Merlin zaps homeMADE premiere
Nine's new renovation series fails to live up to the hype, with a magical kid causing havoc for rival programmers.
- Published by David Knox
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The idea of renovating homes on Channel Nine’s homeMADE did not resonate with viewers, coming third in its timeslot with just 1.02m viewers.
With all the promotion Nine did for the show it was a disappointing result, and Nine is counting on the show performing mid year along with Sea Patrol as its big local brands.
Winning the timeslot was Merlin on 1.3m viewers with Sunday Night a close second on 1.29m.
Most concerningly for Nine, the show had a strong lead in with 1.49m for Nine News. Sunday Night also dropped from its lead in of 1.57m. It seems Merlin is proving a little magic can go a long way. Viewers with long memories will well remember the Sunday 6:30pm slot was once the mainstay of family entertainment and TEN appears to have struck a chord with a well-made fantasy.
TEN would also be pleased with the 1.47m for MasterChef Australia -that’s better than So You Think You Can Dance was netting. So early in its life, the figure is an encouraging sign for TEN. Rove also charted over the 1m mark although Harper’s Island was somewhat softer on 575,000.
On the ABC Dirt Game seems to have plateaued on 566,000 -a disappointment for local drama.
This year Sunday viewing has been all over the place. The commercial networks have each won Sunday shares, making life very testy for programmers.
Still healthy competition and variety is good for all.
31 Responses
I am also watching Merlin, where I never thought I would. It is quite nice and easy on a Sunday night.
Ugly Betty used to be on Sunday night and I watched it then. The moment it moved nights I stopped watching it. Weird isn’t it. There are some shows that are more suited to a particular night than others. The only thing I can think of is that on a Sunday I am more relaxed and receptive to fluff shows. Whereas during the week I tend to be more diserning as to what I watch.
As to 9 and their reno shows. I do thing there is such a thing as shows matching the mood of the country and unfortunately events overtook this show.
Overall, I always get the feeling that 9 is flogging stuff to me with not so covert product placement, or deliberating trying to pull my heart strings with over the top sob stories. I really resent this type of manipulation. So even when I would like a show, such as missing pieces, I will avoid it on principal.
I should have added on my last post that I did tape Merlin last night because I am enjoying it and love the fact that Ten have given it a prime time spot – well done Ten – I also enjoyed Harpers Island last night even though it appears a tad predictable. Agree that Masterchef Australia is also worth a watch – the contestants are not all glamour queens and they are required to produce a lot – I’m not a big fan of reality tv – but this is a little less pretentious than most and they do represent a broader and more realistic cross section of the community.
Not normally a big fan of Network Ten either but they have made a few good programming choices lately.
I watched this show and it was everything I expected – overly pretentious host, self indulgent contestants, predictable set up and just nothing original – it was like a bad remix of all the bad reality shows we’ve seen beforfe – I mean what was original about last night’s show – nothing – how many times have we seen 10 ego driven contestants arrive at a mansion to then be given a task, to compete and then face elimination.
And the most annoying thing about last night’s show was the ongoing and often unneccessary commentary by the host – it along with the blatant product placment was just embarrasing – the contestants gushing about the how they could communicate so well all on their mobiles should have been enough to irritate anyone still watching.
As some of the contributors have said on this blog – this is a show that viewers in a recession just will not relate to – who wants to see a bunch of pretentious 20 somethings crying because their $50,000 a week interior design allowance just wont go far enough – give me a break…it just wants to make you pewk… give this show a big miss!
Nine showed me more than enough of HomeMade in their 10 min promos (10 mins of a 23 min program!) to show me that I wouldn’t like it so didn’t watch. Also, kids control the remote at 6:30pm. This is where “Disneyland” etc. were at home, hence the success of “Merlin”, aside from the fact that it’s much more entertaining.
I’m hoping TEN will run an Encore of Harper’s Island, Maybe Friday drop on of the L&O eps and have it at 9:30?
re. Matt “how much longer will Sunday night last”…
Judging by the comparatively low audience figures, I think the programmers would probably rather get rid of Saturday. It hasn’t been pulling it’s weight in the weekly ratings for about 50 years now, and quite frankly I think it’s time to go.
I don’t mind sunday night, watched the first story on this week’s about the big waves in tahiti, looked soo good.
I can understand why Harper’s Island got such a low rating. I watched it all and it was fairly dull the first episode, but the series needs time to build up to the main story and excitement I guess.
I’m glad TEN’s shows are working out for them, because they always have to work hard for a hit (so expect MasterChef to screen on Seven this time next year! LOL). Seven’s obviously doing very well but Nine would have to be worried for the rest of the year, with no Underbelly and homeMADE tanking (a Sunday and Tuesday tentpole). Apart from Farmer Wants a Wife and Sea Patrol I can’t think of a show on Nine that consistently gets 1.3-1.4mill+, which must be concerning.
wow tough break for nine.
yeah I was a little over it after seeing endless promotions for it on tv.
im actually enjoying both merlin and masterchef – which is stranger, because i didnt thin i would because they were both advertised to death. Merlin is just simple escapism, which is perfect for whats needed today – I bet if the programmers tested more shows like – oh i dont know, sci-fi type shows – they’d rate a lot better – because more and more people dont want to be watching cop shows / reality tv shows – they just want simple escapism.
With masterchef – im enjoying it because i’m learning something from it. I tune out when they bring on “whats going on at the house”, but when it comes down to the actual cooking sides of things, im liking it a lot more than i thought i ever would.
Now, how about it – more sci-fi fantasy please ?
Anyone wanna take bets on how much longer sunday night is going to last? 😀
Personally I gave up on it a couple of weeks after if premiered back in feb, thought it was week as…..
As for Merlin, really liking this show….. glad it is rating well for 10. 😉
This is great news for TEN. I missed the repeat/encore yesterday so I didnt watch episode 2. I now feel like I might be missing out on something, if the ratings were that high for ep 2, then TEN might actually show the entire season.
HomeMADE I put on the PVR and watched later so I could fast forward though the commercials and the “coming up after the break” previews. Product placement almost as heavy as The Block, and the comment about the video call on the Telstra mobile phone almost seemed like a forced commercial for Telstra NextG. Wasnt impressed with the makeovers, and couldnt find a likeable contestant. They are all ditzy or dull. I dont see myself continuing with this show.
Maybe we should be bringing Sarah Beeny to Australia and do a version of Property Ladder for LifeStyle, it works for Selling Houses.
Given up on Sunday night after about the fourth episode where Grant Denyer was brought in to do a story on single country folk. This is not current affairs, it is Sunrise purile fluff.
Craig, the ONE’S F1 coverage started from 9pm yesterday with the pre-race show and 9.50pm for the actual race.
I missed this weeks merlin! Will ten be repeating it (aka giving it an encore) this week at all?
Merlin really lived up the promos TEN had for it.. its actually is epic and has left Australia spellbound.
Good points made. That’s exactly right isn’t it, we’re in a recession, people are strauggling with money, and Nine want us to watch a show where a bunch of idiots get thousands of dollars to do lavish renovations.
I think that’s why Better Homes and Gardens does so well, because it provides realistic things people at home can do. Seven should look at bringing back Great Outdoors, only focus on cheap travel options in this country instead of expensive world wide holidays.
Yeah, terrible time to see first-time designers complaining about their $50,000 renovation budgets when their audience are suffering a recession, probably stressing about paying the mortgage let alone renovating anything. To be fair, it would have been commissioned before the impact of the financial crisis became clear but Ch9 have chosen to program it anyway. All I got from the episode was that they were running out of money and time…was there anything I missed? I was expecting something a bit more instructional, “we’re knocking out this wall because blah blah…”
And good numbers for MasterChef last night is lucky because it had a sharp drop late last week. Hopefully it’ll stay consistent around 1.2 million this week.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I am amazed that Merlin outrated the new Reno Show …
I am thrilled that Australia is catching on to Merlin which is a show that had me hooked from the very first episode … hanging out for season 2 … I even watched the repeat on Sunday (for the fourth time!) … it gets even better as it goes on … wait till Lancelot appears in the next couple of weeks!
Jack!
They over promoted the show simple as that, people were tired of it before it began.
Go merlin, I wonder how they mid-day ep1 encore did? Wonder if it did a lot to help maintain the ratings this week, as word of mouth spread people who missed the first episode could have caught the encore and joined on for the second ep and the rest of the season. I would not be surprised if merlin continued to grow as people realise that 10 is not going to axe it like they assumed they would.
When was the F1 coverage on ONE HD?
Maybe it took some of the audiance share from 10’s own Harper’s Island?
The Smallville, Xena and Hercules action drama fantasy shows rated very well initially for Ten and we saw what happend to them.
and homeMADE joins the long list of failed reno shows. Domestic blitz, battlefronts, the outdoor room, second chance, guerilla gariners, ect. most of them were in sunday 6:30. don’t know why they thought this was a good idea.
Domestic Blitz can’t be dubbed as a failed show in the same sentence as some of those others. It petered out somewhat recently but it was also a hit last year and we are promised will return. Second Chance was a special.
Perhaps one reason why a home reno show won’t work well at the moment (apart from being promoted to death) is due to the fact noone has money and don’t want to see this kind of show where they are spending money doing up houses.
Whereas Masterchef’s success (apart from being reasonably different) may be attributed to more peoplpe interested in cooking at home rather than going out also due to not having much money now.
And traditionally, don’t fantasy shows like Merlin work better in harder times?