Coast Watch

Here’s what is happening on Seven for the much of the rest of summer.

Beat The Star fills in the timeslot vacated by The Amazing Race, 7.30pm Thursday From Dec 23. It remains on every Thursday until Thur Jan 13.

From Sun Dec 26, over 4 Sundays at 6.30pm, is the special Billy Connolly: Journey To The Edge of the World, in which Billy Connolly journeys through the remote regions of Canada and into the Arctic Circle. Note the last Vicar of Dibley special on Seven airs Sun Dec 19, 6.30pm.

Border Patrol, Coast Watch and Bones all remain on Sunday nights from 7.30 until Jan 16. Bones fans receive a special treat, with a double episode on the night of Sun Jan 16.

On Sun Dec 26 and Sun Jan 2, repeats of the Castle at 9.30 are replaced with movies Species and Derailed respectively.

The spectacular special Journey to the Edge of the Universe airs at 10.30 Monday Dec 27 – over just one hour. I thought I saw it as a two hour show on National Geographic a few years ago. Perhaps cut down? Still, well worth watching for the imagery.

The last Under the Hammer for now airs Wed Dec 29 at 8pm.

The final of ICU is at 8pm Mon Jan 3.

One of the few new international shows screening anywhere over summer – Outlaw continues at 9.30pm Mondays, with an extra episode on Sunday Jan 9 before its final at 9.30 Monday Jan 10.

Travel show High Road, Low Road – having being forced out of Saturday nights to avoid a conflict with sponsors of No Leave, No Life premieres 8pm Wed Jan 5. The first episode covers LA and Palm Springs, the second, airing Jan 12, covers New York. The third which will cover New Zealand’s North Island won’t be seen until after the Australian Open tennis, maybe on a Saturday night but that is to be confirmed.

No Leave, No Life, has its final episode for series 2 on Saturday Jan 15, at 6.30pm.

The final of the US version of Minute to Win It will air 7.30 Tue Jan 11.

From Mon Jan 17, the Australian Open airs on Seven from 11am – 6pm daily, as well as from 7pm at night for the first week. The tournament concludes on Sun Jan 30 with the Men’s Final. While the Australian Open is on, the morning news moves to 10.30, while 9am – 10.30am are occupied with children’s programming. Areas not on AEDT check local guides closer to the dates. News and Today Tonight remain 6pm – 7pm weeknights.

Home and Away returns Monday January 24, 2011 at 7pm, coinciding with the second week of The 2011 Australian Open. Weekday night time sessions therefore start at 7.30pm as a result.

All times and information here based on Sydney market.

All the reality competitions are finishing up, final new episodes for shows are being called season finals whether they are mid season or not and the program guides for free to air channels are transforming into completely new and different schedules to what we have been used to for the last few months.

It is time for summer TV – starting Sunday November 28, 2010 – the time of year when the commercial free to air networks deliver more repeats than ever before, and give us more of those shows that simply don’t cut it during the main ratings season as well as a swag of New Zealand factuals (channel Seven mainly) that will help keep their local content quota up over summer.

Officially, the summer months do not count towards winning or losing the ratings but – ratings are still measured during summer, and networks will still adjust schedules to improve their chances of doing better in the ratings – afterall – summer or not – ratings is money for them.

Ten are easing us into summer with Neighbours and Rush continuing for a few weeks yet and a new episode of Glee remaining to be played on Monday Nov 29, before repeats air the week later. They also have All New Simpsons on Tuesday nights – new Simpsons no longer rates well enough to be on Ten during the main part of the year.

Nine have new episodes of Without a Trace and Cold Case as well as new shows Chase and Better With You. The best of 60 Minutes contains stories you would have already seen throughout the year while Two and a Half Men continues to be spread throughout the schedule of Nine and GO! Also on both channels, you can catch repeats of Top Gear on four nights.

Seven bring us new episodes of Border Patrol, Coast Watch, Animal Squad, ICU, Medical Emergency and Under the Hammer. They’ll be showing the US version of Minute to Win It followed by I Shouldn’t Be Alive. The Amazing Race continues, while new NCB drama Outlaw premieres on Monday night.

As for ABC1 and SBS ONE, you wouldn’t really notice that much of a difference as they move into summer TV. Australian drama Rake continues on ABC1, SBS premieres the new series of Who Do You Think You Are while quiz show Letters and Numbers continues at 6pm weeknights into December. ABC1 will be airing the Doctor Who Christmas special on December 26, hours after they see it in the UK.

To digital channels, and GO has re-shuffled parts of its schedule but it’s highest rating show The Big Bang Theory will not be seen on GO in summer. There is one episode on Nine in Tue Dec 7. Pretty Little Liars premieres Mon Nov 29, while new episodes of The Vampire Diaries return from Mon Dec 6.

GEM has a few subtle changes – one of which is that there will now be no movies on Monday nights because Nine is showing movies on Monday nights.

7TWO have transformed Sunday night completely with a line up no too different to their very successful Friday night lifestyle line up. 7mate’s programming remains much the same in summer, only difference is those new episodes of Family Guy and American Dad will be repeats while Gene Simmons moves into two nights a week instead of just the one. Stargate fans – look out for three hours of Stargate Atlantis on Thursday nights.

ONE HD will start showing a movie on Sunday nights while the rest of the week the channel is grouping roughly into themed nights.

Watch out for the launch of Ten’s new channel Eleven on January 11, 2011. Programming information should become available around Christmas time.

Meanwhile – Pay TV is premiering numerous new shows and series in December as part of their (Foxtel’s) 100 days of summer promotion.. Pay TV’s shares increase during free to air non ratings periods – a fact they now capitalise on to woo viewers over during summer.

As always during summer, there is plenty of cricket on Nine with the Ashes, the one day series and a few Twenty/20’s thrown in while Seven will have the Australian Open Tennis in January – which will also be seen on Fox Sports this time as well.

Carols in The Domain will air on Seven on Saturday Dec 18, while Melbourne’s traditional carols night will air Friday Dec 24 on Nine.

Ratings season for 2011 resume Sunday February 6, 2011.

Following are the links to programming and information for most channels for the first week of summer.

Seven

7TWO

7mate

Nine

GO!

GEM

Ten

ONE HD

Foxtel’s 100 Days of Summer

Seven have filled in the blanks now in their schedule for the first week of summer, commencing Sunday November 28.

Here’s the summary:

Sunday Nov 28
6.30 The Vicar of Dibley special
7.30 Border Patrol
8.00 Coastwatch
8.30 Bones rpt
9.30 Castle rpt

Monday Nov 29
7.00 How I met Your Mother rpt(Mon – Fri)
7.30 Animal Squad
8.00 ICU
8.30 Criminal Minds rpt
9.30 Outlaw
10.30 The Event (note: final will be the following Monday, Dec 6)

Tuesday Nov 30
7.30 Minute to Win It (US version)
8.30 I Shouldn’t Be Alive
9.30 Most Shocking Top 20

Wednesday Dec 1
7.30 Medical Emergency
8.00 Under the Hammer
8.30 Criminal Minds rpt
9.30 City Homicide rpt (double)

Thursday Dec 2
7.30 The Amazing Race
8.30 Movie: Meet The Parents
10.50 30 Rock rpt

Friday Dec 3
7.30 Better Homes and Gardens summer edition
8.30 Movie: The Santa Clause
10.35 Movie: The Tattooist

Saturday Dec 4
6.30 No Leave No Life
7.00 High Road, Low Road
7.30 Movie: Anne of Green Gables

Seven have named some of the shows that will be filling some of the TBA timeslots in the first week of their summer schedule.

Shows include new episodes of Under the Hammer, Medical Emergency, ICU, Border Patrol (NZ), Coast watch (NZ) and Beat the Star’s remaining episodes.

Also coming to Seven will be Outlaw – NBC’s legal drama featuring Jimmy Smits, I Shouldn’t be Alive from the producers of the acclaimed film “Touching the Void” which is a new series that showcases stories of human survival against all odds, Minute to Win It USA, and Animal Squad which is a British RSPCA series.

Timeslots for all of these shows, as well as a few others, will be confirmed shortly.

A reminder, that The Event and The Amazing Race will continue through summer while a new season of No Leave, No Life premieres on Saturday December 4 at 6.30pm. That is followed by new travel series High Road, Low Road at 7pm in which Tom Williams and Rachael Finch take us to some of the world’s best travel destinations – one’s a budget, the other unlimited cash.