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Seven dumps Celebrity Splash Semi-Final 2

Exclusive: Seven skips a Semi Final and buries its Grand Final in a frantic bid to rid Celebrity Splash.

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Heat 2EXCLUSIVE: It’s official. Celebrity Splash has belly-flopped in the eyes of the network.

Seven has backflipped and ditched Semi-Final 2, due to air next Monday night.

Instead it is skipping straight to the Grand Final, by burying it at the low-rent time of 8:45pm Thursday May 16 in all markets.

Next Monday night Seven will air Dynamo: Magician Impossible at 7:30pm, but also has AFL in some markets.

Updated: Contestants Denise Drysdale, Nick Bracks, Adam Richard and Koby Abberton who were due to qualify in Semi-Final 2 will now dive at the beginning of the show before a Grand Final dive.

Last night the show averaged 821,000 down from its premiere of 1.31m viewers. It was trounced by The Voice on 1.96m viewers.

The show is still advertising audience tickets for Monday May 20 four days after its now-rescheduled Grand Final.

The last time I can remember a Reality show of this scale having such a major backflip was Nine dumping Excess Baggage onto GO! at the top of last year and TEN fiddling with the The Hothouse and axing The Resort without any finale.

Celebrity Splash will now go down as one of the year’s biggest blunders.

A Seven spokesperson said, “The four remaining contestants will compete in a Semi Final dive in the first portion of the show and we proceed straight into the Grand Final.”

62 Responses

  1. Geez, they might as well keep it going now that they’ve buggered up the ratings for Revenge, tossed Grey’s Anatomy around like a cork in the ocean; and consigned Private Practice’s final episodes to the scrap heap.

  3. @ wwenrl, first of all it’s House Rules not “my house rules”.

    Secondly, do you truly believe those two tiring formats are enough for Nine to win the year? Not everything old is new again. Changing three of the four judges on AGT is certainly no anecdote. Let’s not forget Big Brother debuted at 1.7M viewers on August 13 2012 and shed 50% of its overall audience within four outings. It was modest at best in key demographics.

    Nine don’t have a reliable drama slate both local and international. Wait a minute, I may be wrong. Parade’s End was a ratings powerhouse. Actually it wasn’t. Nine only has ratings success with big ticket one-off specials like the Packer telemovies, State of Origin and the grand finale of their other “programs”.

    Nine will never be still the one.

  4. Yes, surely it is more damaging to their brand than to just air the remaining shows.

    They can then gracefully decline a 2nd season.

    Whats going on?

  6. @bettestreep2008 Probably not the best day to comment on 10 shows not rating past 821K in recent months considering NCIS was 876K last night.

    Not to mention Elementary consistently rating over 820K in consolidated numbers.

    If we’re purely comparing Ten reality shows though, you’re probably right.

  8. This is a panic move by Seven. CS only had five episodes, it wasn’t as if it was a long-term proposition. And let’s face it, putting anything up against The Voice was giving that show a death wish. I hope the show will be revived at some stage down the line when Seven has clear air and does not have to battle the cult of The Voice and its zombie-like followers.

  9. What a load of crock. In this multi channel age 821k is not a flop especially up against a juggernaut like The Voice. Channel 10 could only dream of those numbers. How gutless of 7.

  10. I’d say they’ll combine the second semi-final and grand final, in the same show.
    The only way this show could have worked is if it wasn’t so padded out. They should have had all the contestants dive in this first show. The semi-final for the second show and the grand final for the third show. That’s it.

  12. This program is a shocker of gigantic proportions and we could all see it would it would flop. A bit like we thought we all thought Masterchef would flop some years ago.

    I remember our shock at the time that a competition cooking show was proposed for prime time amd stripped to 5 or 6 nights a week. Of course now we all knew it would be successful!!!

  13. JB – this is why I love tvtonight and the great work that David does.

    Read his comments – and the many others – and you’ll realise that all of us have more expertise on how to pick a dud than the highly paid network executives do.

    The people posting here also have better ideas about programming and editing shows too.

    No wonder some media outlets sometimes use David’s tvtonight when reporting on what’s happening in our tv industry.

    I respect this blog more than I do the current state of Australian TV.

    But to be fair to Seven – I think Celebrity Splash was never meant to be anything but filler until House Rules was aired. And to bump it while it is still outrating TBL is a rather silly move. It was just two shows to go – they didn’t have to wait too much longer.

    Ten has the bigger problems – None of there shows have managed to rate 821K in recent months (the MCP finale squeaked past 1m).

  14. David – you not only forgot Everybody dance now , but remember what happened to the finales of I will survive and the revamped YTT?

    Ten botched both of these as well. I don’t think either finale rated over 500K – but both ‘winners’ walked away with $250K prize money each.

    Ten also stuffed up the finales of So you think you can dance by putting it on at 8.45pm on a Wednesday night – the winner being revealed at a family friendly time of about midnight.

    And of course we all remember what Ten did to MC finale one year when they shoved an episode of Renovators in the middle of it.

    I think Seven should show the second SF – just because Denise Drysdale is a TV legend and is the only reason to watch this rubbish. They’ve already spent millions on the show and it is still outrating The Biggest Loser.

    I don’t see Ten worrying about the woeful ratings of that show. But then again…

  15. @randwick…..I am with you, i don’t do reality tv it is way passed its expiry date. 7 have so many half shown series, of scripted dramas they could show, its ridiculous.

  18. I have not watched it, but noticed the EPG last night it was missing for next week with Dynamo already listed in its place.
    I like the comment from Shaun Micallef on MaH last week when asked if he will watch Spash, his response being ‘Only if they drained the pool”

  20. It’s amazing how everyone on this site can pick a dud from a mile away, yet the people that are paid the big bucks at the networks can approve some of the absolute worst television shows. We all predicted Splash, Everybody Dance Now, I Will Survive, Lara Bingle would fail as soon as they were announced. I can’t understand how there’s people at networks who think these shows would be a good idea.

  23. I was waiting for a ‘belly-flopped’ comment LOL

    I don’t watch reality shows and this is the reason why, not because it flopped but it’s just mass TV pandering to the lowest common denominator. At least the singing and cooking shows lead to other things for those involved, what will a show like this lead to for the stars?

    I do understand the NBC version was a hit (for them) so maybe if this was on TEN it would have come back for more next year?

  24. I think Seven is wrong for not screening Semi-Final 2 … why skip it, then go straight to the Grand Final? I doubt “Dynamo: Magician Impossible” will get better numbers, and do we really need another magic show? Apalling treatment of it’s viewers …

  25. Whilst I don’t watch the show and am not surprised it hasn’t spring boarded into success, 821,000 isn’t really disastrous numbers, surely? Dumping and burying with only a couple of episodes to go can only serve to cause Ten-like feelings of misfiring programming choices with audiences and critics alike, doing more harm than good. People still talk about shows they don’t watch!

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