The law of inverse proportions

Wow, the Biggest Loser was the top rating show for Thursday pulling 1.2 million which has to be one of its biggest hauls this year.

Every year the audience for this show builds in the final weeks, it's almost inversely proportional to the amount of jiggling on display!

The AFL Footy Show had its anniversary which explains a timeslot win for the first time this season.



Over on digital there was a big turnout for Stargate Universe, but Star Trek TNG dropped out of the top 50 despite airing one of the best first season episodes (The Big Goodbye)

Question Time

If GO! didn't have the Big Bang Theory they would be in the doldrums. In spite of showing over 9 EPISODES PER WEEK, the show is still GO!'s biggest.

Coming up in the digital world is Ten's scifi double of Stargate Universe and Star Trek The Next Generation. While Star Trek is amazing in so far as its a 23 year old show with zero promotion beating out other digital fare, but Stargate Universe is now in the top tier of digital shows along with Big Bang, Heartbeat and Neighbours as pulling over 200,000 viewers per episode.

Of the main channels - I have some questions:

How much longer can Nine justify the production costs of two separate Footy Shows to draw less than 700,000 viewers?
How on earth does Ten get any traction for their sickly US dramas?
What evil magic continues to keep Home & Away in rude health?
How much longer will Nine wear the 7pm ratings of Two and a Half Men?

The Last to Arrive

Last night was a typical Thursday where everyone got a turn to shine (save for the ABC I guess) 7 Dominated the news hour, Getaway and the Footy Show gave Nine the night and Rush pulled off another timeslot win holding its audience week to week and justifying Ten's faith in renewing the show.

The test for Rush may be after this week when Nine brings on their own Rescue: Special Ops - which, being about paramedics, is different - but to the casual observer looks like a clone. Will they be oversaturating the market with this type of show - stay tuned.

Seven absolutely collapsed after the Amazing Race. Double Take dropped 13.19% week on week but still held a decent 941k in tow - but TV Burp dropped 16.09% down to a worrying 845k.

Whilst Rules of Engagement has been subsisting on those kind of numbers for weeks now, Rules is a cheap (very cheap considering how often it's rerun) import on channel Ten, TV Burp is a cheap (read: replaceable) show on channel Seven - they're gonna need to lift in the coming weeks to keep Seven's support.

A 20 to 01 shot

Thursday 4 June 2009

Biggest Disappointments
Mask & Memory
ABC 9.30pm down on Q&A by 38.58%

Sunrise
Seven Early Morning down Week on Week by 12.21%

Biggest Improvements
Rules of Engagement
Ten 8pm up 50.96% on Worst Week

Medium
Ten 9.30pm up 23.89% week on week

Well here something encouraging – another sitcom it starting to connect with the public and lo and behold it’s one them old timey laugh track shows!

Rules of Engagement, currently in it’s 3rd season (if it doesn’t feel that old that’s because all of it’s seasons have been shortened due to the dearth of available half hour timeslots on CBS and ten only debuted the show in 2008 anyway) is starting to take off achieving some of it’s highest ratings yet.

While still 3rd in the 7.30 hour the removal of the also-ran Worst Week has turned Rules into a viable competitor

Now that that’s’s sorted and Medium is lifting Thursday nights are starting to become a close-run affair, even Criminal Intent lifted its game with a 20.58% increase week on week.

It’s also the only night of the week right now where Nine has any sort of dominance, the Footy Show is on a hot streak in the southern markets right now with 687,000 tuning in to the AFL vs 375,000 rugby league tragics.

Meanwhile my hat is off to 20 to 01, back in 2006 (the show’s second season) people were wondering whether Nine could sustain the series beyond it’s initial 7 episodes but lo an behold there have been 87 episodes (yet 87) since then and the show is still going strong! Kudos!

Weight gained is viewers lost

Thursday 21 May 2009
Nine dominated prime-time last night with what is possibly the dullest, cheapest lineup in all of prime time, a travel show, a clip show and a football themed talk show – this is what attracts the viewers on a Thursday night folks.

Seven won the battle of the imports with Private Practice improving a healthy 67,000 week on week and giving Seven some hope that the show (which looked pretty screwed only a few weeks back) has a future.

No doubt they’re all being helped out by Criminal Intent, last night’s Vincent D’Onofrio episode lost 82,000 on the previous week’s Jeff Goldblum instalment, I have a theory, and it’s a crackpot theory, that the Goren episodes are actually turning viewers off because of the actor’s very noticeable weight gain. I don’t know, well see where this goes, but viewers seem to be cooling on this show, just a little!

Abusing the fans

Thursday 7 May 2009
Lots of big changes on the Ten sked last night and not the same level of success.

Rules of Engagement, a sitcom which has had two curtailed seasons (it was a midseason launch then ran head on into the WGA Writer’s Strike) returned to less than spectacular numbers allowing Nine and Seven to divide the hour amongst themselves with Bondi Vet falling away on the back of a poor lead-in.

Criminal Intent returned to SVU like ratings, but beaten handsomely by a 20 to 01 rerun, the 8.30pm hour was hotly contested last night with 4,322,000 people tuned in across the hour, the ABC benefiting from a retrospective special on Media Watch, a 15 minutes a week that tabloid journalists dread and a show whose attention from the news media is inversely proportional to its miniscule running time! The special pulled 911,000 viewers, one of Aunty’s best performances in this slot all year.

Medium moved nights to Thursdays, dropping from last week’s occupant (an SVU rerun) by 154,000 viewers but improving on Life on Mars’ sliding ratings and improving on its own ratings which were stuck under 700,000 on a low viewing Friday night. After last night there are 7 episodes left in the current season, after which they could virtually rerun the show in this slot for the rest of the year and it would probably produce a similar, if not better, number.

Medium’s debut adversely affected Private Practice. Last night I actually sat through an episode of Grey’s Anatomy to see whether I was missing anything (and no I wasn’t) but a new disturbing trick I noticed was that Grey’s Anatomy faded to black (no logo, or EP credit or anything) and then bang, right onto Private Practice, there was no promo for next week’s episode just a jarring jump to the next show.

To whoever is in charge of playout at the Seven network – this is abuse of the fans of this show – and I hasten to add, I am not one of them, but if my favourite show ended on a dramatic note and I didn’t get that space of the credits, or a promo to decompress and reflect on what I just saw, well that’s just low.

I get accelerated flow, In fact I’m a big fan of the kind of accelerated flow that American Networks practiced in the 90’s, back then the credits were all uniform (and yes off to one side, but legible) a promo for a related show would play and then you’d get a quick bumper to flag the next program, none of this jumping straight onto the next show – that is just arse.

So faceless Seven executive, just think about what you’re doing, by denying Grey’s Anatomy fans their show as a whole, you’re not only turning them away but you’re also hurting the prospects of the show you’re trying to promote, just look at the ratings (especially for Private Practice) it isn’t working!

Finally congrats to the AFL Footy Show had a big victory at 9.30 mostly thanks to some sort of heavily publicised stunt where Sam Newman got tarred and feathered! Meanwhile one of the stars of the NRL version seems to had serious allegations made against them to be aired at a future date on Four Corners – would somebody just can the Rugby League version already!

Fourth & Down

Thursday 23 April 2009

The Footy Show really did well last night in Melbourne netting an average of 413,000 viewers over an almost 2 hour span becoming Melbourne’s second most watched show of the night behind Today Tonight.

As The Biggest Loser races toward the finish line Home & Away continued to flounder, it has placed third or lower on every night this week aside from Tuesday (a night which Seven dominates) that’s a poor showing for the long running soap.

Home & Away has proven itself durable, but also vulnerable, especially to Ten 7pm flights of fancy. In the early part of this decade it was Big Brother which gave Home & Away very real problems at 7pm, with only Nine’s lacklustre 7pm performance for comfort.

These days Nine is resurgent with reruns of a sitcom which still has 2 more years guaranteed (and could conceivably run for another 4 years on it’s current form) and Ten is about to launch Masterchef, how Home & Away winds up for the year will depend a lot on how audiences take to Ten’s new reality play.

Seven continues to swing for the fences on Thursdays making it their 3rd night playing for 16-39 year olds behind Monday and now Wednesday, the return of Heroes did alright but I wonder how long it will last before getting the Lost & 24 treatment?

The Jig is Up! Thursday 9 April 2009

Thursday

Another Thursday Night AFL Match - this time on Seven helped them to a winning share on the night - viewership was down everywhere else with a thinning out of the sample size due to the holiday weekend.

Nine Held their ground early on with Getaway and Adults Only 20 to 01 but the pairing of The NSW Footy Show and a movie called The Big Bounce was a big disaster.

Meanwhile two other 9.30 skeins are struggling as well, Seven moved 9.30 Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice to 7.30 (when has that ever happened!) for a "special" episode - well the jig is up, only a core audience seems to like this show and no-one else is buying.

Still that's better than Life on Mars, repeated interruptions in the southern states and the news that the show was cancelled in America have caused the ass to fall out of the ratings for this show. It is a pity because even though the series will only have a limited run (17 episodes) it will have a definite ending with the showrunners warned ahead of time in order to give the show some closure, and having read the spoilers I can tell you - it's definitely an interesting resolution!

Nine moves up the dial 22 places - Wednesday 8 April 2009

Wednesday

While Ten scores with reruns on Tuesdays, Seven drops the true crime chicanery and dishes out a double Criminal Minds with great results - at 8.30 they were only bettered by the ABC's light entertainment double, then at 9.30 they owned the hour.

Ten's House and Guerilla Gardeners were both up week on week, although Guerilla Gardeners fate has already been sealed with a move to 6pm Sundays in the wings after Easter.

Meanwhile check out the performance this week of The Simpsons and Neighbours in the 6pm hour - are the school holidays helping these shows or what?

Channel Nine meanwhile had a good night until 8.30 - a new double of What's Good For You and RPA (somewhat reminiscent of the old Our House/Money Wednesday fixture I guess) won the 7.30 - 8.30 hour, then at 8.30 everyone had the night off - Southern viewers were subjected to a two hour Footy Show, though this sort of Wednesday stunt is quite common at this time of year the Footy Show is no longer the major draw it once was, perhaps its time to limit the number of 8.30 screenings of this stuff which, rather than win local market ratings, seem to just disrupt the networks programming.

In fact Sydney - with The Mentalist and Cold Case was the only Market which resembled the network last night, Brisbane viewers got some sort of local fashion awards??!? Is this channel nine or channel 31?

Hype Works - Thursday 26 March 2009

If Thursday's ratings prove anything - it's that hype works. The Melbourne audience was assualted for two solid months by almost every media outlet in the city with wild speculation and anticipation over the first in-season match for current AFL bad-boy Ben Cousins and his "showdown" with former team-mate Chris Judd.

In the end the game itself was a little lopsided but with over 700,000 melbourne viewers tuning in - for television it was a rousing success.

For Ten as well it provided the perfect opportunity to showcase the new OneHD an all sport all the time digital channel and the first significant effort at multichannelling since ABC2 all those years ago.

Elsewhere Nine was taking the biggest damage with Getaway dropping by over 200,000 viewers week on week and Adults Only 20 to 01 losing 92,000 viewers.

Although comparing their 9.30 slot with last week is a little useless (the AFL Footy Show was replaced by CSI Miami, it should be noted that in Sydney and Brisbane the Footy Show came third in its slot behind Private Practice and Life on Mars.

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.

The Truth about Vets and Plants - Thursday 12 March 2009

Nine stormed in with a huge audience for their Adults Only 20 to 01 which seems to be a better fit with The Footy Show than with cop shows. The Return of the Footy Show also garnered a healthy aud as it always does but look for it to fall away in the coming weeks as the season settles in.

Thursdays seem to be one of The Biggest Loser’s better nights, improving by 50,000 viewers week on week as did Bondi Vet though its still a long way from being considered a success.

The truth is with the Vet show and the Gardening show these are not the kind of programs that people expect to find on Ten, this is mainstream channel Seven and Nine stuff through and through, mostly watched by people who haven’t retuned their set since 1961, they just aren’t watching Ten to begin with.

Speaking of old, Ten’s trip to the 70s is really starting to fall away, although it added 20,000 viewers week on week it’s still lagging behind Private Practice which itself must be waiting for one of those 10.30 slots to become available.

News Travels Fast - Thursday 5 March 2009

I Don't know how else to explain the sudden drop in Life on Mars' numbers, either the general public has been clued on that it was canned in the US and have decided to ditch, or they just like CSI Miami waaaay too much.

If its the latter and viewers are hanging on for the pithy one liners from Horatio Caine then Ten can rest easy because H checks out in a few weeks to make way for an assortment of dickheads and boofheads on the Footy Show, but if its the former and viewers have decided not to commit to a show only destined to run 17 episodes then Ten has a problem.

No problems from Nine who seem to have managed to wring yet more juice from the dessicated 20 to 01 and Getaway seems to have settled nicely also.

The one puzzle on the night is Bondi Vet, why the audience dips after The Biggest Loser but recouperates for SVU, I have a theory - channel surfers, OzTAM's systems measure the number of viewers watching at any minute and then average that over the hour - I'm guessing that there's a lot of channel surfing during this show - folks are waiting around for SVU but they aren't just leaving it on Ten. Its a decent show, but its not really a Ten show and the figures bear that out.

Star system holding television back

As has been widely reported this week alleged funnyman Trevor Marmalade was dropped from Nine's footy show.

This morning on 3AW Peter Ford reported that the reason for the departure was over Salary. According to Ford, Nine had told Marmalade that they would only have him back if he took a pay cut down from 300K to 150K, it was a take it or leave it deal and Marmalade apparently left it.

Now I'm no financial whiz, but if they were paying him $300,000pa to tell 3 jokes a week on a show that only plays on one of Nine's O&Os (and 4 affiliates) representing less than half of the total Australian aud, they're weren't exactly getting their money's worth were they?

I’d want some more bang for my buck – truth be told. One of the things that seems to be broken with the TV business model is the idea of star salaries. This is where people are kept on the company payroll and yet there’s no role for them.

It’s very reminiscent of the whole Hollywood Star System where studios would employ actors on a full time basis and assign them to their movies as they see fit.

Old time movie buffs will wax nostalgic about this closed shop but really in terms of finding the best people for your movie it was holding the whole system back. You only have to compare the vanilla films of the studio era to the more memorable films of the 60’s, 70’s and beyond and you’ll see that while it may maintain a competitive advantage for the biggest player, it often locks out good new talent and keeps talented people away from the movies that would suit them.

So it is with television.

The most glaring example of this is Eddie McGuire, what has he actually done this year? Has been on TV? I think he hosted ACA at one point. Could anybody have imagined years ago that McGuire could host ACA? I couldn’t, it seems bizarre but there he was for a week earlier this year.

How come, well because he’s getting paid anyway, so they may as well have him do something. This is just weird, surely you wouldn’t run a business like this.

McGuire’s stock in trade is AFL and Game Shows, Game Shows are all but extinct after a surge in the early part of this decade and Nine not only doesn’t have the rights to AFL but it’s Melbourne Footy Show has had an all new team in place for two years since McGuire made the improbable leap to ring-in CEO.

While Nine’s problems with having so many faded stars on the payroll have been biting them over the past two years, Seven has been amassing a huge employee base of it’s own, poaching people left right and centre from the other networks.

They’ve been doing it since 2004 when they lured Ian Ross (Rosco) from Seven and Ian Dickson (Dicko) from Ten, and ever since then have been coaxing folks from the other three nets with alarming regularity.

Having all these people on the payroll is great when you’re riding high, suddenly your network becomes a destination for viewers to see their favourite stars or newsreaders, Nine used to be like this – in the 90’s but slowly bit by bit the wheels come off the star factory and you’re stuck with highly paid people being warehoused, or twiddling their thumbs after their shows have been cancelled.

We then get the embarrassing situation where the network starts trying to come up with ‘star vehicles’, Seven has already experienced this with Dicko lurching the poor man (well not that poor really) from flop to flop in a vain attempt to fit a round peg into a square hole. Nine did it with Bert Newton, kicking Bud Tingwell off 20 to 01 and giving it over to Bert. All this year they’ve scratching around for something for Eddie to do, too afraid to cut him loose and yet the vehicle is just not there.

Eventually this will happen to Seven when their current crop ages or viewers move on and they’ll find themselves in much the same strife that Nine is in now, it’s in their DNA – you see in the past 5 years Seven has become Nine.

What does this have to do with Marmalade, well its just a small example of some of the misplaced capital invested at Nine over the years and I’m hopeful for their sake that they take a long hard look at their star system.

Making entertaining shows for viewers should be the priority, not making shows solely to occupy their talent.