A Scandal-Free Practice

14 March 2011
MONDAY

Q: What is 11 years of Australian TV heritage worth in the ratings these days?
A: 37,000 viewers

That's how many more people watched ACA over Today Tonight on Monday. The reason, an A Country Practice retrospective with the series' creator - James Davern.



Frankly it was refreshing to see a retrospective on an Australian television without the requisite scandal attached, although Nine has been plowing this groud a LOT lately, a few weeks ago it was the cast of Young Talent Time.

At the rate they're going it can only be a matter of time before we see ACA track down the cast of Bingles.

On a side note they mentioned that Joyce Jacobs, who played Esme Watson, is still alive and in a retirement home, my jaw was on the floor when I heard that, especially given the roll call of former cast members who had passed away, they should totally interview her if its possible.

In other news, the news dominated proceding with every news program receiving a boost, including George Negus and his 6.30 lead out which both posted over 400,000 and Ten's 5pm news got over 900,000 which is its biggest aud in a while.

Q&A which featured the PM, Julia Gillard actually increased on Four Corners' audience - the first time I can remember something like that happening

QandA - the last to arrive

A quick one for Thursday night.

Seven virtually refreshed their whole lineup with decent results.

Amazing Race at 7.30 did quite well (incredibly bettered by the undead Getaway) and the two new comedies both tagged over 1 million viewers, although third in the slot with Rush maintaining it's first week figures without any problems.

Also good for Ten was that Criminal Intent improved week on week by 16.62% for a timeslot win.

If only it was that good for Ten across the night. The 7pm project claims to be waving not drowning - but I'm starting to wonder - it still posts a timeslot win in 16-39 but that's not what Ten is aiming for and as a result the 7.30 ep of Rules of Engagement was way down only climbing back up for the second ep at 8pm - both half hours are mediocre raters even by Ten's standards.

Finally - what's the deal with Q&A - It's back - I didn't even realise it - and neither did most of it's audience by the look of it - the show was well down on it's average - outrated by the ABC's 6pm program (among others). The ABC didn't put much promotional energy into the series return - hopefully the word will filter through in the coming weeks that the show is back - one of the more lively current affairs programs in recent times.