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%