Ten Lifts, Seven Sags, Nine’s the one – Sunday 12 October 2008.

All the attention in the early evening was focused on Seven, buoyed by a generous lead in from the Bathurst 1000, the network had two aces up it’s sleeve, the US version of Kath & Kim (more on that later) and the David Koch special on what to do during the all consuming world financial crisis.

This half hour news special features Kochie at the news desk, a quick cut to Kevin Rudd (that’s the Prime Minister for any overseas readers) who announced that they’re guaranteeing deposits a la Ireland’s recent move, a response for the opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull and any number of crackpot economic theorists who varying predicted we would either “ride the storm out” or spiral in Armageddon!

It worked because people watched – shoving Thank God You’re Here under the million mark and pushing Battlefronts (how many of these Gardening makeover shows can they do) out to the boondocks.

Kath & Kim held over 80% of that Audience and wasn’t that bad really, the trick for them will be to make it there own, like they did with The Office (the first 6 episode season of The Office was shaky but from second season on they had nailed it)

Alas none of this helped Dancing with the Stars, it’s worth noting that even though this show has only been around since 2004, this is season 8 (two rounds per year in 05, 06 & 07) is it possible they’ve made one to many trips to the well, expect to see an all stars edition next year I reckon.

It was beaten by Australian Idol which cleaned up in the demographics as did it’s follow on Rove which also held over 1 million viewers, Californication even rose by 45,000 viewers.

The question for ten is – have they hit their nadir, or is there worse to come?

In the past two weeks only 3 Ten shows have over the million each week (Wk 40 TGYH, Idol Sunday, NCIS, Wk 41 Idol Sunday, NCIS, Criminal Intent) With the return of Good News Week and Download this week can they lift their performance on Mondays and Fridays or will their 6pm – 7.30pm sked keep them underwater?

Nine had the run of the night, clearly affected by Seven’s bolt out of the gate the panicking aspirationals took a look at Kath & Kim then headed over to 60 minutes for even more Kevin Rudd action.

The Mentalist dropped but still won it’s timeslot as did CSI Miami a show which once dominated Wednesday nights but is now reliant on a good lead in to get by. Will a fast-tracked CSI (Las Vegas) be the evidence viewers need to switch to Nine or will it be DOA?

Stay tuned to find out…

What Went Wrong - Monday 6 October 2008

Hello and welcome to the first of many pointless rants about the state of television in Australia. As good a place to start as any is with the nightly ratings so lets have a look...



Clearly this is going to be the trend for the remainder of the year, Seven is entrenched as the number one network thanks to it's command of the elderly with their doco-dramas in the 7.30 hour leading into the very popular City Homicide.

At the other end of the spectrum channel ten is failing to fire with of all things, Australian Idol. The Monday night results show (apart from being a bloated spectacle) is really only holding onto the core of supporters for this program, much like Big Brother earlier in the year. The question now becomes with the law of diminishing return well and truly in force for Australian Idol, will Ten pull the plug this year or will we see yet another "retooling" (ie: Adding more tools) in 2009?

Supernatural returned and it too has experienced an Audience decline, in fact if you look at audiences across the board the biggest declines seem to be hitting fast-tracked shows (ie: US programs broadcast very soon after their original air-date) surely this does not bode well for this practice continuing into the future.

Bones continues on it's ride to mediocrity - here is a show that has been moved all over the place, shelved and retried in half a dozen different timeslots and yet it still maintains a decent audience. It's probably not ideal for Seven (it loses a lot of it's City Homicide lead in - yet a lot of those people are probably off to bed) but it's strongest show in 9.30 at the moment.

Another bright spot is the performance of Til Death which has improved week on week. Nine is desperately trying to get it to work because it can see (through the logic defying ratings of Two and a Half Men) that people are trending towards sitcoms and light entertainment rather than drama, if they stick with Til Death and promote it - it should start to bat above a million viewers and re-establish a comedy night on Monday for Nine. Expect it to pick up even more when new CSI shows up next Monday night.