Rants

I’m all for having more channels and therefore more choice of what to watch on free to air TV, but not at the expense of being able to see significant sporting events as well as other major programming in HD.

When Nine launched GEM back in September, it came with the promise that the channel would include HD coverage of all of Nine’s Wide World of Sports events including the Four Nations Rugby League matches and all the Cricket over summer.

A few weeks ago, Nine decided NOT to run an HD simulcast of the Four Nations on GEM in favour for typical Gem programming of the night. Then, last week, they decided NOT to simulcast the cricket in HD on GEM.

At first, it looked like they were avoiding the HD simulcast of just the lower profile Australia A Vs England matched in Hobart, but the amendments to remove cricket simulcasting in HD quickly extended to the Ashes as well.

Again – regular programming replaced the cricket.

The few HD simulcasts that have so far aired on GEM have made little difference to ratings. With Nine not separating those watching Nine and those watching GEM, we can only assume that about one third of all those watching an event that is simulcast on Nine and GEM were watching it in HD.

Not showing HD simulcasts of sport during prime time at night can easily be explained away as a move to maintain prime time ratings – but taking away HD simulcasts during the day – when the Ashes is played this time round – is hard to explain away as day time ratings figures do not count towards the all important prime time shares that decide who wins in ratings.

One thought is that Nine and GEM will make extra money in advertising during the day by having three different channels running – while the HD simulcast effectively reduces then down to showing two channels.

With day time television on the main channel being watched by between 100,000 and 150,000 and the digital channels attracting figures of 10,000 – 30,000 for day time programs* – NATIONALLY – you’d think the advertising dollar difference would actually be minimal compared to the backlash and possible loss of viewers upset over not being able to see the Ashes in HD?

Add to that, the fact that the Ashes is watched by MORE people combined than the numbers that would normally watch any of Nine’s or GEM’s daytime programming and you’d think Nine would be doing what they can to keep these fans happy. Just the Australia A match alone was watched by 177,000 in the afternoon session on its first day.

Nine are busy promoting the up and coming Ashes as the best ever, and with such comprehensive coverage – but surely – if at the same time they could promote it as being in HD – then they would EASILY make up for the 10,000 viewers or so that miss out on seeing a few shows during the day on GEM? Only a few of them are even in HD anyway.

Everytime I think of this, I find it hard to understand the motivation for not showing the Ashes in HD. Every story that appears on websites like this one about the cricket is loaded with comments bagging the fact it is not in HD. Some people go as far as saying – yes they care about the results but will not bother to watch it when it is not in HD.

Sure – we have had to watch these events in standard definition or lower before – and not had a problem with it, but now so many people have larger TVS, the lower definition coverage simply looks bad compared to HD. We have the technology, lets use it.

The very same issues will arise in January when Tennis fans will question why Seven are not showing the Australian Open in HD on 7mate. Seven also promised HD sport when they launched 7mate. So far none of that has been seen either.

The up and coming changes to anti-siphoning laws will possibly allow sport to be shown on digital channels before it is on main channels – which will allow networks to show their nightly news at 6pm while continuing sports coverage on a digital channel, but will not necessarily mean we see it in HD.

Unless extremely out of date HD requirements for the free to air networks are not also updated at the same time, we will be left behind in Australia as far as HD free to air TV is concerned. Changes to anti-siphoning laws should also specify a minimum HD sport requirement that the networks must adhere to.

Again – it is great to have all these extra channels to chose from, but the focus seems too much now on quantity, as opposed to quality of content. Now that there are more channels, just look at how much content on these channels are repeats and how much shorter repeat cycles are now.

And look at how little we now have available in true or native HD.

* Figures based on five city metro OzTam shares for regular Nine, GEM and GO weekday day time programming from 9am – 4pm.

Can you really still call it fast tracking when only a few shows of a new season have been shown, and those that have, a month or so after their US premieres? Are networks trying to get the best of both worlds here by putting on just a few new episodes – enough for fans to think they are fast tracked, while, at the same time, leaving the majority of the new season until the new year?

Both Seven and Nine have done exactly that.

Nine have only shown three new episodes of The Mentalist since the new season premiered in the US back in September. They have also only shown three new episodes of the Big Bang Theory (thanks to William and Kate which replaced the fourth) and only three new episodes of their favourite show Two and a Half Men.

Seven only aired four new episodes of Bones and Criminal Minds before lapsing back into repeats.

Both networks continue to show repeats of these shows knowing full well that repeats rate quite well, while leaving fans either waiting for months for new episodes or sourcing them by other means.

Ten, on the other hand, despite losing two weeks of programming to the Commonwealth Games back in October have managed to show seven episodes from new seasons of The Good Wife, House and Glee, as well as six of NCIS by the time ratings season ends. They have even gone so far as having one extra episode of Glee (perhaps making up for the one they didn’t schedule on Wed Nov 17) on Monday Nov 29 which is not part of the official ratings survey. These shows are all as close as days behind their US air times.

GO, part of the Nine network have also successfully managed to air Hellcats and The Vampire Diaries so close to the US air dates, that the two shows end up having breaks between new episodes when they are not shown over there.

There was a time when you would see all new episodes of whatever shows were on air on the main channels right until the last week of official ratings. Now, in this new television environment where we have more channels to spread limited content over, and where repeats of shows rate well enough to justify playing them during official ratings time, it seems the true concept of fast tracking is out the window, as networks try to manage stock of new shows, holding back until the new year.

It’s kind of crazy to see just a few new episodes of a show only to have to wait up to three months for more in the new year. Maybe they should just hold back any show they are not going to give a significant run at the end of the year until the next year.

Fast tracking is not fast tracking when a few episodes are show a month after they are in the US, while the rest of the season ends up being many months later.

Yes – I watched the National IQ Test last night – not live though – and have to admit, I only watched the first hour and fast forwarded through alot of it, focussing just on the questions and answers.

I am a fan of intelligent quiz shows which are now severely lacking on free to air TV – only Letters and Numbers 6pm weeknights on SBS ONE fit the category. Hot Seat on Nine maybe for some – although every time I catch it, I can’t get past how flawed the concept is in the way that a contestant can answer a lot of questions, get one wrong, resulting in another moving into the Hot Seat, and playing for more money having just sat there doing nothing.

Having taken part in the National IQ Test 7 years ago, I had high hopes for the 2010 offering. But as the lengthy intro played out, I found myself reaching for the fast forward button to get on with the main part of the show. Then when they started using clips from Big Bang Theory, thoughts of nothing but a self promotion for Nine came to mind.

Of course, the studio audience was filled with various Nine personalities, amongst others. The guys from the Block was one example, Scott Cam from the same show. Lincoln Lewis and Home and Away even got a mention – nice of Eddy to mention a show that is not on Nine!

The audience was put into different groups with the intention of comparing their intelligence. Wives and Girlfriends was one, Generation Y another, Tradies and Impersonators the remaining two.

It was not until 27 minutes into the show we got to the first set of questions. Having already cringed at the self promotion of Nine’s Big Bang Theory, the memory clips not only involved that show (actually don’t mind a bit of Big Bang) , but Two and a Half Men as well (sorry – can’t stand that one!).

After seemingly a lot of time talking about results and answers, the show moved onto the second round of questions at about 53 minutes in. I started wondering, that if they take half an hour to do each group of questions, how are they going to finish on time?

Somehow, it did finish on or very near to time as Survivor seemed to start very close to 10pm as scheduled.

This morning, I was not surprised to see that the National IQ Test was only watched by an average of just over 1 million viewers over its two hours. No doubt the first hour would have been higher than the second. The show could have done a lot better, moving quickly through questions with less talk with the studio audience or guests – afterall – it is the interactivity and play at home factor for this sort of show that keep people in.

Finally, a different host would have been a good idea. While I don’t technically have anything against Eddy MacGuire, I find it annoying that he hosts every special event that Nine do. Yes – they have to make good use of him, seeing the money he earns, but time to start using some other personalities! There are a growing number of viewers who simply will not watch anything Eddy hosts – regardless of what it is.

For the record, I will watch the remaining hour some time in the next few days, but only for the questions and answers to complete the test.

What did you think of it all?

Last Saturday night, November 6, Ten scored its lowest primary channel and network shares for as long as I could remember.

Ten’s main channel achieved a share of just 9.3%. Add to that the 0.7% share for ONE and the result is a 10.0% share for the Ten network for the night.

Nine, on the other hand, had a primary channel share of 25.4% – two and a half times that of Ten, and a network share of 34.2% thanks to a combined GO – GEM share of 8.8% which itself is just 0.5% behind what Ten scored for the night.

Meanwhile, Seven pulled 20.6% which became a network share once 7TWO and 7mate’s combined share of 8.1% was added. Total digital channel shares for the night was 20.6%.

9.3% for a primary channel may not be so bad if you had two digital channels as part of the network pulling similar figures – I’m all for the idea that the concept of primary channels will diminish as digital take up increases – which will no doubt happen in the future possible resulting in three channels reaching similar lower shares adding to one big network share – but under Ten’s current situation, niche channel ONE barely makes it over 1.0% and Eleven not on air until 2011, so Ten get. Eleven I would expect to do similar business to GO or 7mate.

Yes – more people are watching digital channels now – so shares for these channels should be on the rise – but 9.3% for a primary channel when the two other commercials are pulling more than double that for their primary channels should be a major concern for Ten.

Sure – the introduction of Eleven in 2011 will help lift the network’s shares on nights like these, but, unless Ten make some fundamental changes to their Saturday night programming philosophy, they risk being left stuck in permanent third place being Seven and Nine regardless of how the network revamps its weeknights.

And the argument that Ten rates so badly on weekends being the result of their target demographics not being at home – I simply don’t buy. If you look at GO – squarely aimed at the same demographic as Ten, Saturday night is one of GO’s biggest nights in shares.

In fact, if you removed from the shares anyone who has not made the switch to digital, I would even go as far as suggesting that GO did better than Ten on Saturday night.

The real problem why Ten is doing so poorly on the Saturday nights in particular is that they simply just don’t seem to have the range of movies to keep Saturday nights as movie nights for the whole year. Many titles repeat more than twice in a year, and those that they do play are not exactly the most popular movies anyway.

Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer has been on a number of times before, as has Miami Vice, both were watched by just over 300,000 this weekend. Figures like that are much the same as a good movie on one of the digital channels pull. The Karate Kid on 7TWO a few months back managed 408,000, while another movie on GO over that same weekend was watched by about 380,000.

Last Saturday, The Benchwarmers on GO was watched by 266,000 and Zoom 206,000. Heartbeat on 7TWO 226,000.

Perhaps it is time Ten ditch the idea of Saturday night movies. Now that there are movies on GO, GEM and later in the night on 7mate, combined with so many other options on digital channels, unless Ten are able to air some decent free to air premiere movies, the shares for Ten will continue to be almost lost amongst the digital channels.

In order for Ten to compete with Seven and Nine on Saturday night, their programming needs to stand out. Currently, it is no different to GO or GEM that also show movies all Saturday night. It might well be time they start treating Saturday nights like any of the week nights and programming accordingly.

Ten should seriously look at either some quality first run programming for Saturday nights, or at least shows that have not already been heavily repeated before. Merlin comes to mind as a series which would work well at 6.30 on a Saturday night, even Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation would find a good audience there – possibly over a million if they took the risk of playing first run episodes on a Saturday night.

Premiere episodes of any of the Law and Order franchises Ten have the rights to could help lure some viewers to Ten, maybe even some of that new content they are holding off until Eleven arrives. Although, with just two weekends left ratings 2010, nothing will change now.

It will be interesting to see how Ten programming evolves in 2011 on weekends when Eleven is on air. As Eleven is aiming for the younger demographics, Ten will be able to work on an older age bracket and program accordingly. With the extra channel and a change in direction, Ten should not have to sink as low as 10.0% for the network on any night ever again.

Then there is the James Packer factor. What comes out of Packer joining the Ten board is yet to be seen but one thing is for sure though – if he has any say in what goes on in Ten programming – he would never allow ratings to drop that low – not on any night.

So I am going to have a rant right here, right now.  Don’t try to stop me. 

Disclaimer: Being the second series of Beauty and the Geek Australia and the gazillionth season throughout the world, the contestants obviously knew what they were getting themselves into.  They knew they were going to be filmed 24 hours a day over multiple weeks, that editing would occur and all the like.  So please don’t comment on this blog entry highlighting this fact.  Yes, I agree with you.

Now, you hear people come out of reality TV shows saying ‘it was all in the editing and that was not what I was really like’.  I always used to laugh at those people and say ‘Yeah right. You said those things, acted in that way, take responsibility for your actions’. But in all honesty, think of this.  You are filmed 24 hours a day for a week, which gets condensed into a 50 min TV show of which maybe 5 mins max will be footage of you.  So you can see you can take the smartest or rudest or geekiest or funniest 5 mins of all your footage and edit your character into whatever you want.  However, no-one and I mean no-one can fully understand this until it happens to you.

But that is not the reason for my ranting.  I am really sick of reading all of the negative stuff that gets said about Beauty and the Geek contestants.  They are acting, no-one can be that stupid, he is not a real geek, she is not really beautiful blah blah blah.  This season it has happened to Daniel the most with not being a real geek. Most footage of Daniel has only been about pursuing Kara and Ellie.  If any geek had a crush on a girl then they would still give it a shot.  Yes they would be awkward and probably get turned down.  Just because Daniel actually succeeded does not make him any less of a geek.  Are you saying that it is impossible for a geek to ever get a girl? So geeks never get married? So that makes me screwed then doesn’t it?  Lol.  But with the story of Daniel, just remember that you have only seen a small part of what went down.  How long did he pursue Kara for?  Maybe it was only the first night in the mansion that he sat with her under the blanket and maybe the kiss with Ellie was a lot later in episode 3.  That would be acceptable, but we don’t know what really happened.  I don’t even know, but everyone should know not to judge people before knowing the truth.  It may appear that I am defending Daniel but I am not. I am defending all of the contestants about saying hurtful things on forums etc without knowing the truth.  Just enjoy Beauty and the Geek for the fact it is interesting TV.       

The contestants went onto the show to try and improve themselves.  Putting their lives in the public eyes, especially as geeks, is very tough to do.  Then you read all of the horrible and hurtful lies all over the forums about the contestants.  Geeks have been teased a lot before and then to be ridiculed in these forums does not help.  I think that people are entitled to their own opinions, don’t get me wrong, but just remember that you are affecting the contestants lives and it can be really hurtful.  It does no-one any benefit when you write stuff like this on an open forum.  I was lucky last year as the worst I got was ‘Jeremy is boring’ or ‘Jeremy with his spray tan looks like an Oompa-Loompa’. 

So in conclusion to my ranting:

1. People can have their negative opinions, but no-one wants to read about them in forums.  It is only hurtful 
2. No, the show is not fake and neither are any of the contestants.
3. Whilst the show is about self improvement for the contestants, for the audience it is light hearted, fun and heartwarming.  Just enjoy it for that, and don’t overanalyze things.

Ranting over J        

Why do Nine insist on counting HD simulcasts of sporting events on GEM as part of shares for Nine? By not separating the ratings and shares between Nine and the HD simulcast on GEM, Nine are potentially missing out on marketing opportunities for GEM that could help grow the brand and deliver more ratings on the long term.

As it stands, whenever GEM have a live HD simulcast of a sporting event on Nine – such as the Rugby League Four Nations or Cricket, the ratings count only towards the share for Nine. Depending on the number of people tuning in to the event, Nine thereby achieves shares closer to what they normally might for regular programming while GEM achieves shares close to 0% with only a small amount of unique programming counting towards the GEM share on such a night.

When Ten and ONE televised the New Delhi Commonwealth Games last month, the network spilt shares between Ten and ONE thereby allowing comparisons to be made as to the number of people watching the event on Ten compared to those watching in HD on ONE*.

By doing it this way, it was easy to see the number of viewers watching the Games in HD on One, and delivered record channel shares for ONE HD. ONE was the most watched digital channel on many nights of the Games, outdoing GO which usually is the most watched digital channel. These record channel shares were used by the Ten network to help promote the channel in daily press releases. Not to mention cross promotion between Ten and ONE.

The only draw back is that the same show ends up being listed twice in the daily ratings results, and then one has to combine the two figures to get the result as to how many were watching overall. But it does show how many were watching in HD. In the case of Ten and ONE, ONE’s rating shares were roughly 37% on average those of Ten’s.

If we assume that the figure of 37%** is the proportion of viewers who can watch a sporting event in free to air HD, then we can get a rough idea of what the figures for Nine and GEM may be for the nights they have aired Cricket.

On Wednesday November 3, Nine’s channel share was 22.8% while GEM’s was 0.2% for programming after the cricket. If we assume that the shares after the cricket are small enough not to make any significant difference to the result, then we can conclude that, on November 3. Nine’s share would have been 16.6% while GEM’s would have been 6.4%. On Friday night (Nov 5), Nine’s 20.9% share would have split to 15.3% for Nine, 5.6% for GEM.

Nine with a share of 16.6% may be embarrassingly low in the current context of primary channel shares – but GEM at 6.2% would have made it the highest rating multi channel for the night. Therefore an opportunity Nine could use to further promote the channel and push out via media releases how many were watching the cricket in HD. The 16.6% share for Nine would then easily be boosted by 6.4% for GEM and 4.5% for GO! on that night making a network share of 27.5% – which is not a bad result.

The most likely reason why Nine would not want to break the figures up like this is that the networks still focus predominantly on their main channels which 100% of the population has access to, compared to 75% for the digital channels and even less for the HD channels. Another reason might be the fact that a lot of the content on GEM is not actually in native HD and the fact that channels like GEM and 7mate take away the ability for viewers to see their respective main channel content in HD – still a sore point for many people who have HD TV and are annoyed at no longer being able to see main channel content in HD.

In my opinion, the shares for the channels should be spilt up when simulcasting the main channel in HD. By all means add the two together when reporting how many watched a show in the list of top rating shows for the day, but now that we have all these separate channels, the figures should remain separated at all times. If I was an advertiser, I would want to know the distribution of viewers over channels – even if same content – rather than having it combined.

*I will make the assumption here – that given that Ten and ONE HD were showing the exact same broadcast, with the only exception being when Ten aired to 5pm news, that all viewers tuning into ONE would only have been those who had access to ONE HD, and that noone as a result would have had to – or needed to – watch the ONE SD channel as this is the same as watching Ten which is in SD in any case. As the 5pm news falls before prime time – the only time when One SD and Ten would have been different, it is out of the time that nightly channel shares are considered for and therefore would not make any difference to the overall result of shares for Ten and ONE HD.

** Of course, the figure would actually vary depending more on demographics – for example, as cricket is generally more male skewing, and more males are likely to have HD TV’s than the overall population, the percentage for the cricket may be higher. For the purposes of this post, the assumptions are enough to make the point without going into very deep analysis of demographics and trends and the like

Why do Nine insist on putting 10pm as the finishing time for the one day cricket currently playing?

They have the first session as starting at 2pm and finishing at 6pm, yet the second session, they have as starting at 6.30pm and finishing at 10pm.

It takes about 4 hours to get through 50 overs in one day matches. In determining the finishing time of the broadcast, one would assume that you would allow for the fact that the second session will also go for 50 overs and 4 hours. Are Nine – by having a 10pm finishing time – assuming that the second session will not go for its full 50 overs?

Even the Wednesday match which finished with a few overs to spare did not finish until around 10.20pm resulting on subsequent programming on both Nine and GEM running late.

Why would they not put the finishing time as 10.30pm? Why have it so that the likely outcome is the game finishes at 10.30 and then all the subsequent programming is running late?

Anyone who is looking to watch something on Nine or GEM after the cricket telecast will most likely need to wait for the show to start, or make sure they either program a long overrun or set their PVR to record the show following the one they want to watch if recording.

Nine are notoriously bad at stating the time for live events to end. For some one off events, it can be fair enough – but for something like cricket – where one day matches have been played for over 30 years – who are they kidding by saying it finishes at 10pm – when they would know full well that a 10.30pm finish is most likely?

One might argue that late running programming is better than the other scenario – where, if cricket finishes early, shows following start early. Well – the solution is simple – if the cricket finishes early, you simply put in a half hour or a one hour show – depending how early it is that is likely to be watched by those who were just watching the cricket (as anyone not watching the cricket would not be aware it is over unless flicking). A sporting special, a sitcom like Two and a Half Men or similar could easily fill the time.

Here’s how easy it should be:

Cricket is programmed to finish at 10.30 on Nine and GEM. Both channels have shows that start at 10.30, not 10pm. If 10.30 becomes 10.40 – which is unlikely but possible, its not that much of a big deal, as we are all used to the networks running 10 minutes late. But if a show that was meant to start at 10pm doesn’t start until 10.40pm, it is a big deal.

Say the cricket ended up finishing early – at 10pm. The simple – have standby programming ready. Put in a half hour show which runs until normal programming starts at 10.30pm. For simplicity, the show could air on both Nine and GEM as the cricket was to save having to run two standby programs.

Then comes the question of what to do if the cricket finishes at odd times like 9.45pm. Well that is simple as well – pad it out with highlights until 10pm, then put in the half hour standby show, then all is on time for the rest of the night.

Having programming running on time, and accurate programming scheduling – especially where organised live events are concerned should be a higher priority for Nine than it appears to be.

If you think it has been busy in recent weeks with Seven and Nine changing programs and schedules over their channels, then just watch what happens as we hit the last few weeks of the 2010 ratings survey.

Both Seven and Nine have been sending out programming amendments fine tuning the schedule on their main channels and digital channels alike in the hope to make it across the ratings finishing line as the number one network for 2010 while at the same time, carefully managing when new episodes of some of the more popular shows will air.

Nine have taken away new episodes of The Mentalist and Two and a Half Men on November 15 – the night that the finale of Junior Masterchef airs on Ten. Nine have also removed Top Gear Australia from its schedule on November 16, replacing it with a repeat of Top Gear.

Nine have taken away the HD simulcast of the Rugby League Four Nations this weekend, in favour for more movies on GEM. There has also been changes to GO which sees Gossip Girl air later on Monday nights, and changes to some of the movies in coming weeks.

Seven have decided not to show Border Security and The Force on Wednesday November 17. We don’t know what is in their place yet. The two shows rate extremely well but with Glee not on Ten that week, they may have decided to hold off and play something else instead. It would appear they are “managing stock” of their two most popular factual series.

Movies on 7TWO (specifically Beaches and Flight 93) have swapped nights, while others on 7mate have been changed.

It all makes it very difficult for people to follow what is on TV. The networks make last minute changes to gain ratings, but if the changes are made too late – like for the same week shows air in – printed TV guides no longer reflect what is on. This will be the case for GEM this Saturday night – if you are not looking at the internet TV guides or your EPG, how would you know what is on?

The networks will soon release their TV guides for the final week of ratings which runs from Sunday November 21 to Saturday November 27. What ends up airing could be very different – especially for the digital channels.

In 2009, Seven added extra episodes of shows like The Amazing Race and Criminal Minds. The schedule was filled with double episodes of many shows in the last ratings week of that year. Nine took a lot of shows off GO for the week and replaced them with movies. 7TWO made last minute changes as well.

Movies tend to help digital channels get higher shares – this is why all four of these general entertainment digital channels (GO!, GEM, 7TWO and 7mate) now have schedules with more movies – espeically GO! and GEM. You can now chose from a number of movies each night over these channels.

In coming weeks, expect to see a lot more about schedule changes here at Throng. We will keep you posted on all the major changes the networks make so you know what will be on TV in coming weeks.

Stay tuned.

Seriously, these Rafter boys have to be the unluckiest blokes alive. Firstly, Nathan loses Sammy, even though it was pretty much his own stupid fault, and now Ben has had Mel ripped from his life.

Twitter was in a frenzy last night as the speculation played out and grief stricken fans wept as the events unfolded.  

Zoe Ventoura left the show to pursue a career in LA, pretty much the same excuse Jessica McNamee had when she decided to leave the show in the hopes of playing “more complex characters”.

So now both Rafter boys are bachelors again.  With Rachel’s relationship having had moments of turmoil recently, one has to wonder if any of these siblings have the ability to hold down a relationship.  None of them seem to have had the luck of their parents, that’s for sure.

I guess all this just reinforces that nice couples just can’t stay together on TV show. Question is, how long before Dave and Julie split up?  Can you hear the uproar if that ever happens?

Now that I have spent a couple of days hopefully cooling off, I can blog about the challenges from episode two without getting too angry.  How can the producers get it so totally perfect for one challenge and then so totally wrong for the other challenge, all in the same episode?

The Beauties Challenge – Creepy Crawley Mathematics.

The girls had to collect all sorts of bugs, each worth different points, to make a total of 100 points.  The bugs included stick insects, cockroaches, witchetty grubs and spiders.  I have to admit that I would have struggled with this challenge.  I absolutely hate spiders! But I would have loved to have given it a go to conquer my fear.  But this challenge was perfect! Combining two of the most stereotypical weaknesses of a Beauty, bugs ad mathematics, all into one challenge.  I almost wet myself laughing at the girls all screaming, especially when they were all told to ‘freeze’ and Kara was holding a bug at the time.  Could it get any better?  Well, as a matter of fact, yes! After Tamika won the challenge, a free pass into the next week was presented to the Beauty that could eat a live witchetty grub the quickest.  I was somewhat surprised that they went for it.  Props to Kara again and also Donna for downing their dinner.

The Geeks Challenge – Kabana Boys.

I have to remind myself that I am not allowed to say any curse words while I am typing.  I got some scared looks from a friend as I shouted at the screen last Thursday during this challenge because I was so angry.  All I can say is that I hope there was some serious editing for this challenge for multiple reasons.  (Quick recap in case anyone missed it the guys had to be Kabana Boys at a hotel including massage, toweling off guests and mixing drinks.) 

From what it appeared, each Geek had a separate guest that they had to look after, and their guest gave them a mark for all of their efforts.  Fail Number 1 – this challenge is marked subjectively.  However, without one lone person marking all seven Geeks, there cannot actually be any comparison made between Geeks.  Maybe one judge is a tough marker, or one could be an easy marker.  It’s all about how lucky you are to get the right judge. FAIL!

Some Geeks got young attractive women, one an older lady with calluses on her feet, and another Geek got a man in a Speedo.  Fail Number 2 – There is actually no consistency in the challenge the Geeks are actually facing – they are separate challenges.  Challenge (A) – How well can you flirt and keep you cool with an attractive lady? Challenge (B) – Can you handle having to deal with disgusting feet? And challenge (C) – Are you comfortable enough to stretch/massage a guy in a Speedo.  So, the guys were all facing different challenges, some obviously harder than others.  FAIL!

So unless I hear word someone from the inside telling me that all of the guests got rotated through all of the Geeks and all guests gave a mark to all Geeks, then I am sorry but this is FAIL all around.  Hopefully this was the case, and it was just good editing for TV?  I know that the producers read this blog to keep me in check but this observation of ‘TOTAL FAIL’ is from me, a longtime watcher of reality TV, as a complete outside observer of this challenge, and nothing more.  Does anyone want to set the records straight?

So anyways…enough of my rambling.  What do other people think? Maybe I am too obsessed with reality TV (Beauty and the Geek in particular) to have a less critical view.

PS This takes nothing away from Marlon winning the challenge J I was happy because I’m am Ellynie-May fan, but more on my opinions of the cast in the next blog.