The game they don't watch in heaven

Saturday 6 June 2009

Biggest Disappointment
Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections
SBS 7.30pm Down 33.86% week on week

Biggest Improvement
Bruce Almighty
Seven (Southern Markets) after Vicar of Dibley
Up 29.09% over Phenomemon

All 3 commercial nets turned their schedules into swiss cheese last night to accomodate various sporting events.

Seven had the classic North/South split for their coverage of Rugby Union, the Union was a ratings disappointment polling only 219,000 in Sydney and 155,000 in Brisbane - middling figures at best. Worse than this was the decision to rerun Christian the Lion, a wildlife doco they ran only 5 weeks ago on a Tuesday night! And topping that level of bad was the fact that it rated well! More people watched this rerun doco in Melbourne, than tuned in for the Rugby Union in Sydney! If you actually compare it week on week in the three markets with the first run Cheetah Man it comes out on top with a 4% improvement!

Nine and Ten adjusted their schedules for local time differences, with Ten starting their Saturday AFL match at 5 different times and Nine playing around post-7.30 in order to line up with start times for the Twenty/20 Cricket.

Nine puts cart before horse and kills news but wins night - Tuesday 14 January 2009

If there’s one thing that Nine won’t be looking forward to in the 2009 television season, it is Tuesday nights, with Seven’s behometh Packed to the Rafters and channel ten’s one successful show NCIS squeezing them out of this valuable night

Well last night I think they hit on the solution – a weekly Twenty20 cricket match every Tuesday should be enough to see off the competition!

If only Cricket wasn’t a summer sport because last night Nine racked up a 44 share across prime time so far being the only program to take down NCIS this summer with the drama losing 286,000 viewers week on week (although recovering 63,000 of those in it’s second hour.

Strangley Eli Stone actually slightly improved – suggesting that although it has a smaller audience, they are much more loyal.

Whatever Nine is doing right in the cricket – it is struggling in the news department, after a week of good news ratings on the back of a cricket lead in, this week they are under the hammer – with Seven maintaining their share while Nine’s news goes backwards, ACA was beaten by Ten News FFS! Since when has that ever happened!?

Flasher at the cricket - Sunday 11 January 2009

That wheezing sound you can hear is the last gasp of test cricket as it struggles for air, deprived of viewers while it’s upstart younger sibling Twenty/20 cricket grabs the limelight.

For those who don’t know already Twenty/20 shrinks the one day 50 over per side cricket match down to a fast 20 overs per side, meaning the whole game can be played out in one evening – perfect for television and spectacle with the play less strategic and more ‘go for broke’

I’m reminded of a quote from an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where one of the characters laments the demise of Baseball several centuries earlier…

"Once, centuries ago, it was the beloved national pastime of the Americas. Abandoned by a society that prized fast food and faster games. Lost to impatience.”

That quote came to mind when I saw the ratings for last night’s Twenty/20 match – quite different to the middling ratings achieved by the test cricket just a week ago, the difference was – those ratings (because of the timeslot) provided a real benefit to Nine’s News, last night Nine’s News was off the radar and it’s 6.30 showing of The Secret Millionaire (honestly, how many timeslots are they going to trial this in?) was a disaster even being beaten by Ten’s also-ran movie.

Better for Nine though was the opening of Flashpoint which held onto half the cricket’s aud – not bad for a show running through to midnight, I didn’t catch it but judging by the previews it looked like ‘Rush: Toronto’ (or perhaps Rush is ‘Flashpoint: Melbourne’) but this initial turnout bodes well for future airings.

Seven suffered the most by Nine’s cricket dominance with the Rich List taking a dive and their movie being beaten into a close fourth place in the slot.

Ten’s decision to air movies was vindicated – although ‘Aquamarine’ was a non-starter it still did better than last week’s reality double, ‘Die Hard with a Vengance’ however did much better for them, it seems in summer when it comes to showing movies, the back catalogue and name recognition is a better guarantee of good ratings