Act of Contrition

It’s been one hell of a crazy week for TV with controversy never far from the prime time schedule

Over on Nine they managed to have their cake and eat it too with the caustic Gordon Ramsay in country abusing TV personalities both behind their backs and to their faces, somehow Nine managed to spin all the way from whipping the man at the start of the week to hosting his formal apology 3 days later thus “rehabilitating” his image (sufficient to spruik his future projects) and provide days of wonderful newstainment for the gawking onlookers (Myself included!)

After Ramsay’s mea culpa, Tracey Grimshaw gave a reply during which she stated regarding his apology:

"I didn't expect Gordon Ramsay to apologise. I didn't ask for it and I didn't think it would help -- but it has…”

It certainly has helped their ratings, and helped Nine smooth over an ugly scene between one of their top journalists and one of their major imports (well maybe not so much anymore)

If only the ABC could be so creative with their PR, seemingly asleep at the wheel when it came to Chaser airing a skit lampooning the Starlight foundation which gives dying children some moments of joy. Now here’s the thing, the idea behind the sketch itself was not that horrendous, “Make a realistic wish” seemed to be poking fun at the fact that some of the celebrity meetings or trips to Disneyland and other things organised by that group are very outlandish things, where they went completely wrong was somehow making it about the kids by tacking on a line at the end about how “they’re going to die anyway”

Rightly, a lot of people were outraged and unlike the usual shock jock crowd there were a lot of people with sick children who were genuinely offended by the sketch. The ABC waited until after midday on the Thursday to apologise and then took the step of removing the program from the air for two weeks

They were hit significantly in the ratings last night for their decision losing 40.41% on last week’s Chaser and 54.81% on two weeks ago (with no State of Origin in competition) with their hastily scheduled Tracy Ullman series.

Also with the Chaser out of the way ten reaped the benefit with an improved audience for Law & Order SVU up 36.26% on it’s debut 2 weeks ago

Amazing how both networks (ABC and Nine) have a had a major PR problem on their hands in the last week, Nine has dealt with it head on by actually adding content to their schedule with the net result being improved ratings and a sense that they can continue to show both ACA and Gordon Ramsay on the same network with a straight face, whereas ABC has chosen avoidance as their tactic and have paid a huge price in the ratings and there’s no guarantee that viewers will return in two weeks time.

Of course the ratings and commercial considerations don’t matter at the ABC, but when you’re forking out 1 million tax-payer dollars per episode for a show that now needs to be re-tooled, well it will matter to somebody.

The Scoreboard
Wednesday 10 June 2009
Against 2 weeks ago (State of Origin 1 was last week)

Going Down
Tracey Ullman's State of the Union down 54.81% on the Chaser
Spicks and Specks down 11.38%
SVU 9.30 rebroadcast down 10.99%
Prison Break down 9.96% on Lost

Going Up
Family Guy up 47.19% on Russell Brand, up 26.81% on last week
SVU 8.30 All New up 36.26% on debut
ACA up 24.29%
How I Met Your Mother up 12.77% on 10pm Family Guy
Masterchef up 12.7% on two weeks ago
The Simpsons up 10.13% on two weeks ago (previous all new ep)

Ramsay vs Grimshaw: Round III

Right now in Australia we have major issues like a budget deficit, swine flu, attacks on Indian students, the threat of a double dissolution election, and Therese Rein’s feet but Australian audiences aren’t interested in any of that – no they want more Ramsay.

It’s an incredible irony that the week before Kitchen Nightmares is due to slink away from it’s one remaining broadcast market (Melbourne) that foul-mouthed chef Gordon Ramsay should be in the country, causing a storm in a tea-cup by slagging off at ACA host Tracy Grimshaw behind her back, in turn delivering a rare timeslot win to A Current Affair.

Here’s the story as I know it, Ramsay has an interview with Grimshaw on Friday nights ACA, the next day he’s at the Melbourne Good Food & Wine Show giving a presentation and cracking jokes about the current affairs host, he augments his jokes with a slide-show which includes images of Miss Piggy and a naked woman on all-fours photoshopped to look like she has six breasts (if you’ve been on the internet enough years you will have seen the photo, it’s one of those things that gets around, so I’m not going to reproduce it here!)

Now there is video of this incident, because on ACA last night Nine had snippets of it – but for the life of me I cannot locate any of it on the net.

Then on Sunday night Ramsay goes on Rove and by all accounts it was very uncomfortable viewing, I didn’t see it but the retelling delivered by my wife who did was pretty compelling stuff, unfortunately the one video that was posted to the net has been taken down and the user (well known in YouTube circles for posting clips of Rove for some years now) has been suspended.

The ensuing shitstorm ramped up a few gears on Monday with Grimshaw deciding (rightly I might add) to publicly rebuke the chef. Yesterday we had a wide assortment of people weighing from freelance social commentator Kevin Rudd (he really is the new John Howard!) to Victoria’s arbiters of good taste Neil Mitchell and Andrew Bolt. All of this was capped last night with spectacle of reporters chasing Ramsay all around Melbourne to Crown Casino where they were stopped by six all powerful words…

“No filming on the gaming floor”

ACA this year has managed to make itself the headline more often than not, first the Matthew Johns interview, then the Ben Iken controversy, now this, a public stoush with one of Nine’s international (former) hits. ACA’s biggest stories this year have involved controversies within Channel Nine itself – one can only wonder what or who is next!

For all this noise, ACA did very little to the audience for Today Tonight, with that program only down by 42,000 viewers, most of ACA’s increase came from people who normally wouldn’t watch either show.

Furthermore, the effect on Ramsay’s shows was neglible, neither show managed a convincing number in Melbourne (the only market they were screened) though viewers of Kitchen Nightmares were treated to the spectacle of Ramsay teaching a restauranter how to yell obscenities at the top of your lungs from the edge of a cliff!

I guess they chose the location because nobody would be watching and really when you think about it, nobody was.

Scoreboard
Tuesday 9 June 2009

Going Up
ACA up 20% week on week
Millionaire Hot Seat up 18%
HomeMADE up 11%
Nine News up 10%
M*A*S*H up 10%
Two and a Half Men (9pm) up 6%
Masterchef up 6%

Going Down
Jennifer Byrne Presents down 10% on First Tuesday Book Club
10 Years Younger in Ten Days down 8%
Time Team down 8%
ABC News down 7%

Just keep digging...

Tuesday 26 May 2009

Biggest Week on Week Disappointment
Ten Years Younger in Ten Days
Seven 9.30pm
124,000 viewers lost

Biggest Week on Week Improvement
Two and a Half Men ®
Nine 9pm
187,000 viewers gained

Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation and NCIS continue to dominate Tuesday nights giving Ten its second All-People win of the week!

The test for Ten, which has streaked ahead on Sundays and Tuesdays and has kept a good number on Mondays is to stabilise the rest of their week.

Wednesday should improve with two episodes of Law & Order SVU breaking in on what is already a crowded night of crime, but Thursday nights remain a problem for the net with the poor performance of their sitcom hour. Friday is likely to come good for them in a few weeks when they replace Law & Order with the US edition of So You Think You Can Dance.

Dance has already sparked controversy thanks to judge Nigel Lythgoe’s reaction to the spectacle of an all-male dancing couple – sounds like something that ten can promote!

Meanwhile – what the hell are Nine doing at 9.30? So they’ve dropped the Underbelly reruns – right-o, that’s cool, they were tanking anyway, but why continue to split Melbourne off from the rest of the crowd? Why not instead pick something that you can promote across the network rather than on a city by city basis? Either run Ramsay everywhere (in Melbourne he came a respectable third at 9.30 and a close second at 10.30) or pick something new and run it everywhere.

Just keep digging that hole Nine…

Still the one for programming disasters

Tuesday 19 May 2009
Well Ten won Tuesday night with ease on the back of a killer quadruple of Masterchef (up 39k week on week), Talkin’ Bout Your Generation (up 12k), NCIS (up 191k!) and Lie to Me (up 186k).

Seven too made gains on last week with The Zoo (up 45k), Find My Family (up 76k), All Saints (up 38k) and 10 Years Younger *up 76k) all putting in a solid night.

These gains by Seven and Ten were at the direct expense of Nine and the ABC, last week ABC had the Federal Budget which lifted their night considerably, with that out of the way the audience deserted Around the World in 80 Gardens (down 41k) and Mumbai Calling (down 111k).

But the real disaster of the night was Nine, the 7pm rerun of Two and a Half Men was the last time they saw a million, HomeMADE incredibly sunk a further 27,000 viewers week on week, the Tuesday edition a sad 140,000 viewers behind the Sunday show, suggestion that maybe it’s not the show, it’s the timeslot, although really it is the show also!

Two and a Half Men was back in reruns in the 8.30 slot giving 292,000 people an excuse to find other entertainment at 8.30. Meanwhile the continuation of Underbelly reruns at 9.30 is still the most baffling programming choice of the entire week, why are they persisting with two hours of this when they could…

a) Run Ramsay everywhere
Kitchen Nightmares might be played out but a fresh reality skein has got to do better than reruns of a drama that most people have seen – Nine would have been better holding off from rerunning the original until they could clear a broadcast in Melbourne, they risk instead tiring out the other markets, the Sydney audience of Underbelly is shocking, even for a rerun a drop of 42% from Two and a Half Men is just terrible.

b) Run Survivor
Hey remember Survivor, that reality comp on an island that still packs em in over in the states, a more natural fit with Nine’s reality night and a fresher alternative to Ramsay – plus there’s about a gazillion episodes in the can still waiting for an airing.

c) Run E.R.
Oh remember ER? Onetime anchor of Nine’s Thursday night, it finished last month in the US after 15 seasons, again, there’s a tonne of episodes, the chance of catching some of that All Saints crowd and still legions of fans that would probably like the chance to see the once great show at a decent time.

Quick Update

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Just a quick update of Tuesday’s chart with Nine’s 9.30 hour thrown in to demonstrate exactly what happens to you when you decide not to compete in a timeslot, walked all over by Seven and Ten…

Masterchef paying dividends

Tuesday 5 May 2009

It may be too early to call it, but I think we can assume that Masterchef is starting to pay Ten dividends.

Last year viewers were actively tuning out from Ten with the bloated corpse of Big Brother stinking up the place, once all the viewers had gone, even burying Big Brother wasn’t enough to entice viewers back, people needed a reason.

Of course, that reason was The Biggest Loser, a reality contest that still has life left in it and gave viewers a reason to switch on Ten and stick around, but these reality shows only last a certain number of weeks so whatever was coming to replace Loser had to not suck.

So far Masterchef is doing the job, holding its ground in a competitive 7pm timeslot and even getting a bit of watercooler buzz (someone yesterday told me they watched, and this morning I got a text from someone else asking me to identify the theme song, the joke’s on them cuz I haven’t watched a complete episode!)

The payoff for ten is not so much the 7pm performance but the stability of their Prime Time schedule, witness a good launch for Recruits on Monday and a great launch last night for the new quiz/game/panel show thing Talkin ‘Bout Your Generation. It has to be one of the best starts ever for a Shaun Micallef project, the lawyer turned comedian was always the most original and funny in the Full Frontal cast and his shows The Micallef Pogram and Newstopia are among the funniest Australian Television of the last ten years, it’s nice to see the man have some success.

This success was all the more extraordinary given the performance of a doco on Seven about a Lion (???!?) there was about 5.1 million viewers watching free to air at 7.30 last night – an excellent result for the industry.

Then again, what the hell happened at 9.30, putting aside that the universally panned Kitchen Nightmares did better in Melbourne than an Underbelly (season 1) rerun did in Sydney (surely Gordon Ramsay’s Full Throttle F***fest would be a better fit with the mind in the gutter antics of Sheen and Cryer, but I digress.

The bigger problem at 9.30 was the spectacular fall of Ten Years Younger in Ten Days! The metaphorical arse has fallen out of this makeover show. Debut attracted 1,348,000. Second Week 1,226,000. This Week down to 990,000 that’s 358,000 viewers (26%) gone in the space of two weeks, has to be the most rapid haemorrhage since Aussie Ladette to Lady.

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.