Welcome to the summer 2009/2010 free to air TV non ratings season.
Stan has won Idol, Morello the first Apprentice Australia, Eamon Sullivan our first celebrity Masterchef and Jeremy and Emma took out the first Australian Beauty and the Geek. The Rafters new baby Ruby arrived, Sammy walked out on Nathan, a cop went psycho on City Homicide while Rush finished with a double dose all in the space of one week.
But now after a week that saw so many season finals and many shows in double or extended episodes - a week where there was almost too much to watch - we are now faced with the first week of the non ratings season which lasts for ten weeks - during which there is comparatively very little to watch on free to air TV.
During the non-ratings period, ratings for TV shows are still measured and reported. Perhaps just not analysed in the same amount of detail. The networks and their advertisers still need to know how well shows are going during this period. Networks also still react when shows are not rating as well as they would like. It is just that officially, the ratings during summer do not count towards which network “wins” the ratings war.
To me, the whole concept is dated. I do not understand why we need to have a period on TV during which the networks offer sub standard programming simply because their industry does not recognise ratings over summer towards the networks overall performance. I liken the concept to restaurants no longer offering their best dishes during summer instead offering their customers sandwiches.
People still watch TV over summer. Sure - people go on holidays, spend more time outdoors, with friends, socialising and the like but they still watch TV. If anything, the free to air non-ratings period is simply an invitation to subscribe to pay TV - where programming does not change over summer. In fact, pay TV generally rates higher during summer. No doubt DVD rentals increase as would downloads.
The fact that ratings during summer show less people watching free to air TV is a direct consequence of the lack of quality programming over summer. Good television over summer would rate almost as well as the rest of the year. Obviously shows will do a lot better during winter as more people are at home and indoors then.
At least this year, we have more free to air channels to chose from. The programming on GO in particular remains much the same as it has in recent months (apart from all those ridiculous last minute changes in the last week of November) as does 7TWO. From December 4 there will be ABC3 as well for school aged children.
Throng will continue to report the daily ratings during summer. However, the ratings posts may be up later than usual.
