Special

Sunday 19 April 2009
Well first night back after a two week break in television land (I had a one week break myself due mostly to a busy schedule and a temperamental internet connection, so my apologies if you were checking in here to no avail!)

After two weeks of phoning it in Nine and Seven roared in to split up the night amongst themselves, well check that – it mostly went to Nine, not sure what they were showing on 60 Minutes last night but the show had a big boost with 1.5 million tuning in, more surprising was the performance of Backyard Blitz, this show, rumoured to be already on the shelf, pulled of a timeslot win in what is one of the most volatile slots of the week.

It’s amazing how much the press is speculating on the fate of both blitz and Sunday Night when in reality there isn’t much difference in audience between the two, expect to see Sunday Night continue and Blitz to be back in some way, shape or form later in the year – it’s one of Nine’s more reliable shows.

Neither Bones, nor CSI set the world on fire at 8.30 but at least they can hold their head up high and feel good that they’re not Beyond the Darklands, anyone truly interested in the examination of serial killers on a Sunday night can tune into CI over on Foxtel and see some much higher profile subjects been tackled, a figure of 684,000 for channel seven at 9.30pm would be sending alarm bells to the programs makers – why they switched timeslots so early in the show’s run is one of those bone-brained decision which a certain “special” programmer seems to specialise in!

Sunday 22 March 2009

Sunday again continues to be close struggle for all the nets with only the 7.30 hour putting Seven out in front. Viewers have well and truly put aside 60 minutes for the more visceral experience of Seven’s factual offerings.

Meanwhile Dexter’s ratings last Sunday looked to be a mirage, either the show dropped by 342,000 viewers week on week or it was initially timecoded wrong resulting in an inflated rating for the first week.

The tussle at 8.30 continues to be tight with less than 3,000 viewers separating the crime shows. Backyard Blitz, now rumoured to be axed lost 84,000 viewers week on week while The Biggest Loser picked up an extra 94,000 and Sunday night brought in another 129,000 (the night’s biggest increase)

The Ten Percent Event - Wednesday 4 February 2009

Sometimes a network makes a weird move and everybody questions it, 90% of the time everybody is right and then 10% we see that the programmer had the right idea, last night was one of those 10% events.

What the hell am I talking about – oh yeah – House on at 9pm rather than 8.30pm, last season House was getting beaten at 8.30 by Criminal Minds and The Mentalist, and I don’t just mean beaten – but beat down! Usually averaging anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 behind the second place getter!

Seems like someone at Ten has their ear to the ground, or their eye on the net – one the most frequent comments I’ve read about House over the past few years is that people like it, but Spick and Specks is their first priority, the two shows have fought over the same timeslot for years but Ten has never conceded to their non-commercial competition despite the anecdotal evidence that the aud for both shows is overlapping.

Well last night, assisted by some stunt programming, Ten kicked of House at 9pm, with Life at 10pm out of the road of Spicks and Specks but still up against 9 and 7’s dramas. The result was Ten’s best Wednesday night in forever with both shows winning their timeslot in 18-49s and 16-39s and 25-54s

We know for a fact that this 9pm start will continue for the next two weeks ensuring a switch-on point for House, expect to see the network find more ways of pushing the start time back to 9, as the season progresses.


Over on Seven the decision to move Australia’s Got Talent didn’t hurt them one iota with the series return posting a timeslot win and competitive figures in key demographics, all in all a very successful move for the show. Meanwhile Criminal Minds slipped back into Wednesdays as if it has never left, the series currently fast-tracked should present a dilemma in 18 or so weeks when Seven will have to decide whether to rest it or air reruns (last year reruns were timeslot winners also)

At 9.30 though the jig was up with 24 posting a significant timeslot loss in total people and all demographics, it will probably maintain these numbers at 10.30pm Sundays which should be the show’s regular slot in two weeks.

Over on Nine things went from grim to worse, Nine News and A Current Affair were all that the net could manage over 1 million last night, that’s only 1 hour over 1 million, whereas Ten posted 2.5 hours over the million mark – a worrying reversal of fortune for Nine which has seen it’s traditional early evening strength erode markedly over the past two years and this year looks to continue the trend.

Backyard Blitz, one of their 2008 success stories found less success wedged in on a Wednesday night as older viewers opted for crazy vaudeville of Seven’s show leaving Nine third in all demographics. Having said that it was still a competitive figures, but not the barnstorming return Nine would have hoped for.

The Mentalist and Flashpoint returned solid numbers but were hurt probably less by competition than by their scheduling over summer changing more times than connex on a hot day, hopefully now that they have a regular timeslot things will pick up.

More baffling is the 10.30 slot for Cold Case – if only they had held their nerve in summer, Cold Case was a solid Thursday performer which got shafted for (of all things) The Secret Millionaire, and by the time it returned Nine found themselves running a poor second to Ten’s dramas on the night – the show is still popular (look at the turn out for a late night slot) but if you had told me a few years ago that this procedural would see out it’s days at 10.30 I would have told you you were stupid – I guess not!

Brisbane boosts the numbers - Monday 17 November 2008

An interesting night of TV last night with Nine getting Blitzed, Ten getting better and seven getting slightly richer. Overall viewing numbers were up last night across the board. Including SBS there were 5.1 million people watching Free to Air TV at 7.30 last night – out of a population base of 13 million (for the 5 metro cities) that’s pretty good.

ABC has been pulling respectable numbers all year for Four Corners which ended it’s season last week to make way for the four part doco – The Howard Years (one part for each term in office I believe) it was definitely interesting, especially whenever Peter Costello had something to say and I’ll definitely be either tuning in or recording the last 3 instalments.

Andrew Denton, who needs no assistance with his ratings was actually down by 200,000 on the previous week, but his show really rises and falls on the guests he has on.

Looking at the other networks – Seven had a massive start to the night with Seven News, no doubt boosted somewhat by the storms in Brisbane – both Seven and Nine News had inflated figures in Brisbane as locals tuned into the coverage with Seven Brisbane netting 400,000 (Up 110,000 or 37.9% week on week) and Nine Brisbane welcoming 322,000 (Up 110,000 or 29.3% week on week) this also proves that after years of being the last state well an truly welded to Nine’s 6pm bulletin, Brisbane has indeed made the switch.

The Rich List improved by 90,000 week on week, which is good, no doubt helped along the increased numbers watching FTA. Given how inexpensive the format is no doubt some Seven execs are hoping that it maintains a decent performance throughout November.

City Homicide tied (that’s right tied) with the Howard Years which is good for a rerun. Nine were also in a rebroadcasting mood with the 8.30 CSI a repeat, no doubt a defensive move in light of the ABC’s play into the slot for the next several weeks.

Another episode of Domestic Blitz (is this the regular timeslot now?) went very well for Nine, next year I can see a game of quick draw between Nine and Seven to see who can get their franchise into the slot with fresh eps first, Blitz or Border Security.

Over on Ten it was the first outing for Out of the Blue, while the turnout was substantially down on Ten News (Ten News typically pulls over 450,000 in this timeslot, more during winter) I would have expected that – the key is – does it build (meaning will audiences follow it and will it be worth retooling for early evenings) or will people desert it? Stay tuned for that one.

Still on Ten, something unexpected happened last night, blame the wild Brisbane weather – but they did it – they got their four shows over 1 million! That means this week they could potentially have 6 shows over 1 mill by the end of the week. It probably won’t do much for their overall shares but total audience counts as well, especially when it comes to promoting future shows.

Cross Promotional Blitz - Monday 10 November 2008

Ah the joys of cross promotion, take Backyard Blitz a program which specialises in taking hard luck cases and transforming their backyard (cuz what you really need when your life is shit is a bird fountain and a patio right?).

As if this winning formula wasn’t enough to bring in the hordes, Channel Nine decided to combine the power of their shows by locating one such unfortunate family whose daughter was profiled on a 60 minutes story about Tourette’s syndrome, and give their house the makeover.

It is actually very clever programming and combined with zero competition it did the business for Nine last night.

Not doing the business however was just about everything else scheduled. CSI lost almost 70% of that golden lead in getting beaten into a baffling second place by Enough Rope. In America CSI still attracts 18 million people per new episode – these episodes are FAST TRACKED virtually days after the US broadcast and yet Nine can’t seem to muster up much interest.

Even worse is the result for Cold Case, not so bad given the 10pm start but really, they can do better than this. Did they even let people know it was on? The promotional departments at Nine and Ten seem to have packed up for the year.

Proving that not all television viewers are lobotomy survivors the 7.30 report beat The Rich List into third place (in the slot) which itself beat Idol back to fourth.

What is remarkable is that just like water – a lot of Monday shows seem to have found their own level, The Rich List seems frozen under 1 million, Aus Idol results always garners around 200,000 less than the Sunday show, Supernatural always loses 150 – 200,000 people from Good News Week. Even Will & Grace has hit a ceiling stagnating week to week. If Ten could get a show together at 7pm that attracts 1 million viewers then they might have a decent shot but right now they’re relying solely on the core audience for their prime time shows and as we can see here – that isn’t enough.