Back to Reality

Well day two for The Block is still good, but kept in check by the bafflingly popular Home & Away (seriously I don't know a single person who admits to watching this show!)

Meanwhile the appetite for NCIS has waned, there was a time when reruns of the procedural would draw in 1.1million viewers without breaking a sweat. Not anymore, now that people have options on digital TV, its getting harder to justify reruns in primetime on the major networks.

Oh Mr Sheen

Thursday, 24 February 2011

It's just depressing isn't it, we should just close Thursdays down and forget about it.



You may have noticed if you're reading this blog on a regular basis that I've chosen to ignore Fridays and Saturdays, that's mostly down to the fact that apart from the smaller audiences, the schedules start to get ridiculously fragmented as different states follow their different football codes. A few years ago (and you can rifle through the posts in 2009 to check it out) I attempted to make sense of this haphazard scheduling, but I don't even think the networks themselves know if there's a net benefit to splitting up their schedule by state.

It will be interesting to see if this is the first year where the multichannels can carry the sport live into the outlier states when it comes to NRL and AFL.

As for Thursday night, The Biggest Loser and Home and Away are the only things anyone is tuning in for.

Look at Two and a Half Men at 7pm - only half a million viewers and now getting regularly beaten by Ten's 7pm project despite having a superior lead in - Nine needs an alternative 7pm show pronto and they must know it - it's dragging down their whole night.

The problem for Nine is - What can they put in there - not a game show - they're played out, there's no other broad appeal sitcom that has as much strip potential as Men and a new newsprogram up against ABC News and 7pm would be fatal.

There's always Entertainment Tonight or TMZ I guess (I'd totally watch TMZ if it was on at a decent time like a few years ago) or maybe Nine could be brave and kick off their nightly sked at 7pm rather than 7.30, maybe that's too brave. Whatever happens they will not tolerate low figures for Two and a Half Men for that much longer - they need an alternative soon!

While I'm on the subject - What the hell is going on with Charlie Sheen check out this story on TV Tonight I think Sheen is going off the rails and it wouldn't suprise me if Two and a Half Men has taped its last show.

Lots of sex jokes but no Big Bang

Well last night the main action was going on in the 7.30 hour.

Two and a Half Men is enjoying a resurgence but The Big Bang Theory suffered badly dropping a staggering 492,000 from Two and a Half Men, that's a 35.6% drop from the lead-in and a 17.29% drop week on week.

Puzzlingly Big Bang's faltering did nothing to the figures for Sea Patrol which tracked line ball week on week.

Australian Story is having a good run of late - improving 19.37% week on week, the flow-on even helped Four Corners over a million.

The return of Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? did well but it remains to be seen if that was from the Matt Preston appearance or loyalists to the show, certainly it was the only shining light for ten on a harsh night: 7pm was down an upsetting 40.54% week on week, Ten is in for the long haul but a deeper analysis shows losses in all younger demographics, meanwhile the performance of Two and a Half Men and Home and Away speak for themselves - both above 1.3 million for the night.

Ten now has two very hard tasks on it's hands - developing this show on the run so people will watch it and then (the harder part) somehow attracting people BACK to watch it.

Good luck!

Thankyou MasterChef Australia

I've haven't watched more than 5 minutes of it, but I'm going to miss Masterchef.

For a ratings nerd like me the results of the past several weeks have been unadulterated fun.

Because Australia's ratings system put emphasis on the whole of prime time rather than the core 7.30 - 10.30 period, nights are often won on the strength of the 6pm hour, which for Nine and Ten means a local news bulletin followed by tabloid current affairs.

Almost two decades ago, Ten bowed out of the 6pm race preferring profit over glory, so ever since the 90s, television ratings in this country has been a two horse race, Seven and Nine. Dull, dull, boring and dull.

But not this year. Amazingly Ten's 6pm hour is unchanged for almost a decade, but this show, Masterchef, has become such a viewer magnet, a watercooler show, an all ages crowd please, it has caused all sorts of upheaval all over the schedule from one end to the other!

Ten has had successful 7pm shows before - but nothing like this, among the shows which will be glad it's over next week you can count

Better Homes & Gardens
Has seen it's aud fall away by approximately 200,000 viewers as it clashes with Masterchef's Friday Masterclass - an ingenious idea which stands apart from the competition proper as a cooking class for the masses. I knew this was a good idea when I was invited by my mother-in-law (not in ten's target demo) to try a dish she learned on the Friday night show!

Nine's Factual/Reality department
Masterchef brought a quick death to such unforgettable fare as Missing Pieces and You Saved My Life forcing Nine to fall back on their current crutch - Two and a Half Men, a show repeated so often this year it's starting to look transparent.

Working Dog
What an embarrasment, Masterchef has proven revenge is a dish best served hot! At the end of last season all looked lost for Ten as its one remaining hit show, Thank God You're Here, defected to the Seven network for more money, the expected crowds for the lazy laffer were at first subdued as the first half hour butted heads with Masterchef, later Thank God was almost totally subjugated by some strategically placed 90 minute episodes! Seven didn't buy that show to run interference, they bought it expecting a big number which never came!

Home & Away
In recent years the departure of The Biggest Loser was the signal for people to flock back to Summer Bay, not this year - the venerable soap has endured an unremittingly harsh climate for the past 7 months, first with Loser, and now Masterchef culminating in the ultimate insult for the show - the first time (in my memory at least) that it has ever been outrated by Neighbours!!!

So thankyou Masterchef, whatever your actual entertainment value, it has been fantastic to see this kind of upheaval to the status quo - wishing you all the success in the future!

Motherf---ed

Woah - Masterchef collects its biggest audience yet pulling in a mammoth 2.1 million viewers, a 17.46% increase week on week and surely a good omen for the finale - Ten have reportedly extended the finale's running time by 30 minutes - with these figures surely that will be filled with commercials as advertisers would be falling over themselves to get on board.

Seven found themselves the big loser on Monday night - although their post 8.30 fare performed well, Brothers & Sisters was a timeslot winner improving 6.59%, Seven News was up 6.96%, Today Tonight up 9.9%, Home & Away up 5.37% but their 7.30 hour was a complete disaster.

How I Met Your Mother, twice pre-empted in recent weeks for successful Michael Jackson specials was down 40.74% on last week's modestly rating MJ concert. Worse than that it was beaten into 5th place behind Top Gear!

Scrubs was only slightly better representing a 30% decline week on week but coming behind a slowing improving Big Bang Theory. For some reason a lot of people showed an interest in Australian Story - the only serious contender during the hour.

Paradise Lost

Woah - they haven't even finished the first test and already the Ashes have claimed a scalp! The new travel disaster show Trouble in Paradise has been axed after only 3 weeks. Slumping to a pretty low 871,000 at 8.30 is disastrous but still, given the popularity of Cricket in Nine's own Thursday demos, a little more patience wouldn't go astray.

Given that I've seen similar shows on niche cable channels is can't be too expensive a show to produce surely!

Grey's Anatomy, however, had a good week, thumping the opposition despite being pushed back due to a double run of Home & Away.

The ABC also, was causing headaches with a special about famed bushranger Ned Kelly, overall though the migration of sports lovers to SBS has left a schedule mostly depressed and underperforming.

The Rugby League experience

Friday 22nd May 2009

The smartest thing Nine has done in some time is scheduling an additional episode of Two and a Half Men at 7.30 on Fridays for the southern (non Rugby League states), the womanising antics of Sheen not only gives southerners the experience of Rugby League without actually having to watch the game, it also gave Nine a combined 7.30 audience sufficient to outstrip Seven's all conquering Better Homes & Gardens. It also points up a substantial difference between Friday and the rest of the week.

Friday is probably the only night where an hourlong edition of Ten's Masterchef is being left in the dust, while the cooking show is still pulling a decent aud and standing out as Ten's only Friday bright spot, it dips under both Home & Away and Two and a Half Men, both of whom it regularly dispenses with during the rest of the week.

Why is this so? I'm thinking because in Australian parlance - Friday is the weekend, not the day itself, but by Friday night, you are in weekend mode. The same 18-49 crowd that Ten is wooing with Masterchef is most likely out on Friday night doing something else.

It hard to know what demographics are actually watching Law & Order (that's the original), the show had its best chance in weeks of gaining some traction with the finish of ABC's popular Midsomer Murders but instead managed to lose over 30,000 viewers week on week. This is in spite of Midsomer replacement series Silent Witness losing 193,000 week on week from it's forbear.

Why on earth ABC actually took Midsomer off when there's a good year's worth of eps to get through is beyond me!

Joy in Repetition

Tuesday 28 April 2009
Well suprise suprise Nine actually did well last night with a night largely built on repetition, the 7pm rerun of Two and a Half Men was up 80,000 week on week, 20 to 01 a clip show built around rehashing favourite moments (this time iconic movie soundtracks) bested the previous week's commercial clip show by 406,000 viewers!

The new Two and a Half Men was up 206,000 week on week, while a rerun of Underbelly season 1 saw nine dominate the 10.30 hour, the network capped off the night with a rerun of that evening's Millionaire Hot Seat!

Ten and Seven, by comparison, fought it out with new fare, Masterchef took a major hit falling to 4th at 7pm against a suddenly resurgent Home and Away - to be fare to the cooking comp - once the auditions are over and we get a look at the regular shape of the competition then the show may build.

More disastrous for Ten was the performance of Lie to Me - losing 97,000 viewers week on week and dropping to its lowest figure yet - this was in spite of Seven's new hit (10 Years Younger) losing 121,000 week on week.

Another big night of TV tonight with a lot of really big questions, will viewers remember what channel Thank God You're Here is on? Will people instead feel the lure of a widescreen Simpsons? Will Russell Brand just fuck off already and let me watch Lost? These questions and more will be answered tomorrow - stay tuned

Fourth & Down

Thursday 23 April 2009

The Footy Show really did well last night in Melbourne netting an average of 413,000 viewers over an almost 2 hour span becoming Melbourne’s second most watched show of the night behind Today Tonight.

As The Biggest Loser races toward the finish line Home & Away continued to flounder, it has placed third or lower on every night this week aside from Tuesday (a night which Seven dominates) that’s a poor showing for the long running soap.

Home & Away has proven itself durable, but also vulnerable, especially to Ten 7pm flights of fancy. In the early part of this decade it was Big Brother which gave Home & Away very real problems at 7pm, with only Nine’s lacklustre 7pm performance for comfort.

These days Nine is resurgent with reruns of a sitcom which still has 2 more years guaranteed (and could conceivably run for another 4 years on it’s current form) and Ten is about to launch Masterchef, how Home & Away winds up for the year will depend a lot on how audiences take to Ten’s new reality play.

Seven continues to swing for the fences on Thursdays making it their 3rd night playing for 16-39 year olds behind Monday and now Wednesday, the return of Heroes did alright but I wonder how long it will last before getting the Lost & 24 treatment?

The Biggest Losers - Tuesday 10 March 2009

Viewing was down across the board last night with all networks losing audience week on week, the biggest losers were (in order):

Bondi Rescue down 183k
Two and a Half Men 7pm rerun down 171k
Seven News down 155k
Home & Away down 132k
Lie to Me down 130k on last week’s NCIS rerun
Neighbours down 124k
Wipeout Australia down 110k

Phew – and that’s just the big losses! The only show to gain viewers in any meaningful way were the 8.30 episode of Two and a Half Men which 41,000 folks from last week, and Ladette to Lady which also had an extra 40,000 watching.

Special Mention to All Saints which stayed relatively steady week on week to eek out a timeslot win.