Somebody call a doctor

Monday, 21 February 2011

In amongst the more serious news stories yesterday was a move by Kerry Stokes to merge the Seven Network and West Australian News Papers. Analysts pointed to Stokes moving while the ratings are hot.



They weren't wrong. Seven cannot put a foot wrong this season.

Monday night saw My Kitchen Rules go from strength to strength, while Bones fended off a first run Underbelly with ease.

Underbelly would be a real disappointment for Nine this year, I think the reduced viewership is mostly down to the nature of staging telemovies rather than a series - it gives the impression that the producers are at the fag end of their inspiration, if they don't have enough material for a series.

I'm not suprised the audience hasn't materialised.

NCIS did better than last week but will be benched to make way for House next Monday (itself making way for Lie to Me on Wednesdays which is making way for a second NCIS on Tuesdays - confused yet!)

Interestingly in the US, House and Bones are stablemates from the Fox network (for many years House was Bones' lead-in) now they'll be up against each other.

Whatever Ten does they'll be hoping for an improvement with Good News Week, the skein just can't make it over the half million mark which is scary stuff. Probably doesn't help that there's so much real, bad news around at the moment to distract. Also the ABC's Q&A would attract a similar young, urban audience to GNW. It might be worth it to consider moving nights.

On digital both 7 and 10 can be pleased with strong performances from Neighbours, Supernatural, Heartbeat, Jonathan Creek and Family guy. Nine on the other hand had a shocker - the Alicia Silverstone movie (there's something you don't hear very often) Excess Baggage bombed not even polling in the top 50 digital shows, as a consequence Vampire Diaries suffered its lowest numbers since the start of the season. Nine needs an alternative to movies on a Monday because people don't have the patience or attention span for them on this night, maybe later in the week.

Erosion

This time a year ago - Merlin was riding high as the big new hit drama with 1.3 million viewers providing a big lead-in to the brand new Masterchef.

A year later - Masterchef is riding higher than ever - but Merlin is in the gutter - kicked to the curb by Mike Munro and Nine's factuals.

Nine's idea of sticking their Customs program on Sunday nights at 6.30 is a genius move sapping the heat out of Border Security (although BS still does pretty well for what was a rerun) there was a time when these Nationalist Paranoia showcases polled 2 million an outing - but that was the old television, before multichannelling, abundant PAY TV and internet enabled everything!

Underbelly returned to good numbers but far short of their 2009 form, still it's in no danger of cancellation - but perhaps budget cuts on future seasons if the numbers continue to soften

If House were on Seven it would have shipped to 10.30 last year - if it were on Nine, we'd only see it at Summertime, because it's on Ten - they persist with the 9.30 timeslot because they have no 10.30 slots, have nothing to replace it (so they can't wait until summer) and their multichannel is an expensive experiment in sports programming that no-one watches.

Maximum Impact

I don't know why it's taken channel Nine a full two years to realise that big audiences don't hit the box until after Easter, with Daylight Savings over and the weather getting colder, people have more time to spend in front of the TV.

This post Easter spike in viewers has been the case for years, but still TV networks have insisted on trotting out the big shows in February for the fear of others gaining a first mover advantage.

This year was no different, for some shows - but for some locally made big guns there's been an uncharacteristic and welcome restraint. Nine has held back the launch of Underbelly for after Easter with maximum impact - a 2.2 million strong audience shows none of the erosion suffered by other shows since last year.

Furthermore 2 months head start did nothing for the Good Wife, which (as the new kid in town) has the most fickle audience in Underbelly's (considerable) wake. Less fickle are the viewers of Bones who gave the show a healthy (and respectable) number against Nine's behometh.

Nine has also saved Sea Patrol and the revived Hey Hey it's Saturday for the post easter season, while Seven has a new series of Australia's Got Talent, it's big Miniseries "The Pacific" and is still holding back new seasons of City Homicide and Packed to the Rafters.

Ten hasn't changed a damn thing about their strategy and so far they are suffering because of it. Still everyone expects the sophomore season of Masterchef to do the business but from where I stand with their early evening in tatters, and post 9.30 slots filled with underperforming US shows - Masterchef is looking a lot like Big Brother did back in the day - an insanely popular yet solitary asset that Ten pours all their resources into at the expense of a well rounded schedule.

Incidentally EPIC FAIL of the night goes to House, Ten might wanna think about scheduling reruns in this slot for the next 11 weeks until Underbelly goes away, cuz at 568,000 viewers - they ain't competing.

A moment in the sun

Sunday nights are shaping up to be a real scrap with the return of Seven’s Factual Skeins giving them the edge over Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation which dropped a whopping 19% week on week.

It isn’t being helped by Biggest Loser which fell 13% week on week. With this continuing decline as the young audience breaks off to watch anything but analogue FTA the viability of this show has surely got to be called into question.

Still – it’s one of the few reality shows I can think of that has a video game out at the moment – so it’s not all bad!

So help me – I am not making this up!

Bones got the edge over The Good Wife thanks to its superior lead in coupled with a natural erosion of the sampling audience. Similarly it was close between Castle and House.

Nine would be happy with the performance of its Cricket and Olympics coverage, this is like a moment in the sun for sports on TV because as the year wears on and the country splits in two over their football preference the audience sizes will start to look more and more pathetic.

Sometimes it's good to move House...

After spending an entire summer scraping the bottom of the ratings barrel, channel Ten suddenly burst back to life with one week to go before ratings season begins, and against some tough competition.

The last Sunday of January has for the past several years featured the same tussle Tennis vs Cricket vs Dance.

As usual Tennis came out on top with a healthy average of 2.4 million viewers, Nine did respectably enough and Ten's big franchises pulled in nice numbers, the real suprise of the night was the 9.15pm showing of House, a show that last year was looking long in the tooth, turns out it was just up against too many other good shows (and newer ones at that, as this blog pointed out some months ago) it pulled a fairly decent 1 million viewers a much more encouraging start than this show has had in some time.

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!

The Natural Order of Things

Wednesday 20 May 2009
A very good night for Seven with Thank God You’re Here holding steady, Criminal Minds on the improve (by 76,000) and My Name is Earl over the 900,000 mark!

It’s easy to forget that at one stage My Name is Earl was broadcast in tandem with How I met Your Mother and Earl was always the more popular of the two, well this week the natural order reasserted itself with the preppy New Yorker’s making only 790k. Strangely both sitcoms were upstaged by Scrubs a show that was once left for dead in an 11.30pm timeslot! Just goes to show that nothing is certain in television and nothing is forever.

It would be remiss of me to bang on about comedies without recognising that particularly Australian variety, the light entertainment/comedy show, last night the ABC had two of them and Spicks and Specks posted a whopping 1.4 million viewers – I’m almost certain that’s its biggest audience this season.

In fact the whole 8.30 hour had all the hallmarks of one of those slots where there’s something for everyone, with 5 shows over 1 million viewers and the season finale of House going out on a much better note than in recent weeks (up 213,000 viewers week on week!)

Numb3rs, however, has got to go – give it a run over Christmas or stick it on Fridays (where they don’t seem to care) but it’s not budging from 600k, this, Supernatural and Harpers Island all need to be flicked to late night, Ten can’t continue with 9.30 letting down the side like this.

Finally a special mention for Cold Case which has well and truly come back from the brink of extinction on Nine and has just been renewed for next season in the US, you’re on a winner here Nine – don’t screw it up!

Numb3rs you don't want to see

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Another Wednesday night win to Seven last night. Although Thank God You’re Here was down slightly on previous performance, their post 8.30 figures lifted with Criminal Minds up 32,000 and a couple of people meters behind The Gruen Transfer, while My Name is Earl was up 64,000 viewers and Family Guy up a healthy 105,000. After a shaky start this post 9.30 lineup is beginning to acquit itself, it’s still down on Seven’s older skewing fare but with old skewing fare everywhere else they need to make up ground on the young demographics where they often miss out.

As a rabid fan of Lost I considered the intrusion of Ponderland to be an affront to people everywhere who took up this show in 2005, but I have to admit waiting around between Family Guy and Lost this odd little show has grown on me.

Also up at 9.30 was Cold Case which added 141,000 viewers week on week, all these shows are benefiting from Numb3rs a 4 year veteran for Ten which has never performed that well (usually hovering around the 800,000 mark) I would remind Ten that this is the second 9.30 show that is woefully underperforming for them, a few years ago they pulled Smallville from a 7.30 timeslot when it was getting 1 million viewers! Now they’re allowing all sorts of failure in the 9.30 slots.

Perhaps they’re hoping for a boost when the stronger SVU comes online in a few weeks to battle for the 8.30 slot, perhaps this is just warming the bench for Rush which will need a timeslot very soon if they’re going to run 22 episodes.

House also suffered an embarrassing fall dropping 91,000 viewers week on week and back under the 900,000 mark, similarly The Simpsons fell 107,000 viewers week on week making Wednesday a bad night for Ten.

It was, however, a great night for Nine, achieved somewhat at its own expense. A Current Affair ran an interview with NRL Footy Show Star/Melbourne Storm Coach Matthew Johns about a 2002 incident dissected by the ABCs Four Corners on Monday night.

That program has cost Johns two jobs and whatever good reputation preceded him. Whether its deserved or not I’m sure there are people more qualified than I to judge, but what amazes me is that Nine stands him down, he fronts up for an interview! Think about that – if you were given the sack and your employer turned around and asked you to humiliate yourself in front of the customers? Would you?

Nine should cut the guy a cheque – his bad behaviour gave the program a rare win over Today Tonight and a week on week boost of 277,000 viewers. Now it remains to be seen if this train wreck can revive interest in the NRL Footy Show – don’t hold your breath…

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.

What lies in the shadow of the statue?

Wednesday 29 April 2009

Well one of the most shocking moves in TV land in the last year was the defection of Thank God You’re Here, a theatresports skein where celebrities imrpov their way thru a preset scene, from Ten to a much more cashed up Seven.

Seven reportedly paid between 1 – 1.3 million per episode for the rights to the show – you would think that’s a steep price but given it’s an hourlong format which will pull in excess of 1.5 million and repeats well I reckon it could actually make them a profit (provided the economy holds up) so from Seven’s end, despite the fact that it’s low, it’s a very sound business decision.

So what about Working Dog Prods?

At the time Executive Producer Tom Gleisner tried to justify this cash grab with the following…

‘‘It's quite understandable for people to assume that the only reason anyone switches networks is for money,''

‘‘But in our case the decision was based upon a desire to introduce the show to a new and potentially bigger audience. If money was our major motivating factor we would never have taken a year off making the show.''

Hmmm, OK so Seven is now going to deliver to this show an audience bigger than the 2007 season average of 1.86 million and the ratings peak of 2.13 million for the first season finale, alright lets see how they go!

Well first night in and yes there was a timeslot win and an average of 1.7 million viewers – very good, but not an increase by any means – we’ll see how it goes I guess.

As for the rest of the night, Nine scared the bejesus out of its audience first of all interviewing a NZ family affected with the swine flu (complete with face masks) which netted them 158,000 extra viewers, then What’s Good For You spent a whole half hour on the pandemic boosting that show’s aud by 258,000 week on week!

Nine suffered a drop later in the night for Cold Case with 110,000 fewer tuning in whilst Family Guy built week on week by 40,000 and Life grew 60,000, although that’s it for Life, that was the season (and possibly series) finale, a show that never got out from under the shadow of its lead-in a show which is now a shadow of its former self.

Speaking of Shadows, Lost improved slightly last night with a cracker of an episode, 'Dead is Dead' which gave some definite info on the old smoke monster, but ratings wise the show continues to be held back by one dumb scheduling move after another, look at the dismal performance of those 9.30 sitcoms - move this back to 9.30 damn you Seven, or sell the show to Ten who might treat it with respect.

Ten in general had a shocker with Masterchef falling further on its third night, there is the possibility with a more ten-friendly Thursday they could pick up, but it doesn’t look good.

The first ever widescreen episode of the Simpsons did alright as well rising 34,000 viewers week on week.

Something we should all Ponder

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Last night everyone had a reason to smile, and a reason to worry.

Ten can take heart that The Simpsons has settled nicely on Wednesdays and has scored some of its best numbers in years thanks to the better timeslot.

They can also worry about Life a show whose audience won't grow no matter what Ten does, it's very likely when Life leaves the stage in a week's time it will be for good, soon to be replaced by Numb3rs, so will Numb3rs improve ten's numbers at 9.30 or is the slot itself a problem?

Nine can be pleased with Cold Case which has bounced back after erratic scheduling over summer, a breif fling with 10.30, now with Seven's Gangs of Oz dispatched we see Nine dominating the post 9.30 field.

But they should be worried as to why The Mentalist seems to be fading, for the past couple of weeks it's been neck and neck with House which indicates that perhaps either its aud have lost interest due to a cliched format or worse, erratic scheduling (witness what AFL interruptions did to Life on Mars)

Seven can be happy with Australia's Got Talent which routinely been Wednesday's best performer, and ecstatic even that the channel ten megahit Thank God You're Here will be filling that slot next week.

They can also fire someone over the boneheaded decision to move their crime docos and bump Lost for a sitcom lineup at 9.30.

My Name is Earl has always gotten good ratings on Thursdays, then late 2007 Seven started fucking with success (sound familiar) by moving the show to Sundays, now it's on 9.30 Wednesdays?? I'm all for having sitcoms later into the night, but this show was a success at 8pm, why on earth would they mess with that?

Family Guy fared even worse - I can't help but think if Ten was screening this show it would be an 8.30pm hit, instead Seven, admirably keep persisting, but the old axiom that people watch shows and not networks continues to be proven false - both show and network need to mesh and Seven does not equal Family Guy.

As for bumping Lost, how do you insult fans of this show any further??, oh yeah bump their show behind a low rent comedian whose entire schtick seems to be poking fun at old educational videos.

Seven are currently at the top of the heap in TV, so these kinds of incompetent programming mistakes probably don't bother their top brass too much, but you really have to wonder if they managed to be consistent with the scheduling of their shows, how much more dominant they'd be.

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Nothing major happening last night with most shows maintaining from last week

Ten seems to be having the hardest time on Wednesdays with House slipping by 43,000 viewers and the Gardening show falling behind The New Inventors on ABC1 getting mired on fourth place.

Beyond the Darklands improved week on week by 32,000 no doubt aided by its much more familiar subject matter. Nine split their night in order to get the Melbourne Footy Show out of the road of Ten's AFL match tonight but overall the change made no appreciable difference to their night.

On what was a pretty stable night a rerun of Two and a Half Men recorded the biggest week on week increase with an extra 156,000 viewers tuning in.

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!

Stuff Gardening, get back to the House! Wednesday 4 March 2008

Last night Nine saw improvement in all their skeins from 7.30 to 11.30 with Cold Case within striking distance of Seven’s soon to be gone Gangs of Oz and the 10.30 rerun dominating the timeslot.

Week on week the 9.30 Cold Case lifted 218,000 people, the week’s biggest gain, also performing well Farmer Wants a Wife added 67k, The Mentalist added 119k and the 10.30 Cold Case rerun added 106k

Seven suffered the biggest losses with Gangs of Oz shedding 101,000 viewers, still it scraped through to a timeslot win. Lost is floundering at 10.30 coming after an incompatible lead in it sunk a further 84,000 viewers to 380,000 which surely constitutes a series low for a new episode.

House lifted for Ten but still lost out to Spicks and Specks, while Life gained 105,000 viewers week on week but only managed a distant third in its timeslot for total viewers.

Interestingly The Biggest Loser and House seem to have similar numbers watching then in between 200,000 viewers disappear at the onset of Guerrilla Gardeners – it interesting to note that city by city the biggest lead in losses are in Melbourne and Adelaide the two cities with currently the harshest water restrictions where gardening is probably the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. Still at 700k against tough competition I see Ten toughing it out for a few more weeks yet but if it stays under 800,000 after Nine’s Agricultural show disappears then my tip is for a quick return from Rules of Engagement which has just returned in the US.

9pm - Wednesday 25 February 2009

Lets look at the week on week progress of some series

Seven had some minor losses with Australia’s Got Talent shedding 49,000 viewers and Gangs of Oz taking out 27,000 but overall they were on par with the previous week.

Nine made some good gains particularly with News up by 119,000 viewers, as Kuttyswood pointed out on this blog yesterday the Queensland Election is proving a boost to Nine’s news ratings in Brisbane as they have more experience covering politics than Seven whose political coverage remains disappointingly lightweight. Since the bushfires in Victoria Nine News also seems to have won back some ground in Melbourne – the other state capitals however, remain largely indifferent to Nine News.

ACA also boosted by 154,000 viewers, the Two and a Half Men rerun took an extra 86,000 as a result and Farmer Wants a Wife went up by 132,000 week on week.

The Mentalist broke the magic mill going up 83,000 viewers and although stuck in second place Cold Case took the paint of Life over on ten with 155,000 viewers dumping LA for Philadelphia at 9.30

Over on Ten their early evening lifted nicely with The Simpsons up 63,000, Neighbours up 93,000 and The Biggest Loser up 92,000 week on week – but with Guerrilla Gardeners only able to add 24,000 viewers – the writing may be on the wall – even more distressing is that all those gains were in Melbourne, where it still posted under 200,000 viewers – unacceptable in Melbourne for a 8pm show.

Not sure whether the 8.30 timeslot or its 8pm lead-in is hurting House but neither is helping one iota, the sad irony for channel ten can be seen in the ABC’s figures – at 8.30 there’s over a million people watching Spicks & Specks and at 9pm 618,000 of them change the channel looking for something else to watch! All they have as an alternative of free to air is 3 American dramas half-way through the hour – c’mon Ten take advantage – move it back to 9pm.

Speaking of the ABC – what is it with their Wednesday nights becoming the cable comedy repurposing night? I’m not sure of the appeal of Chandon Pictures, it’s on a channel that even the bulk of Cable subscribers probably don’t get, it seems to be a very insider baseball premise and Aunty can only rustle up 431,000 people at 9pm to have a look? ABC don’t care about ratings – but if they do care about exposing good programs then they are wasting one of their best timeslots on a turkey.

Anyone for gardening? Anyone?? Wednesday 18 February 2009

Hmmm – lets get the good news out of the way first shall we – Seven can be pleased Talent, Criminal Minds, Gangs of Oz and Lost all lifted Week on Week – an impressive result.

Right that’s taken care of! Now what about channel nine…

Well… The Mentalist improved – slightly up from 929,000 to 955,000 and Flashpoint weakened from 670,000 to 632,000 but these seem to be the audiences these two programs are stuck with which is kind of sad given where they started – if only Nine had learned to keep them in the same timeslot from go to woah.

But what of Ten? For the last two weeks House had been airing at 9pm instead of the usual 8.30 and for those two weeks the show had posted figures over the million mark – now that it moved back to 8.30 the show sunk back to it’s late 2008 standard – so why?

Hmmm it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’ve lost the viewers who are watching Spicks and Specks on ABC1, in fact the irony is they probably didn’t even really lose them – those people probably record the show to watch later – they have the technology (not that OzTAM would know!).

Think about it for a second – you, humble viewer, like two shows on at the same time – one is a drama, the other a piece of fluff – which one are you going to commit to a tape? (or your DVR or whatever) Which one might you want to watch again sometime down the track – a show so disposable it could be done on radio? Or a multi-million dollar dramatic serial – I know which one I would chose – and so do about 300,000 others who have vanished from House’s audience.

David Mott (or whoever holds the cards there now) do yourself a favour and get this show back to 9pm.

Interestingly Life held almost all of the House lead-in and beat Flashpoint at 9.30 which is good for them, but like Flashpoint and the Mentalist this show seems to have found it’s level. Back when house got 1.24 million viewers (two weeks ago) Life still only managed 850k, which is also why its easier to justify this show at 10pm than at 9.30.

Anyway, that’s not even the worst thing to happen to Ten last night – their new series Guerilla Gardeners launched and then skidded across the tarmac crashing horribly into fourth place with a horrendous 645,000 viewers watching.

Now to be fair this show had three strikes against it

1) Its lead in – The Biggest Loser – was already in fourth spot with a lower than usual audience
2) Its on Ten, a network not regarded for its gardening programs, a net that hasn’t had a successful lifestyle format since the cancellation of Healthy Wealthy & Wise in 1998.
3) Promotion for the show was obtuse at best and at worst non-existant, I’m across more TV than most but I didn’t have a good picture of what the show was about until Tuesday just gone when I read a TV Tonight article – given the bulk of the population (esp those people meter folk) probably don’t follow TV industry news, then they would be in the dark about it.

This is a unique problem for Ten – if such a show debuted on Seven or Nine it would probably receive a decent sampling, but Ten is different – their primary audience is under 39 – gardening is not a popular pasttime with this group, in fact if I am representative of this age group then gardening is a chore confined to weeding and mowing the lawn (what there is of it).

When you look at Ten’s big program launches of the past 10 years you that the common demoninator is a concept that stands out to young people – young people are Ten’s core audience – the older viewers usually discover Ten shows later down the track.

Now this show does have an element that should appeal, namely that these gardeners are borderline criminals carrying out there renovations without the permission of councils or owners or anyone, that’s interesting – but then I only knew that about a day ago.

Ten might cross their fingers and hope for good word of mouth, but I’m not sure its gonna happen – we could be looking at the first casualty of the season.

First Friday, then Thursday, Now This?? – Wednesday, 11 February 2009

I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but last night the audience shrunk.

On Sunday night the top rated non-news program was Border Security with 1.7million viewers, on Monday Night the top rated non news program was Underbelly with 2.5 million, Tuesday the top dog was Packed to the Rafters with 1.6 million, but last night the top draw – Australia’s Got Talent – managed only 1.3 million viewers.

There was a similar trend last week as well – with Wednesday experiencing a big drop off from the first three days. So what is going on? Is there less on Wednesdays that viewers want to watch? Is the competition much tighter? Or is Wednesday the new Thursday?

Not sure – but starting tonight I will be calculating average commercial audiences (when possible) between 6pm – 10.30pm so we can get an idea of which nights are heavily patronised and which nights are for video games!

Last night was marked by three new skeins in the mix, The Farmer Wants a Wife did respectable business but was choked out of the 7.30 slot by the aforementioned Talent quest which your truly checked out for the first time last night and, well I can see the appeal – but that’s exactly the kind of show I would love on a Saturday night, oh well.

Embarrassingly for Ten So You Think You Can Dance came fourth in it’s slot behind 7.30 Report and Spicks and Specks. House recovered some dignity for the net although it was down 163,000 viewers and next week all bets are off as it moves back to 8.30 in direct conflict with perpetual spoiler Spicks and Specks!

Life lost 99,000 viewers and Flashpoint haemorrhaged 174,000 thanks to Seven premiering the heavily anticipated Gangs of Oz – it was certainly an eye opener and managed to open an extra 426,000 pairs of eyes who weren’t watching seven in this slot (24) the week before.

Lost came back with a fantastic episode but this once megahit has seen it’s Australian audience dwindle as it veered towards science fiction – whereas season two – when it was still big – you could surmise that they only had a toe in the genre pool (four toes perhaps) this season they are fully submerged – show any viewer from season one last night’s episode and they probably wouldn’t recognise it as the same show – nevertheless I was one of the 405,000 viewers who tuned in, more still (almost 600,000 were watching Nine News)

The Ten Percent Event - Wednesday 4 February 2009

Sometimes a network makes a weird move and everybody questions it, 90% of the time everybody is right and then 10% we see that the programmer had the right idea, last night was one of those 10% events.

What the hell am I talking about – oh yeah – House on at 9pm rather than 8.30pm, last season House was getting beaten at 8.30 by Criminal Minds and The Mentalist, and I don’t just mean beaten – but beat down! Usually averaging anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 behind the second place getter!

Seems like someone at Ten has their ear to the ground, or their eye on the net – one the most frequent comments I’ve read about House over the past few years is that people like it, but Spick and Specks is their first priority, the two shows have fought over the same timeslot for years but Ten has never conceded to their non-commercial competition despite the anecdotal evidence that the aud for both shows is overlapping.

Well last night, assisted by some stunt programming, Ten kicked of House at 9pm, with Life at 10pm out of the road of Spicks and Specks but still up against 9 and 7’s dramas. The result was Ten’s best Wednesday night in forever with both shows winning their timeslot in 18-49s and 16-39s and 25-54s

We know for a fact that this 9pm start will continue for the next two weeks ensuring a switch-on point for House, expect to see the network find more ways of pushing the start time back to 9, as the season progresses.


Over on Seven the decision to move Australia’s Got Talent didn’t hurt them one iota with the series return posting a timeslot win and competitive figures in key demographics, all in all a very successful move for the show. Meanwhile Criminal Minds slipped back into Wednesdays as if it has never left, the series currently fast-tracked should present a dilemma in 18 or so weeks when Seven will have to decide whether to rest it or air reruns (last year reruns were timeslot winners also)

At 9.30 though the jig was up with 24 posting a significant timeslot loss in total people and all demographics, it will probably maintain these numbers at 10.30pm Sundays which should be the show’s regular slot in two weeks.

Over on Nine things went from grim to worse, Nine News and A Current Affair were all that the net could manage over 1 million last night, that’s only 1 hour over 1 million, whereas Ten posted 2.5 hours over the million mark – a worrying reversal of fortune for Nine which has seen it’s traditional early evening strength erode markedly over the past two years and this year looks to continue the trend.

Backyard Blitz, one of their 2008 success stories found less success wedged in on a Wednesday night as older viewers opted for crazy vaudeville of Seven’s show leaving Nine third in all demographics. Having said that it was still a competitive figures, but not the barnstorming return Nine would have hoped for.

The Mentalist and Flashpoint returned solid numbers but were hurt probably less by competition than by their scheduling over summer changing more times than connex on a hot day, hopefully now that they have a regular timeslot things will pick up.

More baffling is the 10.30 slot for Cold Case – if only they had held their nerve in summer, Cold Case was a solid Thursday performer which got shafted for (of all things) The Secret Millionaire, and by the time it returned Nine found themselves running a poor second to Ten’s dramas on the night – the show is still popular (look at the turn out for a late night slot) but if you had told me a few years ago that this procedural would see out it’s days at 10.30 I would have told you you were stupid – I guess not!

Primetime Preview: Wednesdays

7.30 - 8.30
Australia's Got Talent vs Farmer Wants a Wife vs The Biggest Loser/Guerilla Gardeners

Hmmm, clearly no-one was happy with their Wednesday performance last year as all this stuff is new to the timeslot, also no-one thought to include comedy in the slot as Two and a Half Men worked marvellously for Nine on Wednesday nights last year.

The first few weeks will see an extra installment of So You Think You Can Dance over on Ten before it is replaced by a gardening show (unusual for Ten) which is an unknown quantity.

The Hot Tip...
I don't expect Got Talent to do anything special here, Red Symons is good value but the presence of Danni Minogue and Tom Burlinson keeps it from being entertaining - frankly on the strength of it's previous seasons and Nine's summer campaign I'd tip Farmer wants a Wife as the winner of this slot. Only problem is do they have more than six weeks in the can?


8.30 - 9.30
Criminal Minds vs The Mentalist vs House
For the first few weeks House will be pushed back to 9pm, this may advantage it over the other shows in the slot as it won't have to directly face the ABC's Spicks and Specks - a perrenial contender in this slot.

Out of the commercial channels, Criminal Minds has The Mentalists' measure and I expect that to continue

The Hot Tip...
Criminal Minds still the timeslot winner, though a lot will depend on whether Ten's extended Dance sessions act as effective spoilers in the early weeks and deliver an aud to House - I'm not holding my breath...


9.30 - 10.30
Gangs of Oz vs Flashpoint vs Life
It's hard to know what Nine are thinking here, Flashpoint has been doing reasonably well in an 8.30 slot but they have had trouble pinning down a night with all these sneak peeks - now they pull a random night out of their collective arses and it's Wednesday at 9.30??? Whatever.

I predict some initial interest in Gangs of Oz (the seven factual publicity machine is a loud beast) but I wonder exactly how many criminal gangs are out there for them to profile.

The Hot Tip
After an initial interest for Gangs of Oz, Flashpoint will take over the slot, I don't see Life troubling either 7 or 9, which is unfortunate because it is one of the best shows on TV.