Oh Mr Sheen

Thursday, 24 February 2011

It's just depressing isn't it, we should just close Thursdays down and forget about it.



You may have noticed if you're reading this blog on a regular basis that I've chosen to ignore Fridays and Saturdays, that's mostly down to the fact that apart from the smaller audiences, the schedules start to get ridiculously fragmented as different states follow their different football codes. A few years ago (and you can rifle through the posts in 2009 to check it out) I attempted to make sense of this haphazard scheduling, but I don't even think the networks themselves know if there's a net benefit to splitting up their schedule by state.

It will be interesting to see if this is the first year where the multichannels can carry the sport live into the outlier states when it comes to NRL and AFL.

As for Thursday night, The Biggest Loser and Home and Away are the only things anyone is tuning in for.

Look at Two and a Half Men at 7pm - only half a million viewers and now getting regularly beaten by Ten's 7pm project despite having a superior lead in - Nine needs an alternative 7pm show pronto and they must know it - it's dragging down their whole night.

The problem for Nine is - What can they put in there - not a game show - they're played out, there's no other broad appeal sitcom that has as much strip potential as Men and a new newsprogram up against ABC News and 7pm would be fatal.

There's always Entertainment Tonight or TMZ I guess (I'd totally watch TMZ if it was on at a decent time like a few years ago) or maybe Nine could be brave and kick off their nightly sked at 7pm rather than 7.30, maybe that's too brave. Whatever happens they will not tolerate low figures for Two and a Half Men for that much longer - they need an alternative soon!

While I'm on the subject - What the hell is going on with Charlie Sheen check out this story on TV Tonight I think Sheen is going off the rails and it wouldn't suprise me if Two and a Half Men has taped its last show.

It begins...

Wednesday 23, February 2011

A pretty depressed night all around I think. My Kitchen Rules, Criminal Minds and The Biggest Loser were the only things that went well last night. Channel Nine's Mike & Molly won't last much longer in this timeslot - especially given the show's either side are doing relatively well.

City Homicide is demonstrating why it was axed with less than half a million viewers, still that's better than Blue Bloods which has haemorraghed viewers weekly since its debut. Perhaps a Friday slot (like in the US) would be a better play for this drama.



Of course yesterday all the real action in TV wasn't on the screen or behind the camera but actually in the board room with the long running Grant Blackley being ousted as Channel Ten CEO, replaced by Lachlan Murdoch as acting CEO.

Its worth noting that although the catalyst for this move is undoubtably the faltering 6pm newshour, the bigger problem for Ten has been the miss-step that is One HD which is trying to attract an audience for sport which just isn't there - the sports audience has been a vocal minority for quite some time.

Also, whilst their strategy with 11 has actually been quite sound, they don't have the mainstream following on the main channel to actually back it up. What I'm trying to say it with 7 and 9 their main audience is adults 25-54 who like middle of the road fare, both GO! and 7mate perfectly complement their main channels by offering targeted 16-39 shows and GEM and 7TWO catch the older viewers uncatered to by the mainstream channels with their heady mix of reruns and Old Brittania.

11 meanwhile is going after mostly the same audience as Ten, Ten (to its credit) has tried to skew older, entrenching US procedurals at 8.30 on every night but there's only so many mainstream viewers to go around and they're increasingly going for first run Australian shows over and above imported hits.

Essentially Ten needs to figure out who it's main channel is aimed at and then somehow come up with a compelling offering for those folks.

One thing is for certain, it will be very interesting to see what happens with both Ten and One over the next year - I've heard many incredible suggestions from dedicated music and movie channels to turning one of the channels over to Packer/Murdoch owned Sky News Australia, I can't wait to see what they come up with.

Hard Habit to Break

Tuesday, 22 February 2011

Oh, that's not good. Today Ten chief Grant Blackley who has been in charge of Ten Holdings for two months, but in charge of Network Ten for eons was deposed by his board who installed Lachlan Murdoch as acting CEO.



This is the real world consequences of Ten's poor ratings performance so far this year. They literally have four shows that are doing any kind of business at the moment, NCIS, The Biggest Loser, Modern Family and Glee - everything else is flailing.

Like many in the media have noted - a major source of controversy with Ten's board is their new 6pm strategy of serious current affairs up against the entrenched news bulletins of 7 and 9. So far there hasn't been encouraging results, but it's early days and seeing as early evening viewing is built on habit - viewers attachment to Nine and Seven will be a hard habit to break and now it seems Ten may not even get the chance to try.

New debut Conviction Kitchen lost over half of its lead in from Packed to the Rafters which may not be an issue for Seven as its demographics were really good, placing in the top 3 in all 3 major age categories, which suggests a broad hit.

Meanwhile Nine dropped most of it Tuesday sked for live coverage of the shocking Christchurch Earthquake, unfortunately the audience seems to be suffering from disaster fatigue with Nine's extended bulletins placing 3rd in their respective slots.

Big digital ratings for Neighbours, Everybody Loves Raymond and Harry Potter, but not appearing in the top 50 digital shows were The Office, Nurse Jackie and ABC2's Good Game - which I personally enjoy, its sad to see it tank.

Somebody call a doctor

Monday, 21 February 2011

In amongst the more serious news stories yesterday was a move by Kerry Stokes to merge the Seven Network and West Australian News Papers. Analysts pointed to Stokes moving while the ratings are hot.



They weren't wrong. Seven cannot put a foot wrong this season.

Monday night saw My Kitchen Rules go from strength to strength, while Bones fended off a first run Underbelly with ease.

Underbelly would be a real disappointment for Nine this year, I think the reduced viewership is mostly down to the nature of staging telemovies rather than a series - it gives the impression that the producers are at the fag end of their inspiration, if they don't have enough material for a series.

I'm not suprised the audience hasn't materialised.

NCIS did better than last week but will be benched to make way for House next Monday (itself making way for Lie to Me on Wednesdays which is making way for a second NCIS on Tuesdays - confused yet!)

Interestingly in the US, House and Bones are stablemates from the Fox network (for many years House was Bones' lead-in) now they'll be up against each other.

Whatever Ten does they'll be hoping for an improvement with Good News Week, the skein just can't make it over the half million mark which is scary stuff. Probably doesn't help that there's so much real, bad news around at the moment to distract. Also the ABC's Q&A would attract a similar young, urban audience to GNW. It might be worth it to consider moving nights.

On digital both 7 and 10 can be pleased with strong performances from Neighbours, Supernatural, Heartbeat, Jonathan Creek and Family guy. Nine on the other hand had a shocker - the Alicia Silverstone movie (there's something you don't hear very often) Excess Baggage bombed not even polling in the top 50 digital shows, as a consequence Vampire Diaries suffered its lowest numbers since the start of the season. Nine needs an alternative to movies on a Monday because people don't have the patience or attention span for them on this night, maybe later in the week.

Tolerance

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Lots going on last night with every network having a turn at a timeslot win (the Blue boxes) Particularly impressive was the performance of Miss Marple on the ABC as well as Modern Family on Ten (probably helped by a very funny promo this last week)



Digital went well for Nine and 7 with big numbers for The Big Bang Theory and Escape to the Country, but the best Eleven could muster was 115K for Everybody Loves Raymond, the rest of their night bombed.

How much longer are Ten going to tolerate Smallville pulling in less than 100K per outing? Even more disturbing - how long will they tolerate the lacklustre numbers from NCIS Los Angeles at 9.30 on the main channel.