Finally – Wednesday 26 November 2008

It took some yahoo at channel nine to schedule complete shit and ABC to pack up Spicks and Specks a week early but finally Dr House got back in the black – for his final new episode this year.

The medical drama roped in over 1 million viewers, a first for its current season – another beneficiary of Nine’s stupidity (Christmas with the Kranks?? I mean come on!) was Seven whose Criminal Minds enjoyed a boost of 179,000 viewers week on week.

Nine can be happy with the performance of The Big Bang Theory which has better audience retention from Two and a Half Men than previous tryout Til Death and is pulling respectable numbers. A timeslot change is in the offing with this pair of sitcoms now moving to Sundays and Mondays at 7.30pm where I expect they will continue to rate well.

Seven held their nerve (much like Ten has with House I suppose) with The Unit and it paid off with the military drama coming a close second to surprise timeslot winner Life – see what happens when you ease the glut of dramas in the same timeslot. No such luck next week as Life makes way for Rush and Nine enters the fray with ER.

Futurama continues to be a puzzle – the show single-handedly kept ten’s 2005/06 summer afloat (along with short-run hit Surface) yet now with new episodes it seems to be floundering, I’m putting the blame squarely on lead-in Will & Grace which in four weeks has failed to fire. When your main 7pm comedic rival is doubling your audience and then continuing into the 7.30 timeslot then Futurama has zero chance of building a lead. Honestly though will Friends do any better over summer.

Here my advice ten – if you want your nights to succeed – then PROMOTE Friends – not just with some one size fits all ad, but with a new commercial for EACH EPISODE run it all through your news and then start the promos for the next nights show all through primetime – the only way your gonna make people want to watch a show they’ve watched before is by reminding them how good it was – and the only way you’re going to do that is by promoting the S H 1 T out of it.

As a last note the return of Prison Break did really well and bodes well for Seven to dominate late night over the summer.

Bait & Switch

Uh Oh – Ten’s getting jittery again, hot on the heels of Nine’s Schedule Announcement – Ten has made some changes to their sked, mostly for the better, no doubt there will be even more changes once Seven publish full details of their Summer line up – but for now let’s have a look at what’s changed

SUNDAY
The big change is removal of perpetual rerun Thank God You’re Here, replacing it with the new 90210 on Sunday nights. This is a good thing – first of all we know that Nine has placed Two and a Half Men on Sunday nights – that would spell an embarrassing death for Working Dog’s precious project. By moving the 90210 sequel to it’s spiritual home (the original ran in this slot from 93-96 - Seasons 3-6) it might actually catch on with the viewers!

The little change late on Sunday night involves The Daily Show and The Office in the late night slots, why Ten does not give The Office a decent try in an early evening slot remains one of life’s great mysteries but on the other hand at least Ten is starting to recognise that the station is still running after 10.30 at night so it’s not all bad!

MONDAY
With 90210 only making a fleeting appearance on Mondays that opens up the night for Rules of Engagement to be given another go at 8pm, Swingtown gets the boot at 9.30 instead we get to see The Ex List which has already been axed by CBS after what was apparently an excellent pilot but a lot of creative difficulties between the network and producers since.

The other thing you’ll notice from Mondays is the weeknight lineup. First of all – although I didn’t include it on the chart – The Bold and the Beautiful, forever the lead-in to Ten’s 5pm news and the highest rating daytime show is promoted to 6pm – it’s an audacious move (see I didn’t say bold!) that should encourage a fair percentage of older women to ignore the 6pm news on the rival nets – whether it will do better than the Simpsons (currently around the 600,000 mark) we don’t know, but it’s a strong indication that ten realises it needs and older aud to sustain it’s operation. Judge Judy moves into 4.30 lead-in duty for the summer.

At 7pm Will & Grace makes way for Friends (yes again!) given that Seven will likely position reruns of How I Met Your Mother in this slot, Friends seems like a shrewd move – if only because How I Met Your Mother is a virtual clone of Friends and after a while viewers might prefer to watch the original.

TUESDAYS
No idea what will sit here on a regular basis (so far we have a Britney Spears special in the first week) I imagine it will possibly be more Rules of Engagement, once the summer sets in. After 8.30 Ten has snubbed Burn Notice and instead cranked up a second hour of NCIS. Given that show’s recent performance I say why not? But it would be good (without the heat of All Saints) to retry Burn Notice or another middling show in their lineup. With Nine putting movies on this night – Tuesdays is up for grabs this summer so any promotion ten can do on the back of their naval hit will be worth it.

WEDNESDAYS
Gone: Law & Order SVU, Back: House MD. Maybe someone at Ten read my blog last Friday (OK I doubt it) but it seems like they’ve opted for some consistency in their schedule rather than moving things willy nilly. That’s commendable, will reruns of House outmatch reruns of CSI? And will Seven keep Criminal Minds on Wednesdays? Will Wednesday night become a Mexican standoff with reruns?

THURSDAYS
The only change here is that SVU is back in its current 9.30 slot and the original Law & Order is off to…

FRIDAYS
Ahh Friday night – remember Fridays – that night at the end of the week that TV programmers didn’t know existed – well eureka Ten has discovered it! The Ice Road Truckers have been despatched back to cable TV and The Simpsons (always a reliable Friday night entrant) are back to fill another hole which frankly needs filling.

Now remember – there are two types of audiences on Friday nights – kids and old people, the kids are well catered to with The Simpsons – that’s a sound move and the old people just might discover the math related antics of Don and Charlie Epps on Numb3rs (one of the most interesting and underrated procedurals in recent times) and then go for some legal wrangling on the original (and best IMO) Law & Order.

SATURDAYS
They were going so well, outstanding in fact and then oooo – epic fail! Where the f&%# is MacGyver??? Why get people’s hopes up like that!! Instead we get BBC dross Big Cat Diary and I get to watch channel Nine which has the best Saturday lineup yet again!

The Mac is Back

Ten has just released their schedule for Summer 2008/09.

The question on my mind is can this sked hit the reset button for Ten and give them a fresh start?

The short answer: It depends a whole lot on how 9 and 7 schedule during the summer. For instance, although Ten has not indicated as such we can almost assume that Will & Grace will continue through summer in the 7pm slot how it will fare depends on what Seven puts at the top of their night.

We already know Nine will schedule Temptation at 7 O'Clock, so what is Seven going to do? If they skew factual then Will & Grace has a chance, if they use summer to promote one of their sitcoms (How I Met Your Mother has been repeatedly cited in forums) then Ten is dead in the slot and that will impact the rest of their timeslots.

Anyway - for sake of argument lets assume that their 7pm hour picks up over summer - how will they go?

SUNDAYS
Thank God You're Here has been rerun ad infinitum now, although they got the genre right (given their Sundays are dominated by reality it would be pointless to schedule dramas on the night) TGYH has been losing steam in the last few weeks in it's 6.30 timeslot.

America's Next Top Model will at least be new but it is typically low rating rarely hitting one million although it's demographics would make it a good earner.

MONDAYS
90210 gets another tryout this time in the much more sensible timeslot of 7.30pm. Why they're sticking with Mondays is a little unclear but it seems they've decided to have some flow-on with the audience with the new US cable drama Army Wives bowing at 8.30 and the axed CBS Summer drama Swingtown rounding out the night.

TUESDAYS
Ten is thankfully giving The Simpsons a rest and giving some more airtime to Rules of Engagement which follows what may be an hour of Will & Grace from 7pm. Rules of Engagement would be an eventual fit on Tuesday nights following The Simpsons during the regular season so this move makes sense.

They're also giving a boost to Burn Notice by scheduling it in the way they should have from the very beginning - In tandem with NCIS. This is important because no other show on Ten's roster would be a better fit with the Don Bellesario drama than this Spy caper which is a great show - but it needs exposure to a like-minded audience.

WEDNESDAY
Don't Forget the Lyrics has worked this shift before without incident, but what is happening after 8.30 is worth noting, when Ten moves reruns of their established dramas into timeslots over Summer it's usually a preview of what's to come and by the looks of this when things get rolling again in '09 SVU will be their Wednesday tentpole. My tip is for House to get the move to either Sundays or Mondays.

Some folks may disagree with a quick turnaround for Rush but I'm positive that Ten's theory is that it's potential aud is much larger than the one watching on Tuesday nights up against All Saints and at the very least they've taken it away from direct competition with another local skein.

THURSDAY
Not sure what they're attempting at 7.30, any show contains the word Naked and airs in family hour is bound to suck and indeed they tried this out behind Big Brother on Monday nights a while back - it did well on exactly one occassion if I recall. After 8.30 though they're playing a lot smarter - keeping CI as the Thursday anchor and attempting to rehabilitate the original Law & Order which had a horrible false start this year on Monday nights - it should do well with new episodes teamed up with it's sister show.

FRIDAY
This is basically the same Friday we're watching now - clearly Ten thinks they can get these Ice Road truckers to fire but I just don't see it, although with the behometh Better Homes going into reruns or resting (not sure which yet) Friday night becomes up for grabs again so anything's possible.

SATURDAY
Firstly lets start at the end with The Wedge - make no mistake this is the Australian Drama Quote burn off slot pure and simple - Nine used to use this slot every summer to show a whole stack of low budget Australian films so they would acheive their drama quota for the year.

Ten is shoring up their quota with the failed NZ drama Orange Roughies - how you can even have a 'drama' with a title like that is beyond me but by all accounts the show was not a success and now reruns on one of TVNZ's digital niche channels.

But really the story of Saturday and perhaps the whole summer is the unheralded return of MacGyver - a one hour action drama that commenced in 1986, was once Japan's most popular show and was a summer mainstay for channel seven for years until finally clicking with mainstream audiences in 1996, several years after it's cancellation.

This move is so unexpected, so left of field it is freaking genius, Can't wait to see the results!

You'll have a gay old time – Monday 27 October 2008

Well blow me down – three Mondays into this blog and still the same pattern persists, Seven first, Nine Second, Ten far away in the distance.

First up, Australian Idol improved, no thanks to it’s “new” lead in Will & Grace, the ex-Seven sitcom and current Arena time waster pulled about the same as Friends managed the week before.

It’s funny to think (and I may have only gotten this suggestion from watching PayTV) that the same people who like Friends also like Will & Grace. But does anybody else? Well frankly it’s too early to tell.

Ten was never going to bolt out of the gate with this show because a) it’s a rerun and b) viewers are by and large committed to other 7pm entertainment, their real opportunity is in six weeks time when Two and a Half Men makes way for Temptation and Home & Away shuffles off presumably to be replaced by one of Seven’s many factual half hours, that will leave an awfully huge 18-49 crowd looking for some laughs at 7pm – it’s a good bet that then Will & Grace’s ratings will spike, especially given the show wasn’t well watched in it’s initial broadcast, meaning it should repeat well it just might take a while for people to notice it.

Good News Week took a hit this week dropping 113,000, Til Death also dropped week on week (46,000) as did CSI (64,000) a rerun of CSI wiped 136,000 off the previous week’s figure for a fast tracked Cold Case, however at least Nine is willing to support it’s former hits rather than throw them to the wolves.

In fact nothing on the commercial nets impressed post 9.30 thanks to Andrew Denton interviewing Michael Parkinson on the soon to be retired Enough Rope hitting a very nice 1.2 million viewers.