Rants

While I am happy to see ER on GO, with only 83,000 watching, it is a far cry from the 350,000 or more that were tuning in at 10.30pm when it was on Nine.

Even if you consider that just over half of all people have access to digital, the figure is still quite low compared to how many used to watch ER on Nine.

That means that many fans are missing out, or simply do not know it is on, or, if they are aware it is on, forget due to incorrect printed TV guides and zero promotion of GO on Nine.

At 83,000 at 9.30pm on GO, it is on par with other shows at that time on GO and even 7TWO so I imagine the Nine network will be happy at this stage, and leave ER in that time slot. As more people get to know it is on, the figures should build.

I have to, however, express my bitter disappointment at seeing subscription mobile phone ads during ER when watching the regional version of GO last night on Channel 88 (the Newcastle broadcast). Those ads are enough to send me away from watching any channel and seem VERY out of place for a show like ER.

At the risk of being labelled a Channel Nine basher, there is even more to say about Nine promotions that either stretch the truth or treat viewers with little or no respect. While the perception maybe that television is being more and more dumbed down these days, what Nine did with Survivor this week has got to be the ultimate in treating viewers like idiots.

Promotions running for Survivor this week (week 3 – Tue Jan 12) pitched the show as a double episode. Promotions circled around the elimination at the end of the show stating that “you won’t believe what happens”.

It was true – Survivor was on for two hours, but the first episode was a summary episode showing what had happened over the previous episodes so far. This episode would have been a great way for people who had not been watching the show from the start of the series to see what had happened leading up to the position we are now in. But for those of us who had already seen them all, it became quite boring. Even the ratings were down in this episode compared to the new full episode that followed it. Even during the summary episode, Nine were promoting the fact that you need to stay tuned for the next episode and see the elimination.

What Nine should have done is promote the summary episode so that people who have not watched the show or missed parts, could see how events had panned out. And for those who had already seen all the Survivor episodes, could use the summary episode to re-live the experience so far. And to keep people in who might otherwise tune out, tell us that there was going to be some unseen footage involved. And then – from 8.30 – see who goes next, etc. But – no – Nine did not use the opportunity wisely, instead hoping that the audience would think that it was perhaps a two hour episode with a very long “previously on Survivor” section compared to usual.

I have been watching Survivor Samoa from the start, and found myself watching only the first half of the summary episode before getting bored with it (as the events were too recent given that we get two episodes a week of it – so I remember them too well) and fast forwarding through to get to the start of the new episode.

Survivor Samoa continues on Nine Tue Jan 19 in another double episode from 7.30pm. Jan 26, Survivor is off for a week due to the Cricket, returning Tue Feb 2.

Survivor Heroes and Villains – the next series which puts the worst and the best of people from previous series together – including Russell from Samoa – premieres on Nine after the Winter Olympics. It commences in the US Feb 11.

I rarely watch anything live on channel Nine, opting to record and watch later so I can skip the ads, because I cannot stand the way they promote themselves. Their look with those ugly 3D letters, the voice over guy, and the whole “Welcome Home” slogan is enough to drive me away, not to mention excessive promotion of up and coming shows and events making ad breaks repetitive.

Recently, Nine News won the ratings over Seven News in Sydney for a few nights. Nine were quick to put on ads thanking Sydney for making Nine News number one again, and it is because of 17 years of experience that makes sure you see it first on Nine.

Last night (Tue Jan 12) however, Nine News lost to Seven News (this is usually the case, but yes, Nine do beat them sometimes) with 273,000 watching Nine and 319,000 watching Seven. Perhaps Nine should wait a little longer before putting to air brags about being the number one news service in Sydney?

For those of us who watch the ratings, it is a well known fact that Nine News always does better when the cricket is on as there is a percentage of cricket viewers who simply leave their TV on Nine for the news once the cricket is over. But having the news win the ratings for a few nights while the cricket is on I don’t think is enough to say they are number one again.

Channel Ten are now regularly coming fourth in the ratings behind Seven, Nine and the ABC. Last week, the first week of 2010 as far as TV weeks are concerned, Ten ranked fourth for the week overall. The majority of shows on Ten in prime time (6pm – 10.30 by their own definition) are being watched by between 350,000 and little over 500,000 viewers which translates to shares about half of those enjoyed by Seven and Nine. Both Seven and Nine (moreso Seven) still have a few shows rating over a million.

The result is that Ten sees the way of fixing the problem is by changing their schedule. Ten already so far have removed Stargate Universe – which was actually one of their better rating shows – and Supernatural from Monday nights.

The next round of changes, in response to low ratings are changes mostly to earlier timeslots that sees Rules of Engagement (a show that never rates well so I can’t understand why they even put it on), Don’t Forget the Lyrics (a show best suited to day time TV or late night) and Glee (has a good fan base, but repeats are now too soon after original airing) all dumped from the schedule. Even the extra 30 minutes of the 7PM Project on Friday nights will be chopped, leaving the Friday night episode at 30 minutes.

Dumped shows will be replaced with more Malcolm in the Middle, more Simpsons, and movies – none of which will rate that well either. The changes to the programming line up are more likely to drive viewers way as printed guides will not be up to date, and people will tune in seeing a show different to what they expected.

We saw in 2009, that the more a network changes their schedule, the worse the ratings shares become. Channel Nine fell in to this trap with Tuesday nights where they struggled to compete against Packed to the Rafters and NCIS – both two of the top ranking shows overall. Nine regularly came distant third for Tuesday nights and never really recovered from the instability of the night earlier in the year until GO started helping their network shares from August.

Unfortunately for Ten, however, their multi channel ONE does not help their network shares with ONE’s digital channel shares typically being as low as one third that of 7TWO and GO, and more often than not below ABC2. In recent days, ONE’s share has been closer to that of ABC3 and SBS TWO. As ONE is a niche channel, low shares can be expected.

The summary of changes to Ten’s schedule are as per the following:

Thursday Jan 7:
7.30pm Accidentally on Purpose is back twice a week again – Tuesday and Thursday at 7.30pm. Why? It does not rate well either.

Friday Jan 8:
The 7pm Project is in a little island surrounded by Malcolm in the Middle – a show that now gets the “Two and a Half Men Award” for having the most episodes aired in one week. On Friday night, Malcolm can be seen at 6.30, 7.30 and 8pm. For the record, on Friday Jan 1, Malcolm was on at 11.30am, 6.30, 7.00, 7.30 and 8.00pm. Five times in one day.

Sunday Jan 10:
6.30pm Movie Billy Madison, followed by Die Hard with A Vengeance at 8.30pm.

Monday Jan 11:
6.30pm – not a change, but a reminder – Neighbours is back.
8.00pm – a new episode of the Simpsons will air.

Wednesday Jan 13.
7.30pm – another new episode of the Simpsons. If people know about the new episodes, they should rate well but otherwise they will struggle to do any better than the repeats.

Sunday Jan 17:
6.30pm – movie – Home Alone 2, followed by Collateral at 8.30pm (wasn’t that just on recently?).

And it looks like 6pm Simpsons will be replaced in coming weeks as well. At 6pm weekdays, Simpsons will be replaced with – wait for it – Malcolm in the Middle!

It all amounts to fairly weak programming on Ten’s behalf. The chopping and changing of shows out of a line up that originally was not that bad to begin with just does not make sense. I recall when I first saw Ten’s summer line up and posted it here in November I thought Ten would actually do OK and hoped that they would maintain the line up.

However, the reality now is that the period of time called “non-ratings” season no longer means what it used to. In the old days, it was a chance for new shows to be given a regular timeslot so they could grow on people, a chance to burn off episodes of shows that were not doing as well as they could during ratings season, a chance for more niche shows that never had any hope of rating through the roof to be given a chance.

Now, more than ever, non-ratings is simply that period of time where networks show poorer quality TV without any regard for the viewers. The networks react to the ratings during non-ratings season just as ferociously as they do when it is official ratings season. Therefore, what is the point to this season of second rate TV?

If Ten really want to increase their network shares during summer, then maybe it is time they become the first network to break from this non-ratings nonsense by bringing back some of their key shows earlier rather than making fans wait until the week starting February 7 for all of their favourite shows to return. Sure – less people watch TV over summer, but the majority start getting back to their normal routines the week after Christmas and New Years’ are done.

The ratings for last night – Sunday Jan 3 – show that there are a lot of people back in front of their TV’s now and, of there was anything worth watching, they would be there longer. Time to stop non creative programming with the one sitcom taking 10 or more timeslots in the one week and playing 90’s movies that have been on time and time again. Movies these days are repeated more on free to air than my favourite DVDs are played.

Programming information: TV Tonight.

The more I see the ratings come through this week, the more I find it difficult to comprehend Ten’s decision to replace Stargate Universe and Supernatural with movies from Monday January 4, 2010. On Monday December 28, Stargate Universe took 486,000 while Supernatural was watched by 397,000. While the figures are low, they are VERY typical of what shows are attracting – especially on channel Ten – this time of year.

Here are some examples from this week* (and the figures for last week in brackets for comparison):

NCIS Rpt Tue 647,000 (n/a)
White Collar Tue 597,000 (753,000)
Malcolm in the Middle Wed 523,000  (572,000)
Malcolm in the Middle Mon 503,000 (608,000)
Stargate Universe Mon 487,000 (558,000)
The Cleveland Show Wed 491,000 (637,000)
Glee Ep2 Sun 472,000 (n/a)
Malcolm in the Middle Tue 448,000 (635,000)
Glee Ep1 Sun 444,000 (437,000)
Glee Ep3 Sun 441,000 (n/a)
The Office Tue 425,000 (481,000)
Rule of Engagement Mon n/a (476,000)
Supernatural Mon 394,000 (461,000)
Californication Wed 354,000 (416,000)

And looking by the time slot:
8:30 1st NCIS Rpt Tue. 2nd Stargate Mon. 3rd Cleveland Show & the Simpsons Wed.
9:30 1st White Collar Tue. 2nd Supernatural Mon. 3rd Californication Wed.

While we do not have all the information available to compare all shows and all time slots, it very clear looking at those listed here that Stargate Universe was in fact one of the top 5 shows on Ten in prime time at the moment, while Supernatural is doing better than Californication which also airs in a 9.30pm timeslot on Wednesday nights. Even White Collar – 9.30 Tuesdays – is down on its huge previous week result, but should  not be cause for concern.

Just about every other show on Ten in prime time is achieving figures between 350,000 to 500,000 with only Malcolm in the Middle on some nights, White Collar and NCIS repeats cracking the half million mark.

The trend between the two weeks is clear. All shows are down in ratings but that is a direct result of the much smaller TV audience in the week between Christmas and New Years. No decision should be made to axe shows on the basis of figures from this week. Stargate Universe and Supernatural should remain om Monday nights. Neither will get a million like the Mentalist on Nine (which has MUCH more mass appeal – hence the ratings) but old 90’s movies are probably going to do worse.

Based on the logic applied here to take off Stargate Universe and Supernatural, Tne should ALSO look at replacing just about every other show on the network with movies as they are all doing very bad.

And anyone who believes in the power of lead ins (I personally think lead ins these days play a very small roll in the ratings of shows) would clearly see that the lower ratings for shows on Ten after 8.30 could be blamed on what they have on beforehand. Rule of Engagement on Monday nights at 8pm does not even get 500,000. Nor does the Office on Tuesday.

Time for networks to think a little more before jumping to change their schedules. Had anyone at Ten analysed the data like I have here, they would either ONE change their entire schedule or TWO realise that these number are simply typical of free to air viewing trends for this time of year and leave things be for now.

Wonder if there is any chance of Ten reversing the decision?

* This week is week 1 of 2010 ratings, Sunday Dec 27 – Saturday Jan 2. Last week is week 52 of 2009 ratings, Sunday Dec 20 – Saturday Dec 26.

Ratings figures OzTam. More ratings data here.

The non-ratings contradiction continues. It is non-ratings season yet networks still feel the need to drop shows when they do not perform up to scratch.

The latest two victims are Stargate Universe and Supernatural – both which form part of a good Sci Fi night in on Ten on Monday nights. Last Monday the two shows achieved ratings of 487,000 and 394,000 respectively.

But when compared to everything else on TV at the moment, and taking into account the fact that it is the week between Christmas and New Years, these figures are not really that bad. Other shows like Accidentally on Purpose, the Office, Rules of Engagement and Malcolm in the Middle – all seen on Ten are also pulling those sorts of figures. NCIS repeats on Tuesdays are doing better, but the low numbers of just over 600,000 for a show that normally can attract over a million even in repeats is what would be expected at this time of year.

Surely the decision to take these two shows off is a little rushed, especially considering that Stargate Universe has only seen four episodes air on Ten, and the last episode was not one of the shows’ best either. Perhaps they (Ten) should consider the fact that these figures are what everything else on Ten is doing at the moment and let them grow in ratings from next week when some normality starts returning to people’s routines.

Monday nights on Ten from Jan 4 will see movies in the 8.30pm timeslot. Jan 4 it is the Siege, then Double Jeopardy on Jan 11, and Speed Jan 18. These movies, in my opinion, will most likely pull the same, if not worse, ratings than the Sci Fi double was doing. At this stage, there are no alternative air dates for Stargate Universe and Supernatural.

Lucky for me, I have been watching Stargate Universe recorded from the Sci Fi channel – I almost deleted the unwatched episodes to make space on my IQ2 knowing that I would be able to see them on Ten, but held back on that decision! Just as well. You just can’t rely on free to air anymore to keep series on the air. I really feel sorry for those who don’t have pay TV in this situation.

Yes, Stargate Universe is not a mass appeal show, so its never going to rate through the roof, but it does attract a dedicated fan base and taking it off the air simply drives them further away from free to air TV. The only solution here, will be for Ten to launch their 3^rd channel sooner, rather than later, so all these shows that drop off their schedule can at least be shown somewhere just like what Nine is doing with GO and Seven with 7TWO. Stargate Atlantis in fact has been one of the highest rating shows on 7TWO.

Ten has made the most changes to their schedule for summer, with Nine a close second. Seven seems to remain relatively stable. Ten are regularly coming third and even fourth in network shares while Nine is mostly on top during summer so far.

Programming infor from Tv Tonight.

Could we finally see the Seven network providing an accurate to the minute EPG?

Over the weekend, I noticed that there were variances in the starting times of many shows on both Seven and 7TWO. In particular, Amazing Race on 7TWO showed as having a 12.57 start for Mon Dec 28 where usually it would show as 1.00pm start and then start at 12.57 anyway – meaning you miss the first three minutes if you are recording straight off the EPG onto your PVR without any allowance time for early starts.

I then checked more of the programming start and finishing times on both Seven and 7TWO and noticed that they had changed the start of Seven News to 5.59, the start of Deal or No Deal was 5.27 – which it really is! The start of How I Met Your Mother adjusted to 7.04 and finishing at 7.34. It seemed that finally the Seven network was about to update their EPG to reflect to the minute programming start and finishing times like Ten, ABC and SBS (as well as most of Foxtel) do. It looked like at last, there was a major break through here!

To date, both the Seven and Nine EPGs are notoriously inaccurate with shows starting anything from 5 minutes early to 15 minutes late – and that is without any reason. We are all too familiar with the fact that 8.30 on a TV guide can mean 8.40 is the real start time of a show. It is even worse on Nine after a live sporting event with regular programming potentially running as much as 30 minutes late.

I had already prepared the post over the weekend praising Seven for this change when – to my disgust – I noticed that all the times for Monday Dec 28 had reverted back to program guide times of 7.00, 7.30, 8.30 etc rather than the 7.04, 7.34, 8.32 etc that they had shown as a few days earlier. I was ready to say that Seven had finally broken out of this ridiculous idea of not updating EPGs to the minute which simply cause havoc for people wanting to record shows, meaning viewers miss starts of shows, ends of shows and generally have to manually program to ensure they record the show they want to see.

If Seven were to stick with keeping their EPG accurately up to date to the minute, that would leave Nine as the only network not updating their EPG with correct starting and finishing times of shows. Surely now that PVR recordings and time shifted viewing are counting towards the ratings, they would want their EPG to be as accurate as possible to ensure that shows are able to be easily recorded and watched later without the concern that the viewer has missed either the start or the ending of a recorded show.

Hopefully, what happened over the weekend was a test and Seven will shortly be running an EPG up to date to the nearest minute, as they should be so viewers can comfortably record shows without setting excessive overrun times. We will soon find out.

I just started getting into Flashpoint again (after it disappeared from the screens after 3 or 4 episodes) and once again it has disappeared!  Imagine my surprise that tonight when Flashpoint should be on, new episodes of CSI Miami have turned up (am sick of CSIs!)  I am wondering where Flashpoint went and if they intend to bring it back anytime soon?  Instead of making us suffer through re-runs of The Mentalist why not put on a show that no one has actually seen before ??  Grrrrr makes me so mad!

What is it with channel Nine and promoting everything they have to offer to death? We have seen it time and time again in 2009 with intense advertising campaigns fro up and coming shows, endless screen pop ups, sneak peeks, watermarks have even been used to promote shows and then there are the encores on top of the over promotion.

Who can forget the over promotion of HomeMADE earlier in 2009 where you were guaranteed to see ad after ad for the show which ultimately faded into history as one of the years’ biggest flops. While it performed better, there was the bombardment of ads and in some cases two encores per week of the Apprentice Australia in the hope to grow audience for the show.

Now, with two months to go until the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Nine are reminding us that they are the home of the Winter Olympics sometimes as much as four times an hour. Not only is there the constant Olympic rings watermark that will be burnt into the TV screen of anyone who is watching too much of channel Nine but the barrage of ads is enough to drive viewers crazy.

Probably the best solution is not to watch Nine live but instead recording shows and fast forwarding the ads but, for those watching the cricket live, the Winter Olympic ads could all get too much leaving many wishing it was over already. Foxtel, who are also telecasting the Winter Olympics are also advertising over many of their channels, but as always, it is Nine who are going overboard.

I know they have to promote the event, as it is nowhere near as popular in Australia as the summer Olympics, but with a few days to go until Christmas, would anyone be thinking about what they are going to watch on TV in February?

For the past few weekends, Music Max have been running “Pick your party max” where viewers can chose one of four different channels to watch. Themes of the channels are usually decade or type of music based – like 70’s party, 80’s party, rock party, and the like.

One of the channels they had on this weekend was called “One hit wonder party”. On this channel, you would expect to find only one hit wonders played. But after leaving it on for a while, I started noticing that some of the songs they were playing on the one hit wonder channel were not one hit winders as well.

Some examples include “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Proclaimers, “Mr Vain” by Culture Beat and “The Only Way is Up” by Yazz.

The Proclaimers actually had two songs that did very well in 1989. “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” was one of them, the other was “I’m on my Way”. So that rules them out of being a One Hit Wonder. If I remember correctly, both were top 10 songs.

As a former DJ in the 1990’s, I know that Culture Beat in fact had numerous songs released from 1993 on. There most well known and biggest hit was of course “Mr Vain” which went top 10. Then there was “Got to Get It” which also went top 10, and the third single was “Anything”. Although it did not do as well as the other two, it was still a top 40 single in 1994. The 4^th single “World in Your Hands” barely charted. Regardless, Culture Beat are far from being a one hit wonder.

As for Yazz, “The Only Way is Up” was the major hit, but it was followed up by other songs that went top 40 as well.

As far as I am aware, the definition of a one hit wonder should be artists who have only had one hit as such – that is, they release a song, it goes top 10 or number one even, then you never hear from them again with anything that they follow up with failing to make it into the top 40 at all. Songs like “Video Killed the Radio Star”, “Pop Music”, “Shy Shy”, “Turning Japanese” and “Achy Breaky Heart” are classic examples of one hit wonders.

Still, at least you don’t see any subscription SMS advertising on these Music Max channels – that is a big bonus as the only reason I refuse to watch or leave on in the background channels like V, V Hits or VH1 is because they have subscription SMS advertising. Those ads should be banned.