Tuesday, 10th May 2011

Damage Control is definitely what Nine needs, just not the TV series with the same title. Last night not only saw Nine's third poor night in a row, but their first real disaster of the week with not one prime time show netting over 1 million viewers.

The decision to screen the original Underbelly to Victorians while showing some also-ran crap in the other states is starting to look a bit stupid. Sorry to say it Nine, but anyone living in Victoria who wanted to see Underbelly has seen it and slipping it into the schedule with scant promotion is not the way to wring extra viewers out of that first season.

It would have been better to hold off until summer and show it as a rerun/first run across the network.

Of course I'm ignoring the night's biggest story - Australia's Got Talent which is the second show in 3 days to take some paint of the almighty Masterchef, and not just a little paint either, Talent beat out the cooking show by a whole 300,000 viewers.

Either Seven is so strong this year that previously railroaded shows are being boosted or perhaps some people are tiring of Masterchef and are seeking an alternative?

Erosion

This time a year ago - Merlin was riding high as the big new hit drama with 1.3 million viewers providing a big lead-in to the brand new Masterchef.

A year later - Masterchef is riding higher than ever - but Merlin is in the gutter - kicked to the curb by Mike Munro and Nine's factuals.

Nine's idea of sticking their Customs program on Sunday nights at 6.30 is a genius move sapping the heat out of Border Security (although BS still does pretty well for what was a rerun) there was a time when these Nationalist Paranoia showcases polled 2 million an outing - but that was the old television, before multichannelling, abundant PAY TV and internet enabled everything!

Underbelly returned to good numbers but far short of their 2009 form, still it's in no danger of cancellation - but perhaps budget cuts on future seasons if the numbers continue to soften

If House were on Seven it would have shipped to 10.30 last year - if it were on Nine, we'd only see it at Summertime, because it's on Ten - they persist with the 9.30 timeslot because they have no 10.30 slots, have nothing to replace it (so they can't wait until summer) and their multichannel is an expensive experiment in sports programming that no-one watches.

Maximum Impact

I don't know why it's taken channel Nine a full two years to realise that big audiences don't hit the box until after Easter, with Daylight Savings over and the weather getting colder, people have more time to spend in front of the TV.

This post Easter spike in viewers has been the case for years, but still TV networks have insisted on trotting out the big shows in February for the fear of others gaining a first mover advantage.

This year was no different, for some shows - but for some locally made big guns there's been an uncharacteristic and welcome restraint. Nine has held back the launch of Underbelly for after Easter with maximum impact - a 2.2 million strong audience shows none of the erosion suffered by other shows since last year.

Furthermore 2 months head start did nothing for the Good Wife, which (as the new kid in town) has the most fickle audience in Underbelly's (considerable) wake. Less fickle are the viewers of Bones who gave the show a healthy (and respectable) number against Nine's behometh.

Nine has also saved Sea Patrol and the revived Hey Hey it's Saturday for the post easter season, while Seven has a new series of Australia's Got Talent, it's big Miniseries "The Pacific" and is still holding back new seasons of City Homicide and Packed to the Rafters.

Ten hasn't changed a damn thing about their strategy and so far they are suffering because of it. Still everyone expects the sophomore season of Masterchef to do the business but from where I stand with their early evening in tatters, and post 9.30 slots filled with underperforming US shows - Masterchef is looking a lot like Big Brother did back in the day - an insanely popular yet solitary asset that Ten pours all their resources into at the expense of a well rounded schedule.

Incidentally EPIC FAIL of the night goes to House, Ten might wanna think about scheduling reruns in this slot for the next 11 weeks until Underbelly goes away, cuz at 568,000 viewers - they ain't competing.

The Really Odd Couple

One of the more annoying aspects of this season has been Nine’s propensity to team episodes of Two and a Half Men with everything under the sun.

They started this year by getting cold feet about The Big Bang Theory and slotting in the UK Mashup Customs at 8pm Mondays as a bridge between the sitcom and Underbelly – the move was fairly successful but most of that success could be attributed to the large masses tuning in waiting for Underbelly to start.

Nine tried to go in for a double dose of reality after Easter with Missing Pieces and You Saved My Life, both lame attempts to post feel good factual skeins that would trade on the success of Seven’s Sunday and Tuesday megahits.

Well times aren’t like they used to be and with the advent of Ten’s steamroller Masterchef people have dropped Seven’s Sunday offerings like a bad habit, while Nine’s rip-offs never got a look in.

A a few weeks of woeful ratings Nine gave Missing Pieces the axe and placed new eps of Two and a Half Men at 7.30 to partner Missing Pieces.

I don’t know about any of you who read this blog – but I watch a sitcom to get away from these dreadful fly on the wall shows, ever since Nine switched onto this strategy Two and a Half Men has held up it’s end of the bargain (it regularly beats Seven’s How I Met Your Mother) but as soon as 8 o’clock rolls the viewers grab the remote and head for Scrubs over on Seven.

Anyone who wants to see a factual is most likely watching the superior Recruits over on Ten.

Now news comes down that Nine will attempt the same deal on Wednesdays partnering Two and a Half Men at 7.30 with What’s Good For You at 8pm in order to move RPA to the 8.30 slot.

Partly this is good news, RPA is a completely different genre to anything else on Wednesdays 8.30 and thereby has more chance of success than the current drama logjam which is screwing up that night, but I don’t think pairing the lifestyle show with the sitcom is going to work

To put it bluntly – I don’t think anyone who regularly follows the teachings of Charlie Harper is the slightest bit interested in what’s good for them!


Monday 22 June 2009

Going Up
Australian Story up 23.24% week on week
Spooks up 19.45%
Brothers & Sisters up 13.53%
Neighbours up 13.52%
Deal or no Deal up 11.12%
7.30 Report (aka Utegate) up 11.11%
Desperate Housewives up 10.85%

Going Down
Supernatural down 29.34%
You Saved My Life down 27.59%

Still the one for programming disasters

Tuesday 19 May 2009
Well Ten won Tuesday night with ease on the back of a killer quadruple of Masterchef (up 39k week on week), Talkin’ Bout Your Generation (up 12k), NCIS (up 191k!) and Lie to Me (up 186k).

Seven too made gains on last week with The Zoo (up 45k), Find My Family (up 76k), All Saints (up 38k) and 10 Years Younger *up 76k) all putting in a solid night.

These gains by Seven and Ten were at the direct expense of Nine and the ABC, last week ABC had the Federal Budget which lifted their night considerably, with that out of the way the audience deserted Around the World in 80 Gardens (down 41k) and Mumbai Calling (down 111k).

But the real disaster of the night was Nine, the 7pm rerun of Two and a Half Men was the last time they saw a million, HomeMADE incredibly sunk a further 27,000 viewers week on week, the Tuesday edition a sad 140,000 viewers behind the Sunday show, suggestion that maybe it’s not the show, it’s the timeslot, although really it is the show also!

Two and a Half Men was back in reruns in the 8.30 slot giving 292,000 people an excuse to find other entertainment at 8.30. Meanwhile the continuation of Underbelly reruns at 9.30 is still the most baffling programming choice of the entire week, why are they persisting with two hours of this when they could…

a) Run Ramsay everywhere
Kitchen Nightmares might be played out but a fresh reality skein has got to do better than reruns of a drama that most people have seen – Nine would have been better holding off from rerunning the original until they could clear a broadcast in Melbourne, they risk instead tiring out the other markets, the Sydney audience of Underbelly is shocking, even for a rerun a drop of 42% from Two and a Half Men is just terrible.

b) Run Survivor
Hey remember Survivor, that reality comp on an island that still packs em in over in the states, a more natural fit with Nine’s reality night and a fresher alternative to Ramsay – plus there’s about a gazillion episodes in the can still waiting for an airing.

c) Run E.R.
Oh remember ER? Onetime anchor of Nine’s Thursday night, it finished last month in the US after 15 seasons, again, there’s a tonne of episodes, the chance of catching some of that All Saints crowd and still legions of fans that would probably like the chance to see the once great show at a decent time.

Quick Update

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Just a quick update of Tuesday’s chart with Nine’s 9.30 hour thrown in to demonstrate exactly what happens to you when you decide not to compete in a timeslot, walked all over by Seven and Ten…

Breathing Room

Monday 11 May 2009
With Underbelly finished there was a little breathing room last night for other shows in the 8.30 timeslot to flourish. Seven lucked out getting a rare Monday night AFL match (they usually go to Ten) between two popular teams! The result was a thumping win with Seven combining the power of AFL with their popular dramas north of the Murray.

For reasons not yet revealed Melbourne viewers missed out on Scrubs meaning that different states are going to be out of sync for a while. Ten also has this problem with the AFL scratching two SVU eps and one Medium ep that southern viewers are yet to see. With AFL trying to make inroads onto Monday nights there are going to be more of these matches in the future causing all sorts of programming issues for the rights holders – ahh if only we all followed the same code of Football.

But we don’t and followers of Rugby League weren’t left in the cold last night, although they probably felt like a hot shower afterwards as the ABC’s Four Corners lifted the lid on the activities of Football stars and their groupies.

You know Four Corners is onto a hot story when the press is talking about it on the Monday morning before it airs – well the news media has been onto this one since last Thursday when former Cronulla Sharks player Matthew Johns revealed on the NRL Footy Show that he was involved in an incident examined on the upcoming program.

The report achieved drew one of the program’s biggest audiences this year winning its timeslot in Sydney with 404,000 viewers and even pulling a respectable crowd in the non-league cities.

Also rising in the ratings was Good News Week up an astonishing 277,000 viewers week on week, by contrast Supernatural fell off further looking very shaky in this 9.30 timeslot.

Also looking shaky is Eleventh Hour – Nine may give it one more week to see how it does behind Sea Patrol but its performance last night was dreadful, without the viewer magnet of Underbelly the show fell 296,000 viewers and managed only 676,000 – amazingly though with this poor figure it was second in it’s timeslot!

Monsters before bedtime

Monday 4 May 2009

The final episode of Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities last night and a massive turnout for the event, let down however by the performance of everything else around it, although Eleventh Hour won its timeslot it still lost over half the audience from the Underbelly lead in.

This raises a question – why on earth did Nine screen a double episode of Underbelly 3 weeks ago, when they could of used that first week back to debut Eleventh Hour (clear of Biggest Loser) and have an extra week next week to cement an aud for the show? Just a nonsensical decision really – and that first week back they really took a bath on the audience, only recovering to it’s median level this week.

Next Year if there is indeed, another story, I’d advise the geniuses at Nine to hold off screening it until after the Easter break to make the most of the available Audience and have an unbroken run. Also I’d advise against double-eps – you get the most bang for your buck in the 8.30 hour, which with a 2 mill aud is enough to win you the night, there’s every reason to stretch those shares out to 13 weeks rather than compress them into eleven.

Also for f***’s sake next year figure out what you want to do with the 9.30 hour before you bow – this year was a dog’s breakfast, Ladette to Lady (a completely unrelated reality skein), Crime Investigation Australia (a Cable repurposing) and now Eleventh Hour (should have put it here from the start)

The new Nine 7.30 hour reality skeins are not as popular as that Custom Mash-Up that preceded them with Ten actually winning the 7.30 hour with a great debut aud for The Recruits, which along with Masterchef was their bright spot for the night.

The return of Supernatural, though, was less lively, managing only a paltry 633,000. The problem for Supernatural is pretty simple really in my estimation – it’s aimed squarely at teenagers most of whom probably have to be at school the next day and therefore can’t stay up to watch it.

The other point is it’s a genre show, mixing sci-fi and horror. We’ve seen year after year high-concept shows thriving at 8.30 (think Lost, 24, Prison Break, Heroes, yes Supernatural, Charmed) and the second they’re moved to 9.30 the audience dwindles, Supernatural is the only one here holding onto a 9.30 slot by the skin of its teeth!

So what kind of shows are suitable for 9.30? Well lets look at what works, procedurals – Lie to Me, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Cold Case, Bones, CSI Miami, light entertainment – The Footy Show, Enough Rope, 20 to 01, and soaps like All Saints, even Brothers and Sisters looks respectable this week!

Essentially I don’t think these kinds of shows work at 9.30 – Ten has the perfect out, they can swap GNW with Supernatural, that will give more people the chance to catch GNW (getting it out of the way of Desperate Housewives and Four Corners) and give the kids a chance to watch Monsters before bedtime!

Joy in Repetition

Tuesday 28 April 2009
Well suprise suprise Nine actually did well last night with a night largely built on repetition, the 7pm rerun of Two and a Half Men was up 80,000 week on week, 20 to 01 a clip show built around rehashing favourite moments (this time iconic movie soundtracks) bested the previous week's commercial clip show by 406,000 viewers!

The new Two and a Half Men was up 206,000 week on week, while a rerun of Underbelly season 1 saw nine dominate the 10.30 hour, the network capped off the night with a rerun of that evening's Millionaire Hot Seat!

Ten and Seven, by comparison, fought it out with new fare, Masterchef took a major hit falling to 4th at 7pm against a suddenly resurgent Home and Away - to be fare to the cooking comp - once the auditions are over and we get a look at the regular shape of the competition then the show may build.

More disastrous for Ten was the performance of Lie to Me - losing 97,000 viewers week on week and dropping to its lowest figure yet - this was in spite of Seven's new hit (10 Years Younger) losing 121,000 week on week.

Another big night of TV tonight with a lot of really big questions, will viewers remember what channel Thank God You're Here is on? Will people instead feel the lure of a widescreen Simpsons? Will Russell Brand just fuck off already and let me watch Lost? These questions and more will be answered tomorrow - stay tuned

Wow

Monday 27 April 2009
Wow, just fucking wow!

I didn't think a four year old show, a reality comp at that, was capable of 2 million viewers anymore especially not against the year's biggest drama Underbelly, but Ten seems to have played it right giving Loser a massive send off and delivering a huge first night for Masterchef.

Not only that - but check out the figure for Neighbours!!! Over 1 million!!! Has that even happened since the 80's??

An Extra Boost for the Hot Seat

Monday 20 April 2009
So Underbelly has been in reruns for two weeks and look – the audience dropped, remarkably. While 1.8 million probably means it will be the top show for the week – it’s still an even 300,000 viewers less than it’s last new episode and a far cry from it’s mammoth premiere figure.

Most of the drop off appears to have occurred in Sydney (down 152,000) and Brisbane (down 67,000).

Aside from this Nine can be pleased that after 7.30 they swept the night leaving everyone else to pick up the scraps.

Ten fared the worst with one of those el-cheapo specials that seem to be filler for the E! channel raking in a dismal 624,000 and landing a distant fifth behind the other broadcasters, this seriously diminished the performance of Good News Week which lost to a rather compelling Four Corners special on how the recession is affecting the city of Wollongong and the surrounding Illawarra region.

Scrubs watchers take heart that although the show placed fourth in its slot it did rise week on week by 83,000.

Finally Eddie McGuire’s new foray into TV, Millionaire Hot Seat had it’s debut last night. This is Nine’s latest attempt to create a stable lead-in to their 6pm news – in the 5.30 slot (with Extra in Brisbane) Nine raked in 699,000 viewers to Seven’s 776,000 and Ten’s 977,000. To be only 77k behind Seven is much better than they have done in the past – hopefully for Nine the show will build and not go backwards, but they have their work cut out for them – the only market where Hot Seat beat Deal was Melbourne, they got a good overall number because Extra won it’s timeslot in Brisbane.

Time for a Holiday - Sunday & Monday 5-6 April 2009

Sunday

It's Easter school holidays and by startling coincidence it also means the networks go on holidays for two weeks with all crucial series rested during the break.

On Sunday Night that meant Bones at 8.30 on Seven and this week's recipient of the "About A Boy" award for most overplayed movie: The Shawshank Redemption subbing for the CSI twins. Meanwhile Ten remained, the same with their reality comps hurtling towards the finish line, The Biggest Loser, especially has been one of the star performers of Ten's lineup in the last two weeks and the next two should be no different with the clear air of non-ratings providing more room for the show to grow in it's final weeks.

Perth is once again out of whack with the east coast over football match times and Seven's choice of a special on one of the world's worst serial killers, BTK, proved a poor option at 9.30 - especially since CI had a much more in depth look at that story about a month ago on their Serial Killer Sunday.


Monday

Nine chose to rerun Underbelly, that reruns pulled in around the million mark is impressive given there's very few who probably haven't seen the episodes at this point!

Again the story though turns out to be Seven and Nine's non-ratings capers have given ten a chance to be on top with Good News Week pulling some of it's best numbers all year (although down on last week's stand-up)

Even Four Corners, which has been in the doldrums from it's second week on received a welcome boost to 3rd place in it's slot with 957k. It's leadout - Spooks fared a lot better also than The Cut whose audience it virtually doubled.

Seven chose to replace their soaps with the lightweight comedy Father of the Bride II, this was a mistake - not only did it earn them fourth spot between 8.30 and 9.30 but it represents a missed opportunity to get a leg up for the Housewives while Underbelly is absent, instead only Ten (and ABC I guess) took advantage of the lull.

Seven's programmers should well remember back to 2006, at the start of that season (the show's second - which was generally regarded as weak) it was reported they were selling commercial time on that show for $100,000 per 30 second slot, then only 6 weeks in they took Housewives off for two weeks during the Commonwealth Games, upon the show's return the ratings had plummeted with people either weaning themselves off the habit or finding alternative means to get hold of episodes.

Now the show is operating with even less followers and Seven seems determined to drive them away also! Gottaloveit.

Nine, Ten up, Seven, Two down - Monday 30 March 2009

A very good Monday for Nine and Ten with both channels increasing their average aud in Prime Time while Seven and the ABC fell backwards week on week.

Save for How I Met Your Mother, the rest of Seven’s primetime took a hit with Scrubs losing 26k, Desperate Housewives losing 85k and Boston Legal shedding 21k week on week.

None of those losses looked that bad when put next to the ABC with Australian Story, Four Corners and The Cut all shedding in excess of 100,000 viewers from last week.

Nine’s biggest improvers were Customs (up by 108,000 viewers) and Crime Investigation Australia (up 99,000 viewers), Underbelly went up after several weeks of decline clawing back 52,000 viewers

The biggest gains however were at Ten with their special broadcast of stand up comedy from Melbourne (where most of the viewer increase was) netting an impressive 1.1 million and pushing the late news into the top 30.

Spac Filler of the week - Monday 23 March 2009

The ABC had a big week on week improvement with The 7.30 Report booking over 1 million viewers (which doesn’t happen often), Australian Story recording what must be it’s biggest aud so far this year with a reportedly thought provoking case examining the aftermath of euthanasia.

The spotlight on idiotic Judge Marcus Einfeld (a speeding ticket ffs!) gave a boost to Four Corners lifting it by 210,000 viewers, in turn struggling drama The Cut lifted by 72,000 viewers to something approaching a daytime audience.

Good News for Scrubs fans the show rose 36,000 viewers into respectable territory which should keep the wolves at bay, rising too was Desperate Houswives (by 24k) Seven seems to be digging in to keep viewers interested in the show, running weekend marathons, putting the episodes online, you name they’re doing it.

Meanwhile Underbelly dropped to its lowest aud ever with 100,000 less viewers than the previous week, that is still a good audience but it has been in decline for several weeks now.

Time to give out the spac-filler award, much like the putty you would use to repair holes in plaster walls, network programmers occasionally have to resort to cheap reruns to paper over holes in their schedule, occasionally these changes produce very good results like today’s award winner NCIS…

NCIS was moved to this timeslot 3 weeks back to sub for Serial Killer drama Dexter which had sunk to the unsustainable low number of 506,000 viewers, NCIS improved week on week by 151,000 viewers, building an additional 393,000 on Dexter’s last primetime figure to outrate it’s lead-in and Brothers and Sisters! Outstanding!

Hope for the late night dustbin - Monday 16 March 2009

A little late to the blog for Monday’s ratings but sometimes the real world takes priority over your internet world! As far as I can see the story of Monday is not the mega lift given to Customs (up 123,000 viewers on weeks) or the relatively insignificant slide for Underbelly (down 93,000 viewers) but between 8.30 and 10.30 Ten is improving – Good News Week was up 85,000 viewers week on week and has seemingly beat 4 corners (which was once the monkey on its back) into submission in 4th place.

At 9.30 NCIS is slowly resuscitating what was a disaster hour for ten with the timeslot up another 93,000 week on week, as you know Dexter’s move back to late night proved a weird success also retaining most of the show’s fan base, so all in all it was a positive move and Ten’s Monday share is now at 20% which is a pass mark more or less.

Of course Dexter started out as a late night show on Ten (after a cable run on the top-tier Showcase) and was trialled this season in Prime Time eventually flopping, another show, Scrubs which started out during Summer, underwhelmed Seven’s programmers and found itself in all manner of late night timeslots eventually found traction on DVD where it’s season box sets have become some of the best selling entries for the medium.

Last summer Seven decided to move it from the no-man’s land of 11.30pm to 10.30 and the result was phenomenal with episodes pulling upwards of 500,000 viewers in the slot, hence a show which for all intents and purposes was dead has been restored to prime time by Seven in its final season

The result was that Seven took a hit week on week of roughly 89,000 viewers but considering the episode they bowed with (where main character JD was absent save for a voice over) it’s a pretty good result, hopefully it can pick up and allow this often ignored series to go out on a high note.

Auntie takes a beating - Monday 9 March 2009

Another Monday, another large body count and another channel nine victory.

Underbelly actually grew week on week by another 34,000 viewers while Desperate Housewives dropped by 39,000! Meanwhile timeslot also-ran Good News Week built an extra 44,000 people onto its base registering over the 800,000 mark and back out of danger, 4 corners was hit hard with 85,000 viewers tuning out week on week.

In fact the ABC has taken quite a pummelling on Monday nights in recent weeks – especially considering their relative strength last year, case in point is 9.30pm:

There were more people watching TV at 9.30 last night than were watching at the comparable hour last week, Brothers & Sisters was up 22,000 viewers, Crime Investigation Australia lifted a whopping 193,000 week on week (the night’s best improver) and a rerun of NCIS brought an additional 149,000 people who couldn’t be stuffed with Dexter the previous week, yet ABC’s 9.30 entry – The Cut actually lost 81,000 viewers week on week??? This is after losing 83,000 viewers the previous week – there’s not a lot of people left to lose here!

Now I haven’t seen it so I cannot judge whether it’s a turkey or not, but bleeding viewers at a regular rate is not exactly a vote of confidence.

In fact thinking about it – I don’t even know what its about, I’ve never seen a promo and I watch the ABC sometimes for 7.30 report and Lateline - perhaps the ABC’s lack of in-show breaks is hurting their ability to promote new shows, we’ve become so trained to hit the remote the moment a program finishes that we no longer stick around for the coming attractions.

I watch even less SBS but I can tell you more of what they have on just by virtue of promos during the programs. Sounds like a tricky problem for the ABC for the years to come.

Monday 3 March 2009

Viewing on the whole was down on last Monday night with the biggest week on week hit going to Nine’s 9.30 hour which sunk, last week Nine followed their megahit Underbelly with a rebroadcast of the Oscar ceremony, this week forced to find a suitable lead-out for the country’s number one show they settled on Crime Investigation Australia, a doco series repurposed from the Crime & Investigation channel.

At first glance you would think that a true crime documentary would be a perfect fit with a true crime drama but it seems that it isn’t, the doco lost a whopping 1.161 million viewers (51.99%) from it’s lead in.

You would also think that Nine would want to use the most valuable real-estate on television right now to promote something that would continue on after the first 12 weeks of the season, what that would be exactly is unclear, the channel nine vault doesn’t seem to be bursting with hidden treasures lately.

Seven’s Brothers and Sisters got the predictable lift with the female skewing Oscars out of the way, while other 9.30 entries stagnated, The Cut can be considered a flop and Dexter, why Ten is persisting with this when surely there is an audience for them at 9.30, especially considering the sub-par competition, is beyond me. Call me crazy but if the mass-audience dropped Lost, Heroes and Prison Break, what makes Ten think they’ll pick up a violent, adults only serial a year into the storyline?

Some good news for Ten was that Neighbours gained while both it’s current affair competitors lost audience in the 6.30pm slot with ACA down 93,000 and Today Tonight down 121,000 – Neighbours was up 72,000 viewers and is tantalisingly close to that million mark – perhaps old Harold was holding them back!

So You Think You Can Dance appears to have fallen into a similar patters as Australian Idol last season where the Sunday show posts an acceptable figure of 1.2 – 1.3 million and the results show hovers around the 900,000 mark – given that this seems to be the pattern Ten needs to shake this up when Idol rolls around – maybe move the results show back a day or two (probably Wednesday their other struggling night) this would clear the decks and give ten the chance to develop something substantial for Mondays which could carry through the whole year, if they were game.

Meanwhile How I Met Your Mother seems to have also settled around the 900k mark which is not a disaster by any means but with Seven blowing two new eps a week they’ll run out of fresh stock before Nine run out of Sheen, that would be a massive miscalculation on Seven’s part – find a show to go at 7.30 and save the new Mother ep for 8pm, moving it out of the way of it’s main competitor – I guarantee it’s figures will look healthier – in fact I wager that if Seven split their reporting into two half hour eps we would probably see an improvement between ep 1 and ep 2.

Serial Killer found bludgeoned to death with gold statue - Monday 23 February 2009

Underbelly continued its stride into the record books with a third week over two million, although losing 174,000 viewers week on week. Perhaps they were watching the season finale of Top Gear on SBS which ran for 90 minutes and clocked an extra 190,000 on the meter.

Customs and Two and a Half Men both dropped slightly also, affected by the driving show, whereas offerings on the other three nets held their ground from last week.

Good News Week has some minor good news lifting 65,000 viewers while Four Corners dropped by 193,000 but the real spoiler of the night was the Oscars which caused a minor drop for Dexter (yes its still on) 23,000 viewers and a significant drop for Brothers & Sisters (which would be pitching to the same aud) 130,000 viewers – the Sally Field borefest should stabilise next week when Nine plays it safe with Crime Investigation Australia – but with that move we can consider Dexter cooked.

Nine’s unconventional strategy of airing the Academy Awards show live and then fitting a prime time replay around their schedule paid off nicely allowing them to capitalise on the awards twice over without disrupting what is currently their biggest night.

Bad News Week - Monday 16 February 2009

Underbelly virtually held all of its gargantuan audience second week in. This is certainly shaping up to be high watermark in Australian television and channel Nine’s best chance at promoting their 2009 lineup, infact anyone with their TV tuned to Nine last night would have been inundated with promos for their struggling Wednesday lineup.

A decision which, a few weeks ago, I blasted as being sheer idiocy has actually worked out well for Nine (just a moment whilst I fetch a hat to eat) that decision being the axing of The Big Bang Theory replacing it with a hastily cobbled together factual series Customs, err sorry Vince Colosimo: Customs! I wish Nine had persisted with Big Bang in this slot because it strikes me that this Customs show is attracting a lot of folks waiting around for the next program, but anyway – despite the short-term thinking the move is still a great success.

Also a success is the Australian Ladette to Lady – question is can they carry that across to Tuesday nights and how long does the series even go for – the opening scenes suggested that the course at Eggleston Hall ran for four weeks – that doesn’t seem like a very long series to me.

Desperate Housewives lifted a little last night and incredibly Brothers & Sisters retained 94% of its audience which must be some kind of record. I fully expect to see 11 more weeks of Friday/Saturday encores for these two shows to keep the viewers up to speed while they flirt with the crims over of Nine.

Speaking of Encores, the remaining 500,000 people who haven’t seen Dexter on DVD or Showcase were entertained I guess – but Ten is hurting badly on Monday night – even after what was a fairly solid start to the evening by Neighbours and So You Think You Can Dance.

Good News Week has dropped week on week by 61,000 viewers while Four Corners rose by 143,000. Indeed these two shows seem to be fighting over largely the same audience and seeing as the ABC ain’t gonna budge it might be wise for Ten to move GNW to 9.30 (there’s a lot of Ex – Enough Rope viewers looking for something to watch) and Dexter to 10.30.

Of course that leaves the 8.30 problem – given that the slot will be a loss for the next 10 weeks anyway, why not encore screenings or Out of the Blue!! (OK maybe that’s going too far!)

Ahhh so that's how they do it! - Monday 9 February 2009

Several months ago I wrote over on my list22 blog that one of the colossal screw ups of 2008 was Nine’s handling of Underbelly and it’s subsequent non-broadcast throughout Victoria.

The show, banned in Victoria (Melbourne typically furnishes the biggest FTA TV audiences in Australia - especially for locally based prods) clocked a premiere rating of 1,320,000 in four cities. It's very plausible to assume that Melbourne would have added anywhere from 500,000 - 800,000 to that number had the broadcast gone ahead.

Well last night we got to see exactly what kind of interest Melbourne would have in last year’s qualified smash hit and the answer was…

Well just look at the figures!

Look at them!!

Holy Fuck!!!

After a week of lurching from one bad programming move to another channel Nine has officially dealt itself back in the game.