Slo-Mo Comedy Train Wreck

Wow - a bit of a turnaround for Ten last night with sophomore drama Rush lifting to it's best audience yet and yet another timeslot win but the lift for Rush also spelt the best result all week for Idol.

Looking past these results this blogger is gratified that Burn Notice seems to be catching on, a nice 80's style action drama there really is nothing else like it currently on TV, so it's good to see it getting traction.

More worrying is the numbers for Seven's TV Burp and Double Take now in no-mans land with both under 700,000 viewers, oddly despite the urging of several in the blogosphere that Burp was the superior show, swapping the two around has actually hurt both in the ratings, this looks like being the most painful slo-mo local comedy train wreck since David Tench/Ronnie Johns and those shows had their fans as well so it's sad to see.

The way back to prominence

Three days in one shot due to yours truly being flat out on his day job :D So what can we learn from Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Mostly they've been pretty consistent for a few weeks now, Nine tanks on Tuesdays, Ten tanks on Wednesdays and Seven tanks on Thursdays.

The Librarians took over the 9pm Wednesday slot from the Chaser and posted it biggest Audience ever on Wednesday sandwiched between Spicks and Specks and United States of Tara (now a bonafide hit I think).

Commercial clip shows are well and truly dusted, Nine's pathetic attempt to induce an audience to watch commercials in between more commercials never got off the ground, despite the best efforts of the host to cram in as much unneccessary swearing as humanly possible into each cross.

Jamie Oliver, once the ABC's (and then Ten's) golden boy - is also dusted, with an even smaller aud than Nine's lackluster commercial show the night before! I don't know whether Oliver is still popular back in Britain but in Australia at least he's well and truly out.

There's always a way back to prominence though - as illustrated by Axle Whitehead, the host of World's Strictest Parents, a BBC format which has bolted out of the gate to become the current hot show, a few years ago Whitehead was on the outer having disgraced/pwned (depending on your age group) during the 2006 ARIA awards, he got fired from his Video Hits hosting gig and it looked like the end of the road - but since then he's stormed back with top ten singles, a role on Home & Away and now this show - who woulda thunk it! Reflecting on this - I don't think we'll be counting old Kyle out just yet!

Double Take and TV Burp are still in the doldrums but Seven is likely to support them for a while yet - on Thursdays they're interested in young viewers and seem more willing to take a knock on this night compared to other nights.

Not sure how long Nine will be supporting Australia's Perfect Couple for though, when you're only marginally more popular than Commercial Breakdown - you have real problems, I should also point out this is umpteenth show featuring Jules Lund that seems to have fizzled out - maybe you need to work on him, he's a bit too cheerful and nice - maybe have him look to the career path of the now successful Whitehead - Nine has the AFI's in December and god knows they could use the publicity...

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.

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.