Television's Ice Age - Saturday 1 November 2008

Last night we got a real patchwork, Seven and Nine went local last night to accomodate their broadcasts of Rugby (both the union and league varieties) and the face that people south of the Murray couldn't care less.

It's difficult to make sense of and I'm not even going to try except to say that nothing was particularly impressive ratings wise last night - Funniest Home Videos and Ice Age 2 both scored well, but their numbers were depressed in these spring months.

The loss of viewers this year has been even more acute than last year as people find something better to do than sport or repeats on a Saturday. With both Football matches pulling lacklustre figures even in their home markets, what does this mean for the future of sporting rights in Australia.

Surely they can't keep bidding up the price of these spectacles when the result is a diminishing return.

Saturday Night's alright (for something other than television) - Saturday 25 October 2008

Some years ago the major US television networks stopped programming on Saturdays, turning the night over to either sports or rebroadcasts of programs shown earlier in the week (a practice known as repurposing)

While the Australian free to air networks are not there yet it can't be all that far away with no single post 6.30 program drawing in excess of 1 million viewers and several regular draws underperforming.

The biggest dissapointment of the night was the Rugby League World Cup whose delayed telecast attracted a tiny audience even in the northern states where it was shown at 9.30pm. It remains to be seen how the league fares tonight with a better timeslot and Australia playing.

Everything else was movies. As long as the commercial networks treat Saturday night like an afterthought rather than building an audience on the night they'll continue on indefinitely earning these low numbers.

Saturday Shutdown - Saturday 11 October 2008

Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Years ago Saturday night shows could command top 10 figures, programs like Hey Hey it's Saturday, MacGyver would fight it out in the same slot and still pull great numbers, now - it's just depressing.

Nine's Funniest Home Videos - once the shining beacon of Saturday night has sunk to the 900club which is getting more and more crowded these days as the potential eyeballs find other things to do.

Everything else was movies - Ten had the only rerun - Evolution, which seemed to have been promoted only 20 seconds before the start time and was rewarded in viewers thusly.

Seven again had the top show with family movie Holes - seven's access to the Disney brand helps them out every so often on Saturday nights and their family movie bent is working well.

Working less well was Alien vs Predator which predicably did about two thirds of it's lead in sharing it's potential aud with Aeon Flux a movie spin off of an anime series that SBS used to carry - hardly mainstream stuff. Why networks think that this is the best they can do on a Saturday is beyond me - people are home and are watching - but not the people they are aiming at.