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Thank God for $1m

Until Tuesday TEN programmer David Mott thought he had his favourite comedy in the bag. Until Seven opened its chequebook.

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Figures about how much money was paid in the tussle over Thank God You’re Here continue.

Yesterday there was a suggestion TEN had offered $1m an episode but were beaten by Seven at $1.4m.

Today, that is scaled back somewhat to an offer of $1m from Seven. It’s a staggering amount for Australian television. We have dramas produced on slimmer budgets than that, and here’s one which celebrates the fact it doesn’t even use a script!

Until Tuesday, TEN programmer David Mott believed he had a deal with Working Dog.

“It’s fair to say I’m very disappointed after all the work we have done together,” Mott told Confidential.

“I know what we put on the table was very significant and we were willing to go there on that and truthfully I thought that would do it given what we’d all achieved together. What we put forward on the table was significant – that’s the best way to describe it.”

Producer Michael Hirsch informed Mott of the news before Seven broke the news.

But Seven’s head of programming Tim Worner was not sorry for Mott.

“Rule No. 1 in arse coverage when you’ve lost something is to say that the opposition has paid too much,” he said.

Ouch.

Source: Daily Telegraph

54 Responses

  1. @Jerome – I’d imagain SEVEN need not pay any more than they are currently paying. Working Dog is a production company they would be doing the show of their own backs, hence why its hard for networks to interfere, SEVEN have the rights to air the show, they don’t pay for the production, that said though. The production gets it $$ from networks paying for the rights to the show.

  2. Hi Neil, no i’m not a spin doctor, just someone calling things as they see it. I actually agree with a lot of what you said. PTTR and City Homocide have come about with a lot of hard work, and have been rewarded with good ratings. My point was that TEN work really hard for their ratings. They can put the same hard work into their shows and will only get half the viewers. When TEN shows crap, they get crap ratings. When Seven shows crap, they often get fantastic ratings.

    As for Big Brother – when you simplify the concept to “a bunch of people thrown into a house,for viewers to then SMS in each week and vote them out”, of course it sounds stupid. It’s not always brilliant tv, but there is substance and depth there if you choose to look for it.

  3. The problem is that TGYH also isn’t a dvd bonanza sort of show. I mean, it will sell a bit, but nothing like traditional dramas and sitcoms.

    The $1 million per episode would have been a lot smarter for Ten to spend. I mean, for Seven, TGYH, with its ratings, will be somewhere in the top ten of shows, whereas for Ten it was its highest rated show.

    But remember, it’s not just about the ratings that it gets, but the ratings it denies Ten from getting.

  6. JB, are you a TEN spin doctor or what? What’s “in depth” about a bunch of people thrown into a house,for viewers to then SMS in each week and vote them out? I might not like factuals, but I sure as hell wouldn’t go saying they have less “substance” than one of TEN’s dead reality series
    And Seven don’t work for their ratings points? PTTR is the hit of the year which only came to being with some hard work, whilst City Homicide was re-shot to become what it is today. The network may have some poor series, but are TEN & Nine any different with all their poor-programing attempts?
    TEN are screening a decade-old sitcom in their primetime 7pm slot for godsakes! They have continued to make some of the worst programming decisions all year and continue to swap and drop shows all over the shop.

    TEN can cry and sook as much as they like, but Working Dog have ditched them for a better deal – it’s not personal, it’s just business

  7. i think channel 7 invested in tgyh to help them attract younger demo and may not be looking to profit from the show but use it to change peoples perception that 7 is an oldies channel.

  8. guys when you look at what the tv world spends their money on eg. gladiatiors was $1.1m – 1.2m per episode and that was only drawing 1.2m viewers by the end. (thats like $1 per viewer) Assuming they use this budget and there is no more gladiators this is money very well spent. if i were 9 or 10 (esp 10) i would have gone higher although i’m not aware of their financial situation.

    @tim, i’m sure their is more to it than money, such as wanting a bigger audience, that probably would not have happened given the state of TEn and a change of host.

    thank god is a high budget show and it shows through the consistently detailed sets and it obviously works. can anyone tell me if any of this money goes towards making the show or is this purely for the rights? and does 7 still have to pay some?

  9. That’s not ouch. That’s just Seven being rude, arrogant and smart-arsed again.
    It shows a lot more character to be restrained, professional and honest, which is what TEN have done. Clearly TEN aren’t interested in the immature mind games and media spin that Seven are good at.

    Seven may be the #1 network, but really they aren’t all that great. Seven News, Today Tonight, Home & Away and most of their other shows are dumbed down pieces of fluff that lack any real substance. Unfortunately they appeal to the family-focused, conservative masses. High ratings doesn’t equate to quality.

    On the other hand, TEN rarely dumb down for the masses. People will bad-mouth their shows like Big Brother and Idol, but really these shows have much more depth and substance than, say, Border Security and Animal Rescue. TEN have to work really hard for every ratings point they get, and to get a hit like Thank God a lot of things had to go their way. In a perfect world, they really deserved to keep the show. Unfortunately this is not a perfect world, hence why Seven is #1 off the back of many genuinely bad shows. In the same way that Top 20 singles charts don’t actually reflect the quality of song-writing.

  10. Working Dog! Shame! Shame! You did what every greedy person will do stab people in the back for money. Channel Ten has been good to you and they let you do whatever you want. I used to watch show and the panel but not anymore! I hope you fail and realize the viewers are not stupid and don’t fall for this crap! Channel Seven will have their moment of problems when in the future, what comes around, goes around. Karma. Same goes to Working Dog shows.

  12. I recall reading about the average 30 second ad costing about $25,000 here (around 1.4m viewers and unknown demos), so going by this, they would have to get about 1.4m just to break even.

  13. I thought it would have been closer to 1mill. Based on those costs Im assuming it would need an average of atleast 1.5m – 1.7m to be worthy of it’s pricetag

  14. If 10 were smart they’d start a story about the ‘lack of scripting’ on this show. I have always found it very hard to believe that the improv on this show was 100% genuine.

  15. Who would have thought that Working Dog, who started out on ABC, would succumb to greed, surely there is more to it than money. Id like to hear a good excuse from Tom G for the switch and it better be a good reason after stabbing 10 in the back (and dont give me the exposing it to a different audience BS).

  16. Worner makes himself look like an arrogant arse. What happened to being genuine and telling the truth, which is what Mott has done. I’m not defending TEN they’ve made some stupid programming decisions of late.

    1 million per episode is waaaaaaaaaayyyyy too much for this show, you could almost produce 2 dramas on that budget per episode, and this has jack all to it, not a very expensive show in reality. For that amount they’re going to want to be praying it rate in excess of 1.9 million and they charge a bucket load for advertising space.

    As I’ve mentioned in previous threads, TGYH is a very repetitive show I grew tired of it in Season 2.

  19. “Rule No. 1 in arse coverage when you’ve lost something is to say that the opposition has paid too much,” he said.

    What a d***head! Seven are plain rude and greedy.

  20. “Rule No. 1 in arse coverage when you’ve lost something is to say that the opposition has paid too much,”

    Well, Seven would know that rule inside out – They bleated that one out when Nine and Ten got the AFL rights the first time and recently when Nine got the London Olympics.

    My question in all of this is the comment about “finding a new audience” as one of the justifications for the channel move – what was wrong with the old audience who actually made the show!!! Given that level of arrogance, they are certainly going to fit in well at Seven

  21. Any word on what the deal actually is? Are they buying a season at a time, or a number of episodes, or a year, or a number of years?

    2 seasons of 13 eps a year would be great. I’m sure they wouldn’t do a full 40+ week Aussie TV season.

  22. i’ll watch it wherever it goes… although, to me, it’s not a 7 show, it always seemed at home on 10… not looking forward to the ‘cross promotion’ that always happens on 7

  24. I think those first figures you quoted are closer to the truth. SEVEN were the bullies who could afford to offer a ridiculous amount of money…and Working Dog didn’t let a long standing relationship or loyalty get in the way of their greed.

  25. In a TV climate where it’s increasingly not just about ratings but rather a cost -v-ratings return ratio – this is very interesting.

    Sure “Thank God” will no doubt pull big numbers for Seven. But at a $1 million per ep licence fee – it’s gonna want to pull major major numbers for Seven to be able to make a profit out of that show. Seven’s going to have to be able to sell $1 million worth of advertising per episode to even brake even with this show.

    For that kind of licence fee Seven will be wanting ratings of near the 2 million mark in top 5 markets and about 2.8 million nationally.

    Compare that to an hour of factual TV (The Zoo, Find My Family, Border) etc which would cost Seven about $200,000 an hour – and pull similar numbers.
    That means these factual shows are about 3-4 times more profitable for Seven than an ep of “Thank God”

    Sure they got a heavy hitter here – but at what cost?

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