damianThis Weeks Top Twenty TV Shows
September 23rd 2006 01:28
Apologies to anyone waiting for this very late report but my internet connection went toes up this week. There's still a good chance that it will continue to stuff up in the near future so I also apologise in advance for any more delays or if I cant get regular posts up.
Channel 9 takes another hit as 7 and Ten combine to dominate this weeks Top Twenty. (Warning- long, somewhat furious post)
Top 20 Metropolitan TV Ratings 10th- 16th September
Local Content Score- 16 of top 20
‘When you’re on to a good thing go with it’- advice both Channel 7 and Ten are taking to heart. With ten Channel 7 programs and six Channel Ten programs in the Top Twenty this week the Eddie Channel had no where to go, crushed under the weight of nine Reality TV inspired programs.
At the front of the stampede was the ever present leader of the herd, Border Security, with 2.312 million metropolitan viewers. It was a massive 400,000 viewers higher than second place, which, to put it in perspective, was the shows viewing population of Brisbane, or nearly twice that of Adelaide. This show rates higher than all others by an entire capital city! The third highest rating city!
Rove Live- not just a talk show, it ties together every program on Ten
In at third was the triumphant return of Thank God You’re Here to the Top Three, with 1.907 million sets of eyeballs tuned in to see who was the best theatre athlete. Rumours have it that the Working Dog crew have been able to franchise this series out to the rest of the world, the way they do it with reality tv shows etc. What would a Brazilian Thank God You’re Here look like? When I get some time I’ll try to confirm it but isn’t it cool to think we were the source of a franchise, rather than the destination.
Medical Emergency made it back into fifth this week with 1.767 million and was backed up by The Force in at eighth with 1.637 million. This result is quite significant as it proves that The Force doesn’t require a run in from Border Security to succeed, as well as spreading Channel 7's RTV dominance to Wednesday. Be very afraid Channel 9. Be very afraid.
And if that weren’t enough Police Files- Unlocked was in at ninth, followed by two Aussie Idol shows for tenth and eleventh.
When will Channel 9 learn? Not having any significant reality tv is killing them in the ratings. All that news and current affairs stuff is fine for the older tv viewers, and milking your past dominance for all it’s worth might work for a while, but in this ‘modern age of integrated media’ you’re committing ratings suicide if you don’t get with the program and give people what they want. RTV is rating through the roof, both as game shows and episodic documentaries of the lives we live, and if the only thing you can do to combat these programs is roll out something from your CSI catalogue- or any of those bloody awful shows with terrible scripting, bad acting and super intelligent, yet mentally disturbed heroes, that are just an excuse to get all ‘forensic science-y’- then you deserve all the pain you receive.
Sunrise- Another show that promotes an entire network, not just itself.
Get with the times Channel 9. If you’re going to do drama it has to be socially relevant, ‘soapie-esque’ stuff (see Home and Away and All Saints) to a quality that doesn’t make it ‘soapie-like’. If you want reality tv you cant just write a check for the big names, you need people with charisma (good, bad or ‘he’s such a dag’ charisma) and it has to interact with your audience well. If it’s documentary style RTV you have to be following subjects we’re interested in at the moment (like our border security). And above all, you NEED reality tv to bring all your network shows and personalities together. Rove Live isn’t just a talk show, it’s a show that cross promotes everything that is going on across the Ten Network, creating the Ten Community and boosting the Ten look/feel/branding. The same goes for things like Sunrise and Dancing with the Stars on Channel 7. Channel 7 has a look and feel that is promoted across all of it’s shows with tv hosts being turned into tv personalities by the simple act of dressing them in sequins and getting them to make their way around a dance floor. When that happens they’re no longer ‘the chick behind the news desk’ or ‘that guy from the travel show’, now we know their first name, we have an opinion of them (good or bad) and, weird as it sounds, we know that they exist outside of their usual environment- they become real people. The closest thing Channel 9 has to cross promotion is The Footy Show, which cross promotes Channel 9 rugby league, not Channel 9, or those random comments people make on 20 to 1, most of which are an obscene case of ‘who cares about what they have to say?’.
Eddie, INTEGRATE YOUR NETWORK PROPERLY!!!
Okay, deep breath. Sorry about that. Just had to get that off my chest. Later I’ll write up a full article about this sort of thing but with the Oztam figures staring me in the face I just had to say something. Back to the rest of the report...
Forensic Investigators was in at fifteenth, Home and Away is still doing well in at sixteenth and [I[All Saints[/I] was in at nineteenth.
Rounding out the Twenty was Jamie’s Kitchen- Australia. Have to say that I haven’t been too interested in this one but after the interview on Enough Rope on Monday I reckon I might check it out. He said that one of the major differences between the Australian kids and the ones from England was the honesty Aussie kids have shown. Honesty’s not a word that gets thrown about a lot when you’re comparing different Western countries so I’d like to see what he was talking about. Oliver also had an uncanny Steve Irwin presence about him as well. I’m putting it down to passion for their respective callings, and the fact that Steve’s memorial is on this week, but it was a bit eerie. Anybody else see that interview?
To see all the tv rating figures head over to Oztam.
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