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ABC2 down to The Wire

In the first of a 2 part interview, ABC programmer Marena Manzoufas talks about ABC1 & ABC2 and wonders if The Wire will work when The West Wing couldn't.

17Marena Manzoufas isn’t a name that’s as well known as David Mott, Tim Worner or Michael Healy but it’s no less integral to our television viewing.

Manzoufas is Head of Programming for the ABC, a position she has held for the last 8 years. In the first of a rare two-part interview with TV Tonight, she talks about her approaches to ABC1 and ABC2, and the role of the public broadcaster.

Prior to working at the ABC, Manzoufas had roles in Programming & Acquisitions  at SBS and in sales at Beyond.

At ABC she is assisted by Deputy Network Programmer Ian Taylor and Programmer Natalie Edgar. In addition to programming tasks, her department is responsible for physical scheduling, classifications and captioning. ABC3 will be the responsibility of the Head of Children’s Television, Tim Brooke-Hunt.

“Natalie, Ian and I work together on both schedules. Natalie’s driving ABC2 schedule, I’m driving primetime on ABC1, Ian’s driving Arts and daytime on ABC1,” she says.

While ABC2 skews to a younger, more niche audience, ABC1 remains the broadly-appealing feature attraction, with themed nights that have a long track record.

“Monday night to an extent tends to be a more serious night, Tuesday night’s probably a little bit more factual and lighter. Wednesday night is comedy night. Thursday night is our documentary night. Friday is an entertainment night with detective dramas, similarly with Saturday. Sundays we try to make a little bit more family viewing on occasions at 7:30 and then the higher end dramas at 8:30.

“One of the reasons I think we do well on a Friday and Saturday night on ABC1 is that there’s not necessarily a lot of choice (elsewhere). It’s sport, sport and a movie occasionally. But the one thing I think we’ve delivered is a consistency. If it’s Friday night on ABC1 it’s probably going to be detectives.”

ABC2 is similarly themed kicking off with music and arts on Sundays.

“Monday nights tend to be male with things like Good Game, sci fi and anime. Tuesday nights we’re now trying to be younger, whereas in the past we’ve repeated The Bill there. Wednesday night on ABC2 is documentary night, Thursday is comedy including the repeats from ABC1. Friday night is a broad under 55 drama night with Torchwood, Being Human and coming up is Being Erica,” she says.

With each new title, Manzoufas has to make a decision about not just a night and timeslot, but which channel best suits an acquisition. Acknowledging that programming is more ‘art than science’, she says the decision has to factor in the demographic profile of the various slots and the available audience.

United States of Tara could sit very happily on ABC2,” she says. “But it’s a really strong show for ABC1. If you take something like The Beast it’s a more niche show. I couldn’t imagine it sitting in The Bill timeslot and attracting the same audience.”

The Beast, a US cop show starring Patrick Swayze and Travis Fimmel, begins this Tuesday on ABC2. It will be joined a week later by ABC’s first screening of the gritty and acclaimed US drama, The Wire, previously screened on Nine.

Manzoufas will be watching carefully for the response to these US dramas, given the audience is predominantly attached to Australian and British drama.

“What I find really interesting is there are two kinds of drama that I’ve never really been able to make work on ABC1,” she says.

“It tends to be contemporary British drama that’s not thriller. Things like Party Animals. The other was The West Wing. I would have bet money that it would have been absolutely right for our audience. It’s clever writing and fantastic acting. But it was a bitter disappointment. It just didn’t crack with the audience.

“I’m really interested to see how The Beast and The Wire go on ABC2 and then we’ve got Being Erica for Fridays. It’s from Canada and it’s quite sophisticated, a female younger female-skewing programming. I would be very surprised if it doesn’t work well on ABC2.”

Sometimes an acquisition for ABC1 will instead find a home on ABC2.

Beautiful People was actually bought for ABC1, but then I could see with our commitment to Australian entertainment and comedies we weren’t going to get it to air until summer. So it seemed to be better to give it a premiere on ABC2, and then it will play on ABC1 over summer and therefore be a bit more available to a broader audience.”

Whilst broadly appealing shows are the mainstay of ABC1, Manzoufas makes no apologies for scheduling shows which she knows will attract a smaller, discerning audience. As a public broadcaster, ABC has different goals, obligations and Charter responsibilities to commercial networks.

“We have a strong commitment to science programming, religion and ethics, and like the other networks we also have a commitment to drama, documentary and entertainment programmes. But because we are the national broadcaster hopefully most of our shareholders, who are the taxpayers, will find something that they want to watch. They may not want to watch us all the time but there is hopefully something there that appeals to them,” she says.

When she isn’t wading through the constant supply of documentaries, short-run dramas and comedies that cross her desk, Manzoufas admits to sampling drama and comedies airing on her competition.

“I love Thank God You’re Here,” she smiles. “That’s stay-home-Marena night I have to say. And I dip into reality shows. I dip in and have a look but I don’t become addicted as some of my colleagues. I like Amazing Race. Survivor I get a bit fed up with to be frank, I think they should grow up. But this year I’ve not been watching as much of the other networks as I’d like to.”

TOMORROW: What makes a typical ABC viewer? Doctor Who programming issues. Aussie drama. And does the ABC really not worry about ratings?

29 Responses

  1. I agree with Damien – please leave the repeat of The Bill on Tuesday evenings. I’ve been watching this cop drama for over 10 years and feel that its story lines often reflect trends, events etc. of current concern.
    Apparently the aim is to make ABC2 a “younger” channel? I would have thought that the younger audience is very well catered for at other times on ABC2 and the commercial channels. If your argument is that The Bill is a programme for fuddy-duddies (which I would dispute), then surely it’s not too much to ask that it be left where it is, a once-a-week 90-minute show. Not much out of your schedule, is it?
    I would also remind you that the older population is said to be increasing in number. We may be grey-haired but don’t we warrant a bit of consideration too?
    Yours disappointedly.

  2. So what’s happening with The Bill on ABC2?! Are they going to move it to a different time slot? I always watch the replay on Tuesday night as I am not able to catch it on a Saturday night.

  3. “Manzoufas will be watching carefully for the response to these US dramas, given the audience is predominantly attached to Australian and British drama.”

    I found that to be rather insightful. I always thought that ABC’s British skew had more to do with their BBC output deal, more than actually going out of their way to be more British.

    I’d argue the ‘typical ABC viewer’ (whoever they are, knowing how different ABC1 & ABC2 are from eachother these days) desire quality programming, no matter what country it comes from. Seven, Nine & TEN do a good job airing rubbish most of the time which happens to be American, while ABC also airs British rubbish (Beautiful People) & SBS can also air Australian rubbish (Bogan Pride).

    Not all American programmes are rubbish, as ABC & SBS are demonstrating at the moment, so their rusted-on viewers need to get over the death of the British Empire & PM Robert Menzies & stop being so xenophobic!

  4. LOL… bukashi.. Does their logo actually turn you away from the channel?? Lord, it’s not that bad.. The colour is a bit much, but i wouldn’t turn the channel over because of their logo.. hehe.. I’m sorry, but i mean, you watch a programme to watch a programme, not to watch the logo..

  5. Excellent article David. ABC are really leading the way at the moment. Strong content and respectful of their viewers. Looking forward to catching The Wire.

  6. ABC2 is a good channel. It often screens quality programs that don’t have the mainstream appeal to be shown on the main channel. It gives the ABC a lot more diversity and freedom to experiment with niche programs.

    My favourite ABC2 program is Good Game

  7. Congrats Marena and team for a job well done.

    You are leaving the commercials for dead (iview,abc2 etc) and with ABC2 you are showing them how to do a second digital channel that people actually want to watch.

    Wish we could slash politicians salaries and redirect to the ABC.

  8. I’m a huge ‘West Wing’ fan, and I was thrilled that the ABC aired it. The problem was that there was such a huge gap between when they aired in the US and when the ABC acquired them, that my whole family and I had already seen them. I watched every couple of weeks to support the show anyway, but as my favourite seasons were 1-3 I wasn’t as invested. That’s another thing I think they did wrong. They should have aired from season 1, rather than 4. I think maybe the viewers who had never seen the show before would have found it easier to get into at that stage. And a lot of the ones who had been watching it from the beginning would probably already have seen the episodes like we had, so the wait for ‘new’ episodes wouldn’t have been a big deal. I think it’s a show that definitely could have thrived on ABC 1 under different conditions (if the ABC had purchased the rights over Nine way back in ’99). I hope it’s not discouraging them from American drama (although I love all the British content!).

    I’m looking forward to ‘The Wire’ ! Good call airing it on ABC 2 – I’m sure it’s amazing and epic, etc, but the language alone would just turn off more traditional ABC viewers.
    P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!

  9. Party Animals was really good. I would like to see more American and Canadian programming on ABC2, even if it’s after other channels have cancelled it or Foxtel’s already shown it. It’s never really made much sense that the ABC shows so much British content but little other international stuff.

    I’m very interested in watching The Wire, but I won’t be watching it on ABC2. The reason is simple enough, it’s supposed to be truly excellent, so I want it to last and only want to watch an episode at a time, at my own pace.

  10. I’m a huge ‘West Wing’ fan, and I was thrilled that the ABC aired it. The problem was that there was such a huge gap between when they aired in the US and when the ABC acquired them, that my whole family and I had already seen them. I watched every couple of weeks to support the show anyway, but as my favourite seasons were 1-3 I wasn’t as invested. That’s another thing I think they did wrong. They should have aired from season 1, rather than 4. I think maybe the viewers who had never seen the show before would have found it easier to get into at that stage. And a lot of the ones who had been watching it from the beginning would probably already have seen the episodes like we had, so the wait for ‘new’ episodes wouldn’t have been a big deal. I think it’s a show that definitely could have thrived on ABC 1 under different conditions (if the ABC had purchased the rights over Nine way back in ’99). I hope it’s not discouraging them from American drama (although I love all the British content!).

    I’m looking forward to ‘The Wire’ ! Good call airing it on ABC 2 – I’m sure it’s amazing and epic, etc, but the language alone would just turn off more traditional ABC viewers.

  11. Why isn’t ABC 1’s Thursday night documentary never repeated anywhere? Not on ABC 2 or iview, possibly ABC NOW? I always watch TV Burp which means that I miss the Thursday documentary. Also, reading that Beautiful People will be repeated over summer, would its replacement How Not To Live Your Life be too?

  12. So I guess she is to blame for the lack of quality Australian drama in the last eight years and the ever increasing saturation of tacky American garbage. Send her packing, as it seems once she left SBS they finally got their act together.

  13. I’ve already watched the first episode of Being Erica and it’s well made and very entertaining. This would have popped up on one of the commercial networks if it wasn’t made for CBC in Canada. Hope this does well and look forward to other new content coming up on ABC2.

  14. Already been said by others , but West Wing ‘fail’ was no surprise cos desperates like myself already had bought the DVDs from overseas so no need to lock it in as ‘must see’ TV. From memory they also started from season 4 or 5 so the strongest seasons that got a lot of the audience hooked were potentially never seen by newcomers. On the other hand, if The WIre is being screened from the beginning then I’ll definitely be tuning in because it’s one of those frustrating shows you could never get a handle on with the constant chopping and changing on the other network.

  15. As a West Wing fan, I can tell you that by ABC taking over the airing of the show from Nine was the best thing..they did a series of catchup eps to bring everyone up to date then shown the rest of the series in double eps. Plenty of other WW fans would agree it was a great thing the ABC did!

    Hopefully the Wire will be good (esp for people who don’t have Foxtel). Oz was another of these shows that SBS brought in and did well

  16. Great interview. Manzoufas actually makes a lot of sense. ABC2 easily has the best programming of all the digital channels. I would love to see more anime though (perhaps Season 2 of Code Geass?)

  17. I didn’t mind double episodes of The West Wing being shown and consider it a wise move, as Australia was something like 2 years behind, after Nine had experienced declining ratings for it (it was too intelligent a show for their bogan viewers) and started screwing the show around. People who were into TWW
    had downloaded it by then, while others just waited to buy the DVDs. Had GO! existed 3 or 4 years ago, Nine could’ve moved TWW to it.

    With The Wire, it’ll rate very poorly for ABC2, as Aus viewers who are admirers would’ve seen it (since it finished up 18 months ago), or just bought the DVDs.

  18. Great interview. I encourage everyone to start tuning into ABC1 and ABC2 more frequently…they offer quality programs consistently, at the same time every week, and usually on time. That alone puts them miles ahead of the way the commercial nets treat viewers. And then there’s the bonus of no ads.

    On ABC2 alone…The Wire is one of the most critically acclaimed shows on TV. They recently wrapped Being Human and Boy Meets Girl, two refreshing, high-quality series. Being Erica looks like Quantum Leap meets a teen drama, could be fun. I’ll catch that on iView as time-shifted programming suits me a lot more as I’m usually out at night, especially Fridays.I never got into Dr Who or Torchwood but those shows are quite popular and get regular airings as well.

    The best thing is the consistency…you always know Media Watch will start at the same time on Monday, The Gruen Transfer/The Chaser will be uploaded onto iView by the day after the broadcast. I think I’m starting to sound like a publicist, but the way ABC treats their viewers is definitely commendable.

    There wouldn’t happen to be word of a new season of Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure would there? It wasn’t the most-highly rating show, but it was still a good series.

  19. I think the reason “The West Wing” , and potentially “The Wire” also, didn’t/won’t connect with the audience is the ridiculous move of screening two hours back to back. I completely love both shows, but they are not designed to be seen in two hour blocks. They are perfect as one hour morsels that leave you wanting more. So don’t show surprise Ms Manzoufis at “The West Wing” not hitting its mark. The fault lies not in the programs or the audience but in your own foolish programming. The same ridiculous choice also doomed the superb “Carnivale” from day one.

  20. An excellent insight to the ABC programmers, David. I look forward to Part 2 tomorrow.
    ABC2 is getting some good shows now.

    As an ABC shareholder and taxpayer, might I request of the ABC programmers that they severely mitigate the constant, coloured on-screen advertising for the ABC and, if they must, return to a much more subtle faded white version of their logo as they used to have.
    Did I miss the questions to the shareholders if they wanted coloured, on-screen logos ?
    If they return to faded white logo, I would watch more.

  21. I think The Wire show is excellent and is one of the best TV shows of all time, but if you dislike swearing, have zero interest in African American culture and are expecting something like The Sopranos (it isn’t that type of show), it probably isn’t for you. I can see why Nine onsold it, as it isn’t what you’d call a commercial show and wouldn’t have been a good fit on GO! or even on ABC1.

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