Last night, a new episode of NCIS, scheduled for the unusual start time of 8.00pm, instead of the usual 8.30pm hit a new all time low for ratings. Ten’s main channel share for the night was just 11.4%, on a night the network used to pull big figures back in the day where new NCIS was a draw card.
While I can’t comment for other markets, NCIS from our Sydney feed look ed blurry with picture quality below what you get these days on even a low-res YouTube video. The show is made in HD, and airs in HD in most countries including New Zealand, but here is Australia, we had to endure a picture quality that even looked bad on an old cathode ray tube TV (yes, we have one here for the second TV, and yes, I checked!).
With just 538,000 tuning in for the new episode of NCIS, it is the lowest rating new episode of the show ever. Even repeats draw more better figures. The repeats that followed were watched by 378,000 and 332,000 respectively. The Biggest Loser was watched by 758,000, the second half of The Project 660,000.
The days of new NCIS bringing on well over a million viewers – and sometimes up to 1.5 million – are now well and truly gone. Endless repeats and fan uncertainty as to when new episodes air are mostly to blame. A last minute timeslot change, coupled with being against The Voice – which drew 2.2 million viewers – all contribute to the low ratings for NCIS.
In all honesty – while I disagree with poor programming against hits on other networks – Ten would have been better off leaving Bond Vet on, anf then airing repeats of NCIS.
The other problem Ten have is the fact that there was a lack of promotion for the episode – and the promos they did air did not entise viewers to tune in.
Ten’s shares of 11.4% last night is only 1% above ABC1, and less than half of that of Seven and one third that of Nine. Nine clearly won the night at over 33% for its main channel and 37.9% for the network when GO! and GEM were added.
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