The Pod People – Tuesday 21 October 2008

Channel Seven is viewed by Pod People, this week they switched out RSPCA animal rescue and subbed it with The Zoo (yet another fly on the wall thriller) and they didn’t even skip a beat – in fact they added viewers up 109,000 on it’s predecessor. The hegemony of these early evening doco-soaps suggests to me that whatever subject Seven’s cameras follow – people will watch

Coming soon we could expect concepts like “The Brothel”, “Centrelink: Australia’s Dole Queue” and “Pizza Delivery” it doesn’t matter how pointless, objectionable or irrelevant they are - they will rate their socks off – just make sure that they’re on Seven, because Nine and Ten’s attempts to inject a bit of light entertainment into Tuesday nights are failing dismally.

The Chopping Block lost 54,000 people week on week, but Kenny the Toilet Man fell down the crapper with a painful 117,000 viewers disappearing down the S-bend!

Speaking of painful, The Simpsons is agonisingly close to the Million Mark with only one thousand viewers shy of the big number.

Everything performed much the same as last week, Rush added a further 42,000 week on week while NCIS lost 97,000 viewers. It’s still doing well though which means it’s unsurprising that Ten has enlisted a second hour of the show to shore up Sunday Nights (back in it’s original 9.30 timeslot).

A big question mark for tomorrow night with The Mentalist entering the fray for Nine, this will either see a nightly win for Nine (their Wednesday Two & a Half Men is a timeslot winner) or we’ll see all three drama’s cannibalise each other’s audience.

One thing is for certain – Ten cannot keep blowing House on Wednesday with such a weak 7.30 lead in – Nine blinked first in the battle of the Wednesdsay dramas – but in doing so they have countered Seven’s Criminal Minds with an even bigger gun, The Mentalist – stay tuned for the outcome of that face off.

Chink in the armour – Tuesday 14 October 2008

Not much of one – but enough to provide a ray of hope to the other nets particularly Ten. Whilst Seven’s 7.30 hour increased week on week, Packed to Rafters reduced by 93,000 viewers and All Saints lost 175,000 week on week

Most of those viewers must’ve found their way up the dial. Ten recorded increases for NCIS (40,000) and Rush (94,000), and Nine increased Two and a Half Men by 93,000 viewers.

The prescence of The Chopping Block was a blow to Nine’s 7.30 hour and seemed to bolster the fortunes of Seven’s 7.30 shows – especially RSPCA which gained almost 100,000 viewers week on week.

Kenny’s Toilet Tour benefited from the move to Tuesday nights but still lost viewers from The Simpsons. Which is vernturing back into more respectable territory increasing week on week by 49,000 people (and by 145,000 over last weeks new 7.30pm ep!)

Overall it was a fairly stable night with some good gains to ten, they now have three shows over the million and have improved there other timeslots, can they keep it going or will they falter again with House tomorrow night, it remains to be seen but the can be encouraged by the stronger performance for Rush, one of the year’s best new shows – here’s hoping it’s numbers improve.

As for Nine – it is hard to imagine where else they could put The Chopping Block, but Nine doesn’t tolerate sub-million figures for long (Battlefronts has just been axed), Tuesday night has been a free-for-all up to The Olympics at which time Seven got the night in a headlock, the other two will be lucky just to keep their head above water on this night – and for the most part last night – that’s what they did.