, The Chaser (which last time it aired was also against Origin) was down a negligible 8,000 viewers, hardly a sign of community outrage, we'll see whether it lifts next week unencumbered by League or whether this is it's new level, presumably any advocates for sick children will be enthused to hear Nine has slotted RPA as competition in this slot for future weeks.

Ten switched from fight to flight with a new SVU in the south and a rerun Criminal Intent in the north, it got them into 3rd place in the slot, just.

Where did everybody go? Thursday 19 February 2009

Oh man – WTF? Only 3 prime time shows over 1 million, only two weeks into the season – maybe OzTAM needs to examine what households it has on its ledger because these figures are appalling.

Last week was an odd week due to Nine’s telethon – so instead I’m gonna compare with premiere week two weeks ago – lets see the numbers

Nine
Getaway up 3,000 viewers on Celebrity Singing Bee!
Yay Team – that was really worth it, well done.

Adults Only 20 to 01 down 45,000 viewers from two weeks ago
Looks like this show has found its number at least

CSI Miami up at least 200,000 on Kitchen Nightmares/CSI NY
Not sure what CSI NY got in Brisbane that night but this was a definite improvement over their previous performance in the slot – and a timeslot win (barely) however, for a CSI show – this ilow number s just plain unacceptable.


Seven
Ghost Whisperer down 76,000 viewers on two weeks ago

Grey’s Anatomy also down 76,000 viewers
From that I gather that the same people meter people are watching but a few of them opted out or forgot to press the button

Private Practice wasn’t on two weeks ago but comparing to last week debut it has gained 50,000 viewers so its not all bad!

Ten
The Biggest Loser is down 39,000 viewers from two weeks ago

Bondi Vet is down 27,000 viewers

SVU is down 73,000 viewers

Life on Mars is down 282,000 viewers

Most of those figures indicate just less people watching television – except for Life on Mars – those 282,000 viewers have all migrated to channel Nine to watch some CSI Miami, Horatio Caine will cease to be problem for the freshman drama when football season begins again and the crime watches aren’t forced to make a choice between a sci-fi cop show and one set in the 70s!

Mars Attacks - Thursday 5 February 2009

If there is one trend emerging from this week it is the slow disintegration of channel Nine. Back in the 1990s the once market leader had the strongest early evening lineup (Nine News and A Current Affair used to dominate the 6 o’clock hour) and the strongest late night (awash with young male skewing fare like the Star Trek skeins, Walker Texas Ranger and Renegade), this early and late night superiority meant that whatever Seven threw at them in prime time didn’t matter - they would still prevail in the 6pm – 12pm ratings battle.

So much of Nine’s strength at the edges has been diminished by costs cuts and poor programming decisions, their news lead in is pitiful and their news service is on the skids, their post 10.30 programming is no better, now confined to doco series better suited to cable and haphazard scheduling, Nightline is gone – a victim of cost cutting and erratic scheduling.

Contrast this to Seven. Since the start of this decade Seven have focussed on using their 10.30 timeslot to bring younger skewing shows to the fore – making late night television also appointment television, their early evenings are now a dominant force, bolstered by Deal or no Deal – a game show whose appeal escapes me but the numbers speak for themselves. Home & Away – their 7pm skein – continually reinvents itself year after year, picking up new viewers almost as fast as it loses old ones.

Over on Ten they are a mixed bag – their early evening schedule is targeted to young people (much like seven’s late night) in order to avoid direct competition with the news, but moves Ten has made in the past two decades have affected both Seven and Nine for better and worse.

Ten moving their news from 6 to 5pm was an immediate benefit to 9 and 10, giving Nine a dominating control over the slot and Ten breathing space to transform their news brand, at the same time their 10.30 news bulletin established a new paradigm as a late night news war erupted in the mid 90s – with Ten the only network able to guarantee a consistent starting time they saw off their competitors, first Seven, who turned to underrated series at 10.30pm (undercutting Nine’s 11pm series start time), Eventually Nine succumbed as well, first shunting Nightline to later (at 11.30 or even Midnight) and eventually axing it altogether – weakening their news brand.

Ten’s moves at 7pm have also been the catalyst for problems at Nine – the old setup in the 90s used to be Soap on Seven, Game Show on Nine and Sitcom Reruns on Ten – as a consequence Ten would rarely win – their innovative move in 2001 with nightly reality series Big Brother threw the game wide open – taking viewers from both their rivals and forcing Nine into Sitcoms at 7, now this year Nine will try a stripped reality show at 7pm, something which I never could’ve seen them doing in years!

This week it is Nine’s lack of early evening strength which seems to be hurting them the most in the ratings – for the fourth night in a row they came third behind Seven and Ten, their only successes last night were Celebrity Singing Bee, a limited run placeholder for aging travelogue Getaway and Adult Only 20 to 01, which many commentators view as a desperate attempt to lure an audience. Their scheduling of Kitchen Nightmares was a disaster – you can officially put anything with Gordon Ramsay in a file market ‘Late Night and Cable ONLY’ don’t expect it to remain there next week.

Seven on the other hand did well, even if it’s prime time shows tanked – they still could have won the night on the basis of their early evening and late night (a resurgent Scrubs) alone. Lucky for them their primetime also performed with Ghost Whisperer winning in total people and Grey’s Anatomy winning in 18-49s.

Ten also had a good night – it Biggest Loser ratings were up on Wednesday’s numbers and will probably fluctuate given the night, Bondi Vet however had a poor start posting an underwhelming total. Nothing Ten sticks in this post-loser slot seems to work all that well, factual series are not a natural fit for Ten, somehow they’ve gotten away with Bondi Rescue – but a show about a vet? Last year Seven screened no less that 3 factual shows devoted to Animals, they have that market cornered – I’ll be interested to see whether this experiment rises or falls in the coming weeks.

On the other hand – Law & Order SVU and Life on Mars performed excellently taking the shine off Seven’s night and adding some colour to a line up usually controlled by Wolf Films. Expect Life on Mars to rise next week when its main competition is the Lifetime reject series Private Practice.

Primetime Preview: Thursdays

7.30 - 8.30
Ghost Whisperer vs The Celebrity Singing Bee (later Getaway) vs The Biggest Loser/Bondi Vet

Hmmm, a lot of new in this hour - its been years since Ghost Whisperer occupied a 7.30 slot, the show has a solid following that seems to follow it all over the dialso it should do well.

The Singing Bee has appeal and has been primed by Ten's summer skein Don't Forget the Lyrics laying the ground for some success - but rumour suggests that Getaway will make a quick return to this timeslot which will equal disaster for Nine, the show is on its way out.

The wild card is Bondi Vet, for two years running Ten has extended their Thursday Biggest Loser which has always done well, but invariably the show following it (Jamie Oliver in the second season, Saving Kids in the third) has washed out, that could change though with Ten's Bondi Fetish growing another factual, plus rescuing animals seems to be all the rage over on Seven - so it could work.

The Hot Tip...
The Biggest Loser will win it's slot - then the rest depends on the appeal of a vet, expect both Ghost Whisperer and Singing Bee to do well, but once Getaway returns Nine will sink.


8.30 - 9.30
Grey's Anatomy vs Adults Only 20 to 01 vs Law & Order Special Victims Unit

Seven move Grey's Anatomy to it's US equivalent slot in order to build up a night which has faltered for them in recent years, it will easily retain 100% of its ghostly lead in, the test will be whether it brings any absent viewers back to Thursday night, which has increasingly been eroded in a cycle of low viewers and old skewing programs.

Ten has the ever strong Law & Order which has a mortgage on this slot. For those wondering why Ten has chosen to run with SVU rather than last year's suprise revival Criminal Intent, the answer lies in behind the scenes problems with Criminal Intent which has delayed production of half of the 16 episodes which may not premiere in the US until their summer, so SVU it is.

Nine meanwhile has zagged while the others zigged with Adults Only 20 to 01 - no word on how permanent that will be - perhaps its only a special but we just don't know. There's something to be said for a revival of the bawdy tits n' ass channel Nine I knew back in the early 90's, back when every movie promo had a minimum amount of female nudity and their idea of compelling drama was Chances!

The Hot Tip...
I expect Grey's Anatomy to post some big numbers upon its return but these will eventually decline to level off with the stable SVU, I'm only basing this on declining US ratings and suggestions of a preposterous 'ghost sex' storyline which will probably succeed in driving away non sci-fi viewers.


9.30 - 10.30
Private Practice vs Kitchen Nightmares vs Life on Mars

If you've been within 300 metres of a television this summer you no doubt will have seen promotion of Life on Mars, a US version of a british show about a time travelling cop, Ten have even wheeled out their old 70s logo for the promo which suggests they see a future with this one

Seven meanwhile is following logic by skedding the Grey's Anatomy spinoff after the parent show - that sounds like a good idea because in stray viewing last year I couldn't see much to distinguish Private Practice from any other estrogen-fest on TV, be it Strong Medicine, Judging Amy or whatever, the logo in the corner says Seven but my head screams W.

Nine has decided to retry Gordon Ramsay - after completely botching his re-entry late last year with scant promotion they look set to do it again this year. When you pour over the ratings figures for 2008 the top Ramsay show was consistently the US Kitchen Nightmares, when they came back with new eps of same show they failed to promote it - instead running weeks of Hell Kitchen promos before fronting up with Kitchen Nightmares and not alerting anybody - just bizzare.

The 9.30 timeslot is a no-brainer - Nine got a rap over the knucles from ACMA for excessive uncensored broadcasting of the f-word (that's "fuck" for those keeping score at home) in an M rated hour so moving it back lets them classify it MA but it also creates a weird problem - what if its a success and in four or so weeks The Footy Show comes back?

Kind of summarises Nine's entire Thursday sked - no long term thinking here...

The Hot Tip...
Ramsay could always surprise but I'll be darned if Life on Mars doesn't storm all over the slot.

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.

Late night suprise - Tuesday 9 December 2008

Nine pulled a swifty last night and for one hour became channel seven. A new show, Sudden Impact, which is another one of these car crash doco-soaps and the return of NZ sitcom Police 10-7 did the business in the opening hour.

What’s more astonishing is that ‘tis the season for surprise hit rerun movies with Mr & Mrs Smith not too shabby for the next 2 and a half hours, the icing on the cake was Survivor which was bumped back to 11pm but still commanded a huge aud for that time period, generally after 11 shows are lucky to exceed 300,000 (unless they started earlier or are live sport) so that’s an outstanding figure.

Surely Nine will be emboldened to try out Survivor again in Prime Time especially with an extra season up their sleeves meaning they could potentially show it year round without a break.

Seven seem stuck in 3rd gear in the early evening, Ghost Whisperer did better than Dirty Sexy Money which was hurtled back to 11.30 for it’s long limp off the screen, but Nine’s movie, In Plain Sight and the incompatibility of Ghost Whisperer all combined to give Prison Break a headache down 63,000 week on week.

NCIS was again the best Prime Time series on the night but this audience didn’t carry over for the 2 hour premiere of In Plain Sight with the audience almost halving – even taking into account the drop as the night wears on that’s still a bad result.

Almost as bad was the shocking performance of Rules of Engagement, losing to a show in it’s death throes (Ugly Betty) is a bad thing on any occasion, but losing 135,000 from a compatible lead in is just tragic. Having said that The Big Bang Theory experienced a similar drop from it’s lead-in on Monday (816,000 vs 1,018,000 for Mr Sheen) but still – nobody needs under 700,000 viewers at 7.30, even at this time of year.