Midsomer Massacre

Earlier this year the ABC had some great Friday night success with the British Mystery series Midsomer Murders, the show pulled a consistent million each Friday against Football codes, chick flicks and Ten’s Law & Order so it makes sense that they have returned the show to a better timeslot – Sunday’s no less, with outstanding results.

Midsomer really put the cat among the pidgeons after causing consternation for Nine’s Rescue Special Ops diping below 900,000. Whilst Rush experienced similar humiliating figures last season, that was on Ten in a 9.30 slot, this is Nine in an 8.30 slot, not to mention the beating 60 minutes is copping lately.

The Ashes seemed to also impact the commercial nets after 8.30 last night with only Bones putting in a respectable number.

Rove had a minor relaunch without Hughsie and Carrie (on other duties at 7pm) after several weeks away and it landed with a thud taking in only 832,000 viewers, worse was the performance of follow-on Rules of Engagement - if Ten is trying to turn this show into Two and a Half Men by running it everywhere - it ain't catching on!

Last night also gives us the first ever figures for GO! Nine’s new foray into multichannelling and a largely successful one at that with flagship show The Big Bang Theory netting 207,000 – impressive given that this channel is only cleared in approximately 45% of homes (households with digital receivers independent of Foxtel)

The chart is right here...

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!

Give the People What They Want

Friday 8 May 2009
When in doubt go with what works! Channel Nine has, for weeks now, struggled to get any sort of traction in the southern states to complement their Friday Rugby League dominance north of the Murray, we last night saw the dropping of Til Death moving The King of Queens back a half hour and putting in an extra Two and a Half Men.

The additional Two and a Half Men came second in Melbourne and Adelaide enough turn up in the top 30 on the back of only three cities. They're putting an extra episode on Mondays as well, replacing one of those factuals, that will make 8 episodes a week/9 in southern markets!

This is all well and good but I'm starting to recognise eps that I've seen before, and I'm more generous on reruns than most people so Nine is getting into dangerous territory here, betting that this sitcom has the legs of The Simpsons, all I'd ask them to do is look at what happened to Seinfeld, a show which you just can't stip early evenings anymore (save for the niche market of cable) because everybody seen the episodes three times over!

As I suggested Law & Order has hit the ground wheezing, it would be the perfect series for Friday nights, were it not for its even older skewing opposition and the fact that men are well served between Midsomer and various football codes, not to mention those war and sex docos on SBS, the real available audience is women and Medium didn't do it for them, neither do movies (it's rare that one pops into the top 30 on a Friday) the question is - what do women want?

Endless Midsomer

Friday 1 May 2009

A fairly unimpressive night for everything bar the grey double of Better Homes and Gardens and Midsomer Murders.

Ten, with no sport to fall back on fared the worst of the commercial nets with only a 19% audience share and low audiences all around.

Medium, a show which deserves better, will this week be moving to 9.30 Thursdays with Law & Order doing double duty on the night.

It's a tough ask for the 19 year old procedural which is far more highbrow than its character driven offspring, an evening of Law & Order is often a trip down the complex and labyrinth playbook of the US legal system, played for realism it can often be very dry stuff and at this point it's clear that viewers prefer the abnormally murderous antics of various eccentrics in the English countryside to the gritty 'ripped from the headlines' New York experience.

You'd think Ten might be hanging hoping that ABC will run out of episodes - well don't hold your breath - last night's ep (originally shown on Nine) was episode 10 (or 3.2) that's 10 eps out of 65!!! This show ain't going anywhere soon!

Perhaps Ten should reach into the old vault for some Murder She Wrote, or maybe they still have the rights to Ruth Rendell!

Out of the Frying Pan...

Friday 24 April 2009
Ahhh if only we could all agree on a code of Football! Last night if you combined the audiences for AFL and NRL you would end up with 1.3 million viewers (717k watching Rugby League and 676k watching AFL in Prime Time) alas we are fractured nation - forever doomed to squabble over whose sport is best.

If you don't like sport there's always Midsomer Murders on ABC, Old fashioned murder mystery preferred by almost double the audience watching the more high concept kind on Channel Ten, Medium will be off to Thursdays very shortly to take advantage of the younger audiences on that night while Law & Order will air double eps in its place.

But Law & Order could be stepping out of the frying pan and into the fire, Law & Order skews heavily male in its demographics putting it squarely in competition with... you guessed it - Football and that's a fight it can't win.