900,000 is the new million – Thursday 30 October 2008

Very very low rating night last night. The night belonged to Nine but there was nothing to crow about. Compare the barnstorming performance of Seven on a Tuesday which is a very competitive night, to Nine’s Thursday which is a night where virtually no-one is competing and you start to get a picture of the uphill battle that Nine faces in the year ahead.

In fact it’s a conundrum that must have the network programmers scratching their heads – what happened to Thursdays??

Throughout much of the 90s Thursdays were a one channel night – and that channel was Nine, the predictability and broad appeal of Getaway, The Footy Show, ER and This is your Life carried the night for the better part of a decade.

Eventually though ER aged and lost most of it’s original cast and Ten struck with Law & Order SVU quickly overtaking the aging hospital soap. In 2005 Seven found their game by Scheduling an “Amazing Thursday” with Lost and the Amazing Race holding back all comers and causing serious headaches for Nine and Ten, but as with a lot of younger skewing shows the fad didn’t last and the night again fell back to the oldies with Nine’s doco-soaps of RPA and Missing Persons Unit tussling with Ten’s Law & Order spinoffs.

Since this year we’ve had ABC enter as the third force on Thursday nights with the experimental panel political QandA in the first half of the year taking the shine of commercial contenders at 9.30 and in the last few week a series of well presented docos/dramatisations of Australian history.

Last week we were treated to the plight of vanishing PM Harold Holt, this week we got an account of Robert Menzies and Winston Churchill’s ongoing conflict in the early years of WWII, it was certainly an eye opener to see another Australian Prime Minister who spent more time overseas than Kevin Rudd!

What was more incredible was the colour film footage that Menzies himself shot – especially of London after one of Germany’s Air Raids. Full marks to the ABC for taking on these interesting historical subjects and talking points which quite frankly – you don’t learn about in school.

Apart from the dwindling Heroes and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? Everything else on the schedule was fairly even with most shows achieving over 900,000 viewers. It used to be that if you scored over 1 million viewers in prime time your show was considered safe – I think that goalpost has well and truly moved.

Frankie J Holden is Missing - Thursday 23 October 2008

Leaving aside News Programs the number one show last night was ABC1’s The Prime Minister is Missing – a doco/dramatisation of the disappearance of Harold Holt and the bizarre Mexican standoff between the Liberal and National parties that ensued thereafter. A bit of national history is always a good rater for the ABC on a Thursday night, and last night was no different.

Happily for Seven and Ten their imports, Criminal Intent and The Amazing Race held up well against the doco but The Strip took a hit with 198,000 viewers fleeing the Gold Coast. They all came back, mind you, to see RPA which finally broached the million after several weeks in the doldrums.

Ten went 5 for the week (that is 5 shows over 1 million) and 5th Grader had a mild improvement of 100,000 viewers – note though that they had a “celebrity” contestant. This show always seems to pull better numbers when the contestant is known rather than a regular person.

The variable next week will be the 7pm slot. Friends has been languishing at 7pm (ever since it replaced Taken out) with half a million viewers, if Will & Grace doesn’t lift their 7pm to at least 800,000 or higher than Ten can write the rest of the year off.

Seven would be pleased with their 7.30 – 9.30 block, The Amazing Race is scoring for them on a night which they lost control of back in 2007 and Make Me a Supermodel is defying all expectations by keeping a respectable audience.

The disappointment is Heroes, it only shed 10,000 people week on week so that could be statistically insignificant but the current storyline, although featuring some kick ass moments and stunning twist, is confusing – even to the seasoned viewer – I found myself watching last night wondering whether particular scenes were set 4 years hence, present day, 1979, two weeks from now – I had no fucking idea – If I find it that hard to follow what are more casual viewers doing? Oh that’s right – they’re deserting it in droves.

Not exactly Seven’s fault this one, Kring and Co need to start unravelling some of the tightly wound plot, but more on that in a special review in the next day or so…

Only the elderly – Thursday 9 October 2008

Only the elderly seem to be sticking around for a Thursday night, the evidence is that after 7.30 only one show broke 1 million viewers, Criminal Intent, once a ratings powerhouse, can still pull in the older generation enough to put it over the line.

By contrast Seven gave us a night aimed at younger viewers and came off worse for wear, Heroes seems to be suffering from the ennui which has hit almost all “fast-tracked” shows this spring – either that or a lot of people bailed out after the boring season 2.

Nine would have to disappointed with the numbers pulled by RPA – the show used to be able to draw a crowd at 9.30 like nobody’s business but now it’s either being hurt by The Strip, a local drama which is trying to be CSI Gold Coast but comes off more like Paradise Beach ’08, or it’s potential audience is satiated with Seven’s Medical Emergency a day earlier.

Just looking outside Prime Time for a moment – 4 shows aside from Criminal Intent pulled over 1 million, Sevens News & Today Tonight, Home & Away and Nine News. Given that Nine’s 6.30-7.30 hour skews younger than Seven’s we can assume that the under 40’s audience on a Thursday is drying up.