Thursday, 12 May 2011

Ok so its not all bad for Masterchef.  Seems like with AGT out of the way for a night the aud for Masterchef lifts.

Earlier in the week it was looking as if the Talent show and Dancing with the Stars were going to erode the ratings of ten's juggernaut. 

Certainly ten's previous reality hits gave suffered from audience drop-off in the third year but a figure of 1.5million viewers in a Thursday shows there's not too much for ten to worry about yet, its just that Seven's reality skeins are having an unusually good year.

The Good Wife and SVU had their best weeks of the season so far but even then they dropped almost half of the Masterchef aud.

Worse though was channel Nine which can't catch a break!  New show (buggered if I know what genre - Eddie McGuire vehicle that's a genre at this point right?) Between the Lines is his second major flop in as many months.

More on this after I take a look at his show for myself next week.

The Shape of things to come

Thursday, 17 February 2011

Interesting that Thursday nights in the US are also a fight between Grey's Anatomy and CSI, also interesting that just as in the states both show are hurtling towards irrelevance at a breakneck speed.



Still they're doing better than The Good Wife which the space of a year in looks like its on the way out or at least to a later time.

At the moment with Ten if it's not NCIS its not attracting viewers to 8.30. In fact across the networks' extensive roster of US dramas only the long established shows are doing the business. Bones, NCIS, Criminal Minds - all these shows are old and replacements like Blue Bloods, Parenthood and Hawaii Five-O are struggling in comparison.

This does not bode well for the future when these aging hits finally shuffle off to cable reruns.

Over on Digital personal favourite Star Trek - The Next Generation is struggling inder the weight of its woeful early episodes, best for 11 is again The Simpsons, 7 can be happy with The Next Karate Kid which almost doubled the audience of last week's Karate Kid III and The Big Bang Theory continues to shine on GO!

Splitting the difference

Thursday, 27 January 2011

I'm not sure what Seven has planned for their Thursday nights, but so long as they manage to avoid breezy reality docos and headline US Dramas they should do fine.



Now there is an audience out there for these type of shows, on Thursday there was about 1.2 million folks eager to see them, the problem was they were split evenly between Nine and Ten whose schedules were eerily similar.

I wonder whether the audience for these series will increase as the season kicks in or if these shows are doomed to languish in each other's shadows - differentiation has never seemed so important as nowadays.

While were at it what is with Getaway becoming a half hour show - when did that happen?? They just can't get rid of it altogether can they!

And what was the ABC smoking? Lets see, "there's this show about a Vet, it's popular, has been on for 3 years it's called Bondi Vet, we have a show called Bionic Vet - lets put it DIRECTLY OPPOSITE."

Well done ABC, I know the ratings don't matter but those numbers are appalling for Aunty.

We have nothing to fear from those Golden Statues

The Logies were last night and this lumbering beast of Australian television took a real hit to the nads last night - not so much with it's low Audience - it's had audience lulls in the past - but moreso from the fact that it's competition was successful - it seems the likes of Masterchef, Bones and even Castle have very little to fear from the Logie Awards, they have in past years been an incredible spoiler - disrupting opposing programs by sapping away their audiences for the night of night - last night - devoted auds stuck with their favourites, hell Bones, Castle, The Good Wife, even Merlin (though not directly competing) were all up week on week free of the spectre of Underbelly and perhaps aided by colder weather on the eastern seaboard.

Maximum Impact

I don't know why it's taken channel Nine a full two years to realise that big audiences don't hit the box until after Easter, with Daylight Savings over and the weather getting colder, people have more time to spend in front of the TV.

This post Easter spike in viewers has been the case for years, but still TV networks have insisted on trotting out the big shows in February for the fear of others gaining a first mover advantage.

This year was no different, for some shows - but for some locally made big guns there's been an uncharacteristic and welcome restraint. Nine has held back the launch of Underbelly for after Easter with maximum impact - a 2.2 million strong audience shows none of the erosion suffered by other shows since last year.

Furthermore 2 months head start did nothing for the Good Wife, which (as the new kid in town) has the most fickle audience in Underbelly's (considerable) wake. Less fickle are the viewers of Bones who gave the show a healthy (and respectable) number against Nine's behometh.

Nine has also saved Sea Patrol and the revived Hey Hey it's Saturday for the post easter season, while Seven has a new series of Australia's Got Talent, it's big Miniseries "The Pacific" and is still holding back new seasons of City Homicide and Packed to the Rafters.

Ten hasn't changed a damn thing about their strategy and so far they are suffering because of it. Still everyone expects the sophomore season of Masterchef to do the business but from where I stand with their early evening in tatters, and post 9.30 slots filled with underperforming US shows - Masterchef is looking a lot like Big Brother did back in the day - an insanely popular yet solitary asset that Ten pours all their resources into at the expense of a well rounded schedule.

Incidentally EPIC FAIL of the night goes to House, Ten might wanna think about scheduling reruns in this slot for the next 11 weeks until Underbelly goes away, cuz at 568,000 viewers - they ain't competing.

A moment in the sun

Sunday nights are shaping up to be a real scrap with the return of Seven’s Factual Skeins giving them the edge over Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation which dropped a whopping 19% week on week.

It isn’t being helped by Biggest Loser which fell 13% week on week. With this continuing decline as the young audience breaks off to watch anything but analogue FTA the viability of this show has surely got to be called into question.

Still – it’s one of the few reality shows I can think of that has a video game out at the moment – so it’s not all bad!

So help me – I am not making this up!

Bones got the edge over The Good Wife thanks to its superior lead in coupled with a natural erosion of the sampling audience. Similarly it was close between Castle and House.

Nine would be happy with the performance of its Cricket and Olympics coverage, this is like a moment in the sun for sports on TV because as the year wears on and the country splits in two over their football preference the audience sizes will start to look more and more pathetic.

Stacks On!

Sundays are the it day again, last year the advent of Masterchef and (more importantly) Sunday Night proved that 60 minutes was no longer the immovable object it once was.

To respond to this new paradigm Seven and Ten are piling on Sunday nights with some of their biggest shows, although Seven big early evening hitters won’t be back until next week, Ten debuted a new lineup with last year’s breakout hit Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and the new, heavily hyped US drama, The Good Wife.

While Generation came up against stiff competition, the Good Wife, and House came up trumps giving Ten solid ratings to boast about.

Nine is currently rumoured to be brining Underbelly into the Sunday night fray either after the Winter Olympics or after Easter, it should be a game changer if it can repeat last year’s performance on a bigger night, but more importantly will it restore some sheen (and perhaps relevance) to its lead-in 60 minutes?