★★★★★ 0/5

An empty House at TEN

Only someone as smart as House could tell us what went wrong with TEN's Wednesday.

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After starting the week so well, TEN’s healthy figures dropped through the floor last night, coming fourth behind the ABC for the evening.

An 18.4% share is disappointing on any night, but doubly worse when you look at what appears to be a competitive line-up. TEN programmers must be scratching their heads today and who can blame them?

A season premiere of House, fasttracked by little more than a week attracted a lacklustre 914,000 viewers. TEN should have been looking past 1.25m for this, minimum. Instead that went to Criminal Minds (1.32m), with most viewers switching from Nine to Seven for that part of the night. Nine had a staggering 1.54m viewers for Two and a Half Men -an episode they belatedly pushed in place of Hole in the Wall at the last minute.

Meanwhile Bondi Rescue: Bali (645,000) and Kenny’s World (754,000), two locally produced series, couldn’t compete and gave House no leg-up into its season premiere. It will be a source of frustration to TEN that investing in a hit series, and a Logie-winner at that, has not paid dividends for Bondi Rescue.

As usual ABC TV played “commercial spoiler” with their loyal Wednesday shows Spicks and Specks (1.22m) and The Hollowmen (906,000).

Life (740,000) managed to better Kitchen Nightmares USA (712,000) for TEN.

Nine put in a good performance (27.1%) but Wednesday again belonged to Seven (31.4%).

At this point in the week TEN’s strong start has now slipped back to its usual third place:

Seven: 29.9
Nine: 24.9
TEN: 22.4
ABC: 17.4
SBS: 5.4

Week 39

30 Responses

  1. “Correct on every point, Carta. 2.5M followed the same path as Frasier….. didn’t work in any slot, til Nine just left it on over summer and lo and behold -hit.”

    lets pray this dosn’t happen to til’death. that show is dreadful

  2. Bernadette. Without trying to be disrespectful, people like you that don’t watch live tv is an exceptionally small number, somewhere in the vicinity of a Foxtel channel at best. And I would have thought that those same people would be heavy downloaders of programs and as such would have been well aware that there is a new episode being produced and uploaded to the Net so that they could in turn download it.

  3. I agree with prettymuch every other post here – and here’s my 2 cents

    2 and a half men will eventually go the way of ramsey, attenborough and to a lesser degree, csi (original) – all massively over exposed and/or riddled with repeats. It’s a funny show, but how long can the charlie “man-slut” story lines remain funny when they’re on a number of times a week?

    Personally – i watched abc weds night (witha bit of kenny)- and finished off with Life – i didnt watch house because i feel more of a loyalty to spicks &specks and the hollow men after watching them the past few months solidly (no changing schedule, no repeats) – and it just sh!ts me how ten kept putting repeats regularly between new episodes. So – thanks 10, i lost interest in one of my former favorite shows.

    getting back to life – are shows currently being aired “new” or from season 2 – and if from season 2 – did 10 air the full season one?

    Finally – great job on the site David !

  4. Actually 2.5 Men got around 1.5m in it’s first year or so before dropping off down to 1m for a year or so. So it was a hit to start with unlike Frasier. It’s really taken off this year though.

  6. The confusing part for me is that Nine tried Two and a Half Men in so many different timeslots before it suddenly took off (after having underperformed consistently). Even as recently as last year, it was brought back for a week, rated woefully and was then yanked from the schedule, yet now, it seems it can do no wrong! Why couldn’t this have happened to Frasier when Nine couldn’t make that work no matter what they tried? It’s far superior to “Men”.

  7. New episode of House – me too thought probably a repeat.

    One of the other problems is Ten’s early evening lineup.
    Seriously “Taken out audience and Kenny’w and other younger brandedstuff does not mesh well with House and Medium style shows.

    Ten )and other networks) really needs to break down nights to certain categories
    Young market – night one
    Murder mystery night two
    Lifestyle/reality night 3

    etc..

    the continual mishmash on some nights makes it a nightmare, switching channels.

  9. @slydoggie – I never listen to commercial radio and rarely watch ‘live’ TV (i.e. I usually watch my TV taped) so I hardly ever see commercials or promos – the only way I knew it was a new episode of the show was due to this website (thanks David) but the people who are like me and have given up on live TV but who don’t read this site would never have known 😉

  10. I have to diagree with everyone who doesn’t believe Two And A Half Men doesn’t dserve those ratings. It’s a great comedy and is the only comedy on television that makes me laugh out loud non-stop the whole episode. The only other program that really makes me laugh like that is The AFL Footy Show.

  13. I doubt the US being 1 episode ahead made a difference. If people are that desperate to watch it early, i don’t think a couple days earlier would change the ratings.

    I think the problem is interest in this show has simply dropped away, the finale that was fastracked didn’t rate too well either. The quality of the show is still there but it’s getter harder to suspend disbelief and still produce a incredible episode.

    Also people underestimate the widespread popularity of 2 and a half men. Even repeats seem to rate as much as the new episodes!

    Maybe a different timeslot is called for?

  14. I think I know what ‘the 2.5 men thing’ is. It’s entertainment! Not drama after drama after drama. Have a look at what IS winning the night. 2.5 men, Spicks and Specks, even The Hollowmen – they are all fun. I think people are beginning to get sick of cops and robbers and ‘disease of the week’ shows. The exception is ‘Kenny’ as I feel the Jacobsons are genuinely talented guys, but let’s face it, it’s a ‘comedy doco travel show’ it really doesn’t fit a slot. When times are looking bad, people turn to the stuff that makes them feel good, for goodness sakes is ‘Packed to the Rafters’ REALLY as good as it’s ratings would suggest? No, but it’s better than watching death and destruction all the time.

    And ka-ching is correct. The Networks have got to start fostering ‘brand loyalty’ again. Give a shit about the audience and they’ll give a shit about you. With the oncoming storm of streaming web TV and 3d cinema etc. the Networks have to go back to the ‘good old days’ and win hearts and minds from the kid’s up. Time to think of viewers as people again, not just demographics on an Oztam chart.

  15. House hasn’t jumped the shark imo just needs to get back to basics. The writing in last nights episode was as good as ever. And 2.5 Men is far from a passing fad. In it’s first year it rated 1.5m ish and is now getting back to those numbers with decent exposure from Nine. People watch because it’s just damn funny simple as that. But we all have different tastes so it won’t appeal to everyone. But geez it has me lol quite a lot!

  16. Even though I do not watch House, the networks have to remember the golden rule of Fast Tracking: NEVER let the U.S. get 1 episode ahead of you. Only showing it as little as 8 or 9 days after the U.S will cause a significant ratings drop as dedicated fans turn to the internet to download episodes and discuss them on fan sites. Some legislation banning the use of the term “fast tracking” for anything but the above would be nice 🙂

  17. Criminal Minds has its established audience and anyone who is enjoying it won’t dump it just for House. It is also school holidays in some states which may effect some viewing patterns – kids stay up later etc. We were out and I taped both shows, whether I get around to watching them is yet to be seen.

    Also agree that switching from repeats to new eps and back again has become a tv channel sport. I have turned off MANY of my favourite shows because of it – Law & Order franchise, CSI franchise, Cold Case, Without a Trace, NCIS etc etc. I just can’t be bothered pouring over the tv guides and working ut what to watch any more. I am also tired of changing of nights, timeslots etc. TV viewing has lost a lot of it’s relaxation factor and my sense of loyalty to tv channels and specific shows has all but gone.

    Oh for the good old days!!

  19. Its the same problem with NCIS. Ten shaft dozens of repeats in between new eps and as a result the ratings plummet as audiences lose interest and find it difficult to keep track of all the different scheduling trends.

    I agree that House jumped the shark last season. It had some donkey storylines before but there were some real turkeys last season, especially with House trying to kill himself by sticking a fork in the electric socket. That was the final straw for me. I knew he was a cynical, bitter, emo twit, but I never knew he was suicidal, and that kind of ruined the fun of the show for me.Even with the new team, its pretty much the same show it was 5 years ago. Cynical, emo doctor doing absurd things to diagnose and heal 1 patient a week. The concept got tired a long time ago.

    Life is awesome, and the season finale over the next 2 weeks is a testament to how good this show is at its height. The show escalates from good to fantastic. It really is must-see television, although due to the bloody writers’ strike and the annoying 10 month gap, this show will most likely fail to recover to the 1m mark it held last year.

    As for 2.5 men, its good for a novelty program once a month. It definitely isn’t deserving of those astronomical ratings, but its just a passing fad. Like Ramsay and Attenborough, it’ll die down soon enough. As far as sitcoms go, I can name 10 off the top of my head that are infinitely superior in wit, humour, and quality.

    And Ramsay, I don’t see why they bother. They may as well just burn off the series over the summer while the last lingering humans hold any interest in his expired shows.

  20. We watched Criminal Minds instead of House. While I do like House, it is formulaic and you know what is going to happen every week. The adverts for it this week didn’t make it seem very interesting either. And it was up against not only criminal minds but fringe, both excellent shows. I am not surprised it didn’t do so well.

  22. I agree that lots of people wouldn’t have realised House was a new episode…and those that did might have been like me and realised that the show has jumped the shark. I adore Hugh Laurie and used to enjoy House but last night’s episode was just silly. I’ll go back to Adam Hills and the gang next week.

    @DimitriaK – you’re not alone – I don’t get the Two and a half men thing either – it’s mildly amusing if there’s nothing else on but hardly ‘appointment television’

  24. I agree with Katrina, they didnt pump it up enough…also, am i the only one that doesn’t get the Two and a Half Men love? I mean, its ok…but consistently in the top raters???

  25. Could it be that the general viewing public just didn’t realise it was a new episode? I think it’s a problem with so many repeats, people aren’t sure when it’s a new one.

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