Deciding on a Level of Success

Monday, 24 January 2011

I remember a time when Sitcoms were an endangered species on Australian television, now they're everywhere - often in the same damn timeslot - look at the 7.30 hour - no less than 4 channels are competing for the same Audience: How I Met Your Mother, Glee, Two and a Half Men and Futurama. You'd have to think the audience for these shows is pretty interchangable, I wonder how many Monday's we'll see this before either Nine or Ten blinks. 789,000 for Two and a Half Men is pretty sad even in summer and demonstrates the diminishing returns of pumping this show to death and wider variety of alternatives on offer now.



One thing that stands out on examining the schedule is Seven's acumen in programming their second digital channel - 7TWO. 7TWO has been around for a while now but in the last year it has morphed into a repository of old skewing British fare. It gives them a clear point of difference from the more youth-appealing GO! and ensures there's always a crowd turning up to watch - look at the numbers, all three shows over 300,000 which I think I will nominate as the level for multichannel success.

Finally – Wednesday 26 November 2008

It took some yahoo at channel nine to schedule complete shit and ABC to pack up Spicks and Specks a week early but finally Dr House got back in the black – for his final new episode this year.

The medical drama roped in over 1 million viewers, a first for its current season – another beneficiary of Nine’s stupidity (Christmas with the Kranks?? I mean come on!) was Seven whose Criminal Minds enjoyed a boost of 179,000 viewers week on week.

Nine can be happy with the performance of The Big Bang Theory which has better audience retention from Two and a Half Men than previous tryout Til Death and is pulling respectable numbers. A timeslot change is in the offing with this pair of sitcoms now moving to Sundays and Mondays at 7.30pm where I expect they will continue to rate well.

Seven held their nerve (much like Ten has with House I suppose) with The Unit and it paid off with the military drama coming a close second to surprise timeslot winner Life – see what happens when you ease the glut of dramas in the same timeslot. No such luck next week as Life makes way for Rush and Nine enters the fray with ER.

Futurama continues to be a puzzle – the show single-handedly kept ten’s 2005/06 summer afloat (along with short-run hit Surface) yet now with new episodes it seems to be floundering, I’m putting the blame squarely on lead-in Will & Grace which in four weeks has failed to fire. When your main 7pm comedic rival is doubling your audience and then continuing into the 7.30 timeslot then Futurama has zero chance of building a lead. Honestly though will Friends do any better over summer.

Here my advice ten – if you want your nights to succeed – then PROMOTE Friends – not just with some one size fits all ad, but with a new commercial for EACH EPISODE run it all through your news and then start the promos for the next nights show all through primetime – the only way your gonna make people want to watch a show they’ve watched before is by reminding them how good it was – and the only way you’re going to do that is by promoting the S H 1 T out of it.

As a last note the return of Prison Break did really well and bodes well for Seven to dominate late night over the summer.

Dead in the O.R. – Wednesday 12 November 2008

Oh my God, make it stop!

Let’s all take a deep breath and look at the positives…

Two and a Half Men, this US comedy continues to dominate Wednesday nights with the lions share of 7.30 viewers tuned in, the rest all split between Seven and the ABC.

Criminal Minds, still a hit but it is quickly being matched by The Mentalist. Although The Mentalist is not attracting the sort of Audience it did on Sunday nights it’s still a hell of a lot more respectable than the turnout for Fringe so it has achieved it’s task.

Spicks and Specks – this show which I’m happy to admit I have never watched continues to attract a dedicated 1.2 million viewers every week.

Stupid Stupid Man – I’m not sure what this show rated when it was on TV1 but it’s been nicely multiplied by being broadcast on Free to Air TV and frankly stands as a model on how to justify for spending by the cable channels on original Australian content. If a drama or comedy from Foxtel can be repurposed on Free to Air TV six months later it sounds like a good deal all around.

Now the worrying signs…

A Current Affair is struggling and problem originates from WIN territory, the two Bruce Gordon owned network stations are underperforming (especially the local Perth version) It’s a pity no-one publishes overnight for the RegTAM the numbers from the network O&O NBN alone would probably eclipse the woeful performance in Adelaide and Perth.

9.30pm is a basket case timeslot, in fact total audience after 9.30 almost halves from it’s 8.30 figure, very shocking, the slot is still deadlocked between 3 cop shows with Seven coming out on top (as usual) , someone should throw something different in here to attract a different audience to the slot.

Finally, here goes – the elephant in the room…

Channel Ten. After last night’s performance they have gone from the mat to dead on the operating table, this is just awful.

For NEW episodes of Futurama (albeit available on DVD) in Widescreen no less to only attract half a million viewers is shameful.

For Neighbours to be their top rating show yet again is deplorable.

But the real sting is with House. This was once a top ten show. Upwards of 1.5 million would tune in each week to see it – it has been Fast Tracked for several weeks now and not one instalment has reached over 1 million viewers, last night it sunk to an all time low. This is the kind of baffling performance that should have Ten’s lawyers meeting with OzTAM’s lawyers, except that the performance of everything else on the night is just as bad.

Ten need to pull the show immediately, rest it over summer, find a decent timeslot and promote the hell out of it’s return, DON’T WASTE ANY MORE EPISODES!