Hot show shuffle
Three network programmers face up to the music and answer criticisms about the shuffling of shows. How did they fare?
- Published by David Knox
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In an article on the bad habits of network programming, representatives from Nine, Seven and TEN have spoken to news.com.au about their constant shuffling.
Nine’s Melbourne programming chief Len Downs says: “If a show comes in and the audience number is not viable, we’ll make a change.
“Obviously there are people who were watching the (dumped) program and they are the ones who are going to react. You don’t like doing it, but you have to move with the total number rather than the limited number watching.”
Seven’s Melbourne program and communications manager Brad Lyons and TEN’s head of programming Beverley McGarvey echo Downs’s sentiments on schedule shuffling.
“The shuffling happens because we get such instant feedback through ratings every morning,” Lyons says. “We move quickly because the audience is judging quicker than they used to.”
McGarvey believes it’s often a vocal minority who are upset when a show is dumped or moved.
“If only 500,000 people are watching, it means not enough people like it,” McGarvey says.
“I understand the frustration if a change is made and we miss program guide deadlines. We don’t take that lightly.”
On occasion, Nine’s Downs says, a network is forced to begin a program late to counteract the opposition.
“A good example is Cold Case, which is set up with a crime,” he says.
“At one stage, the first five minutes of Cold Case was being over-run by a competitor. If you switched over (from the other network), you missed the set-up of Cold Case. We said, ‘We’re not happy so we are going to time it so we will over-run to make sure that when they (viewers) do switch over they do get the set-up of our program’.”
It cannot be denied networks meddle with starting and finishing times to spoil each other. “They do. I’m not going to beat around the bush,” Downs says.
“You’ve got to be honest and say it’s about making a strategic move. And I don’t think anybody (network) can deny it.
“The recording of the shows (complaints about missing a show’s ending) . . . we’re not here to take into account that they are recording that particular show.”
Seven’s Lyons adds: “We want them to watch it when it goes to air.”
Viewers are also angered if a show they believed would be new turns out a repeat. No network will admit to mischief here, saying if a show is not marked as a repeat in a program guide it’s an honest mistake or a result of a production error on that guide.
“We don’t believe it’s in our interests to dupe people because they will find you out eventually,” TEN’s McGarvey says. “Some of our competitors are not so honest.”
Source: news.com.au
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23 Responses
They’re signing their own death warrants and handing extra hollow-tipped ammo to the firing squad. And we’ll watch them die a painful, slow death and just keep on “illegally” sourcing the shows elsewhere. What tools these guys are. Why are they in positions of power at TV networks? They’d be laughed out of the industry in any other country.
Lyons: “The shuffling happens because we get such instant feedback through ratings every morning.” Brad, that isn’t the audience! That’s a hand-picked teensy sample of suburbia. You trust those figures? More fool you.
“If only 500,000 people are watching, it means not enough people like it,” McGarvey says. McGarvey genuinely belies that half a million pissed-off viewers is a “vocal minority”! Astonishing.
Bev continues, “I understand the frustration if a change is made and we miss program guide deadlines. We don’t take that lightly.” Err, yes you do. If you “didn’t take it lightly” you’d reschedule the show and let viewers know before the move where it was going to be found, or make an announcement before the replacement show. Remember the viewers, Bev? You know, those poor sods that you think are inconveniences in your get-the-advertiser game?
As for Downs, well, he may feel all warm and fuzzy for “telling it like it is”, but the fact that he accepts deliberate late-running as a fact of life is truly disturbing. In no other country’s TV industry would this practice be considered acceptable.
And still the networks treat us (the consumers) with contempt.
Maybe instead of self regulation or no rules, maybe if they the networks started a programme more than 5 mins late, there was a penalty – say no advert allowed for 1 hour between 8 and 9 pm , they would get hint OT even no promotion of own shows for 24 hours..
Come on networks, be honest for once. You lie, You mislead us, You change your mind at a whim. Gee whiz, all mistakes you make in regards to a repeat or overrun or anything in the world, is just a hiccup. Go figure !!
I do wonder whether the US and UK and other countries are bound by law to start shows on time, or just being smart in not irritating their viewers. With cable in about half US households, and many more free to air stations than here, it just would be stupid to alienate their audience. Since we don’t have much more competition besides foxtel in about 30% of households and channel BT for those who choose, that would explain why our networks’ ratings aren’t dropping quickly.
Tomothy good memory of the old GCode….. but you’re wrong on The Simpsons. S19 began in Aus in May not Feb.
This bit cracks me up…
“McGarvey believes it’s often a vocal minority who are upset when a show is dumped or moved”
What an ignoramous…
Apparently, the only people who care are the ones who write/email the media about it…
I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there (the silent majority even), who are just as annoyed as us when they sit down to watch a show they’ve been looking forward to all week, just to find, all of a sudden it’s not on.
Another classic line…
“We don’t believe it’s in our interests to dupe people because they will find you out eventually,”
Channell 10 are one of the worst. I’ve learned over the years with shows like House, NCIS, Burn Notice & others, if it doesn’t say “all new” in the preview for a show, it’s going to be a repeat.
To me, that sounds like they’re trying to dupe us.
Regulation would be a fine thing, how about it?
Jay
side notes:
Does anyone use G-Code anymore? You would think the manufactuers should be suing the networks for making their service obsolete.
If AUS had broadband as fast as the US with unlimited data allowance, there would be no need to any FTA commercial networks, we could just download everything, including the AUS shows from particular websites for all AUS content.
Having just returned from the UK after 2 years there it is so frustrating to see that the stations in Oz continue to overrun programs (to be honest I didn’t expect any change!!).
Like Russell’s comment about the US, in the UK they also start and finish pretty much down to the minute they are advertised ie: no overrunning. They also show the season in full at the same time each week. This meant Sky Plus (like Foxtel IQ) worked like a dream. Unfortunately IQ doesn’t work so well here, and I find myself constantly having to record the following program so that I don’t miss the ending.
Mind you with the constant dumping/reshuffling of programs I now use BitTorrent more and more…
Surely with digital, they should be able to monitor everything we watch? I cant believe they finally admitted that they purposely run shows late. Normally they use the excuse that live shows inlcuding news and current affairs, “unfortunately run overtime due to breaking news” What a crock!
Brad Lyons really should look up what TiVo is, he might have to start some serious backpedalling.
Southpatt: “These guys do anything to pad the seasons out. He is right in one aspect though. I will name channel Nine as the worst offender”
You are so right, 22 eps of CSI spread accross 46 weeks – Shameful! Same with the new Simpsons on TEN. Season 19 had only 20 Eps, and TEN began showing them in Feb, and are just about to end the season!!
No wonder we all download. All their comments have just promoted the benifit of downloading, and is encouraging me further to do it.
They make me so ******* furious!
…”The recording of the shows . . . we’re not here to take into account that they are recording that particular show.”
That is exactly why the “ratings” are crap, clearly not an accurate reflection of the choices of the viewing audience … so they need to get their heads out of their collective ***** and introduce an accurate system that takes into account what people really want to watch … until then, all these excuses they make are invalid, weak and a discrace that the entire industry stands or falls on these false results!
If it is a show we reallywant to watch we will tape it and watch it later! Most people work all week, get home late or go to bed early so we have to tape what we want to watch. Get a grip on the real world!
Jack!
par3182 said “so they treat people who aren’t watching them with more respect than those who do?”
That’s exactly what they’re doing. Well said! I won’t watch channel 9, so I’ll be happy in the knowledge they respect my non-patronage.
Running show’s late so the foxtel iq or whatever pvr doesn’t get the ending, just encourages those people to download the show and to stop watching.
The networks get their game up with some programs so there’s no point downloading as you can just PVR them, but the attitude that they can shift them around, run them late encourages people to go back to illegal sources.
US networks are required by law to start and end programmes on the hour to the second (or advertised time)
It’s an amazing thing in the US at 9pm on a Monday when you can flick through 200 channels and see the each channels show starting at exactly the same time – almost to the second.
““We want them to watch it when it goes to air”
Blockbuster probably said 10 years ago “We want them to come in to the store and rent”
Time to understand that audiences want to consume your entertainment when it suits them Brad. Imagine if you could only listen to you favourite albums when the radio station played them. Seems backwards and out of date right?
People want to watch TV when it suits them. Live on iQ or TV. On their ipod or computer the next day. This kind of releunctance to evolve their business model will ultimately end up hurting them in the long run.
A forward thinking TV network would be looking to distribute their content across as many platforms as possible, and make money from it. Not just Tuesdays 7.30. When it suits them.
Oh, they overrun so I don’t miss the start of their shows? Fantastic. Oh what’s that I hear? BitTorrent will help me get my shows so i don’t need to wait around for their inconvenient, deceptive and arrogant ‘scheduling’ and ‘timing’. Even more fantastic! Ignore your audience at your peril.
Ratings – obviously they base this on the capitals but what about the large amount of viewers outside the capitals. With modern technology these days I cannot understand why ratings boxes or whatever they use cannot be in every home or a cheaper technology to record ratings.
The networks must understand that these days with new episodes available on the net, many people now just download the episode expecially those that are not fastracked.
Actually how many people are surveyed for ratings?
Surely after all these years Oztam can come up with a way to monitor timeshifting viewers either by IQ or VCR or whatever
“If only 500,000 people are watching, it means not enough people like it,” McGarvey says.
except the axing rate is more like 700000 people
“We want them to watch it when it goes to air.”
Kind of an odd thing to say considering Seven’s well publicised role behind the push for the widespread adoption of TiVo…
“we’re not here to take into account that they are recording that particular show.”
Hmm, deliberate ignorance of your viewing market…sounds like a fantastic way to eventually find yourself relegated to the status of “second tier media”
And how do they even get these viewing numbers? From a statistically insignificant sample of the public, filtered deliberately to eliminate viewers who could or would ever record or time-shift broadcast shows.
And yet they wonder why they need to scramble to “Fast Track” certain shows….
so they treat people who aren’t watching them with more respect than those who do?
A good example of an error was last night. TV Week has a new ep of NCIS but a re-run was shown, the reason being the ep had not aired in the US until later this morning our time. I guess that is a down side to fast tracking, they can’t air before the US.
IMO the networks should be more accountable, maybe the lower numbers on some shows are a direct result of the program shuffle, people holding off on watching a show if they believe it may be gone in a few weeks. Why invest the time in a new or returning show if you can’t see the whole series?
“We don’t believe it’s in our interests to dupe people because they will find you out eventually,”
What a load of codswallop. These guys do anything to pad the seasons out. He is right in one aspect though. I will name channel Nine as the worst offender
i think brad lyons from 7 needs to talk to the tivo marketing team “we want them to watch it when it goes to air” – ha! people do not want to have their schedules and lives dictated to them by a television station, we want to watch shows at our convienience not theirs. and if it came down to a choice of watching it when they tell us to or not at all i think they will find that we chose not at all, they can stick their programs if they are going to be inflexible jerks, get with the times and the technology you putz.
i record almost everything i watch, i do watch some of it live as well but i never know in advance if i will get that chance or not so i just program everything in. but i also know they never finish on time and so i set huge buffers just in case. so their nasty little over run tactic doesn’t stop me coz then i just playback from the start and fast forward the ads until i catch up to the live screening.