Laid over Lie

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

I thought Ten might have had some success with thier plan to sub in Modern Family reruns on a Wednesday night. Seems like I was wrong, viewers can indeed tell the difference between fresh and stale episodes.

The real casualty though is Lie To Me which was in the cushy 9.30 Tuesday slot but is now out on its own in the wilderness on Wednesdays. Why Ten didn't think it could anchor 8.30 is beyond me but leaving it with an incompatible and unpopular lead in is too much punishment. It was beaten by the largely unknown Laid FFS!

You might have noticed I've been experimenting with adding new digital channels ABC2 and now One, I'm not sure that it's worth it - ABC2 has a LOT of programs getting over the 100K mark but they are mostly daytime kids programs (by contrast Kid-Centric ABC3 is a non-event, partly because its catering to an audience - Tweens - that doesn't like what its selling.)

One HD - Ten's all sport all the time channel is now less sport and more manly stuff like Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch and action movies, its interesting that these diversions rate better for One than anything else on the channel!

Under the Ice - Friday 7 November 2008

Overall a better turnout last night than last week and most of the benefits were split between Nine and Seven with the newer Harry Potter movie posting a better number than it's well worn predecessors. Seven even did well with what is an ultra-violent action movie - something Ten hasn't been able to make work on Fridays.

No doubt they were helped by the fact that it was teaming down in Melbourne last night (the nation biggest TV watchers anyhow) keeping a good chunk of people indoors.

Ten, however, was unable to exploit with it's early evening numbers holding the network under the ice for the whole of Prime Time.

I watched Ice Road Truckers last night and it was good, interesting television. A documentary with a real sense of drama to it's story. I can say that for me it was better than anything else on at 7.30 Friday (and that includes Cable) but for some reason ten can't break through.

On any other network this show would be pulling 1 million plus but not Ten. Viewers also showed they prefer Harry Potter to X Men - but did people even know X Men was on?

Ten has got a real image problem right now - people just aren't giving it the time of day even when they've got something good to show.

No use trucking when they've all trucked off - Friday 31 October 2008

You know we're headed for summertime when everyone struggles to stay over 900,000 (let alone a million) and last night was a clear example with the old skewing Seven commanding the biggest audience, although many of the Better Homes Devotees must've stayed out in the garden last night as the show experienced a deflated turnout.

Harry Potter's second week was well in line with his first and Nine can expect this sort of turnout for the next several weeks as they churn through the series.

Over on Ten it's all doom and gloom, while the figure for Ice Road Truckers seems suspect (only 3/5 markets are noted even though the show had 100% clearance) but what is unmistakeable is that Will & Grace is floundering and an ultra-violent rebroadcast of the Terminator is gunning for an audience that just isn't at home.

Indeed T2 had two things going against it - first of all Ten's print predates the invention of digital television with a hoary old 4:3 broadcast making it look like the oldest thing on the box last night, secondly young males out for a bit of bloodshed movie action would've been hard pressed to go past last night's Fox Classics double Death Wish and Death Wish II! Fox Classics is building up a great reputation of screening some real classic films now all they have to do is discover widescreen and then we'll have something.

As for Ice Road Truckers, Ten just can't seem to take a trick, like I said several weeks ago, Friday has two audiences, Families and old people, ABC and Seven pitch to the oldies every time, Ten and Nine need to fight it out for the families, Ten pitching to a male audience on a Friday night, after footy season is completely the wrong target.