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Gone: Prison Break. Bumped: Heroes

Seven pushes Prison Break out to summer, bumping Heroes to 10:30pm and bringing Bones in to the mix.

Wentworth Miller’s Prison Break is the latest casualty of network programmers with Seven removing it from the schedule until summer. Earlier this month Nine did the same thing to Fringe.

The drama attracted 427,000 viewers last night, which was actually up from 389,000 the week before. Seven lost the night to the Nine Network.

But Seven has had problems with Heroes, netting a disappointing 624,000, dropping from The Amazing Race’s 902,000. It was beaten by RPA’s 1.02m and a repeat of Law & Order: SVU on 930,000.

Race was #1 in key demographics 16-39, 18-49 and 25-54. Heroes is also shaky in the US, down 20% on its season premiere and hitting an all-time low of 4.9 rating / 7 share.

Heroes moves back to 10:30pm from next Thursday November 6th, with Bones to move into 9:30pm with the episode “The Pain in the Heart.”

Plans for Scrubs to move to 10:30pm are now out, with it staying put at 11:30pm.

The under-performance of Prison Break‘s fourth season follows the fate of Ugly Betty’s third season, both hailed as network darlings in recent years only to be shafted to summer.

Seven advises Prison Break will return to a 10:30pm timeslot across summer, beginning in the week of November 23rd (final week of ratings).

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75 Responses

  1. The TV Guide printed in Brisbane’s Sunday Mail still has the Scrubs move to 10:30pm (with PB at 11pm). I wonder if the guides published in other states have it wrong, too? Obviously 7 made the change too late for the guides to be changed….look forward to lots of confusion come Thursday!

  2. It’s not a two-week break, as someone said earlier, it ends up being a four-week break between episodes by the time PB returns to the schedule (October 30 to November 27).

    My sister-in-law, who has watched it religiously from Day 1 and has put up with Channel 7’s bizarre programming schedule, is fed up now and has asked me to download the episodes for her, since she wants to be able to watch it weekly rather than with a large break between the episodes. As she and others here have pointed out, if 7 advertised the show, it would get better ratings….!

  3. By thursday night, people are tired from 4 days of work and dont want to stay up too late to watch a program and would rather sleep or tape it. Thats why noone is watching your witching hour schedule channel 7 – we all have to work too hard to earn our $$$$.

  4. guys ch 7 didn’t push prisonbreak because it was rating poorly or anything it was simply because heroes had to go from 9:30 and pushing it till 10:30 causes the least confusion than any other timeslot in the week.

    anyway its not that much of a drama summer is only 2 thursdays away.

  5. Out of the Question rates poorer than Prison Break and its still on, Looking and comparing Monday’s and Thursdays ratings, 13 shows got over 1 million on Monday and 6 shows over 1 million on Thursday. What was Prison Break suppose to do?? Hold onto all 622k viewers from Heroes, Geez, Channel 7 you’ve got problems!!

  6. Wow what a surprise – Prison Break doesnt rate as well in a 10.30pm time slot as it did at 8.30pm! Are the 7 programmers for real? How on Earth do they expect it to rate well at this ridiculous time slot. The disappointing thing is this season is on a par with the first so if they wouldnt have stuffed around with the show last year, it would have attracted viewers in a decent time slot. It would appear fast-tracking shows has been a disaster.

    Oh well back to downloading we go.

  7. This season of Prison Break has been really good. I’m really enjoying it. I’m sad others haven’t been watching it – it’s rather riveting television.

    That said, at least there will be something to watch over summer, but seriously Channel 7, you could have let this one ride it out. The numbers might slowly build and there isn’t much ratings season left anyway.

  8. Well at least there will be a good show on in summer now 🙂

    It doesn’t bother me as I’m downloading both anyway, 7 dropped the ball by not telling us when it would be aired before it started in the states, and by waiting a few weeks.

    I am sorry for those that watch it on 7 that now can’t though.

  9. Now wait a minute, I have just realised this week’s episode of Prison Break ended on a cliffhanger.

    Now I really not happy having to wait until Summer to see how this is resolved.

  10. While it is a shame that Prison Break is pushed to Summer, the new schedule for Thursdays won’t affect me that much as I watch Bones, Heroes & Scrubs.

    I just be having a little change of viewing dynamics beginning Thursday November 6.

  11. Heroes being pushed back to 10.30pm is a pity (especially since this season is much better than season 2), but at least they didn’t drop it completely like 9 dropped Fringe.
    I don’t see why they couldn’t have held off a few weeks, though- One more month and they’ll be pulling it off anyway for summer.

  12. Well said, Cameron, when you observed “If only 7’s other shows could get 624,000 viewers then they would get what they really deserve.”

    Nine was always a bit pompous when it was number 1 for all those years, but Seven has taken it to the max with a major fork up its arse – when all those trashy, stagnant factuals stop rating, and viewers realise the contempt in which it deals their shows that used to be rating well (such as Heroes and PB), I bet that fork will begin to sting.

  13. I completely agree with Ali.
    Sure, 600 000 aren’t enough viewers, but what about poor lead-ins.
    I admit, Heroes has lost a great amount of audience since the first season but what do Seven expect. It was off the air for 10 months. How is anyone meant to remember anything?
    Anyway, I think the problem is mainly with Make Me A Supermodel. It gets only about 900 000 viewers weekly. That’s not too bad, but it’s the 7:30pm timeslot. Every other night, Seven get pretty much over the 1 million mark for that timeslot. The Amazing Race was getting around 1.3 million an episode last year.
    I think Seven should have waited another three weeks with their current line-up. It’s not like they’ll lose anyway. Then when Make Me A Supermodel ends, bring The Amazing Race forward to 7:30pm. Bones at 8:30pm. Heroes at 9:30pm, and then even Prison Break at 10:30pm. That’s a great night of TV. And I’m pretty sure it would do better than it is at the moment.

  14. Im not suprised – PB has been on shaky ground for awhile. Heroes is on too late to gain an audience, 7 should leave it at 9.30, can Supermodel, and put Amazing race at 7.30 and Bones at 8.30.

  15. Seven strike again.
    But i really counldn’t care as Heroes,PB etc are poor television. Bones on the other hand is a brilliant show so I’m happy with that! It’s easily the best drama on 7 by far and now we get two eps a week 🙂

  16. This is precisely why I’ve given up on Free to Air TV. I knew shows like Fringe would never get a full season on free to air so I never bothered committing myself. The networks are shooting themselves in the foot. How do the channels expect audiences to pick up serialed storylines halfway through a chapter?

    Sure networks aren’t a charity but they should treat their audiences and programming with a little respect.

    Prison Break disappeared mid way season 3 and Seven snuck the finale episodes some time before this season. Similar things happened with season 2 of Heroes – who is going to wait or even the time to check when a channel will decide to screen a show? I don’t know how anyone could have followed Lost on Seven’s watch. Things just disappear and are never mentioned again.

    It’s better to wait for the DVDs or channel bittorrent and watch them as they were intended to be followed.

    At least we might get some good summer programming! Maybe one day we’ll be able to bypass the local networks and watch feeds from their source. What will our networks do then?

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