Thursday, February 12, 2009

No extra viewers but there's still life on mars - Thursday 12 February 2009


For the first week of a ratings season, this one hasn’t exactly gone to plan with the Bushfire Crisis dominating news coverage and throwing primetime schedules right out of whack.

Last night both Seven and Nine made major sked changes, Seven dumped Ghost Whisperer in order to catch up on Wednesday’s pre-empted Home and Away, while Nine threw their whole Thursday lineup (which wasn’t exactly working for them anyway) for an all night telethon.

As you might expect it was a success, but oddly it didn’t seem to bring any new viewers to what is Television’s most puzzling night, indeed it just seemed to soak up existing viewers from the other channels.

So we have to consider the question – what has driven TV viewers away from Thursday night? When I have some answers to that question I’ll post it here!

Meanwhile Grey’s Anatomy, SVU and Life on Mars weathered the telethon better than I would’ve expected, Private Practice however, not so much – but it’s an odd night and to soon to make any judgement on the various programming moves, however early trends suggest 7 and 10 tying for this night on a regular basis (with Seven winning overall due to their news) and Nine being the wildcard – depending on what moves in once the footy show starts next month.

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