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Odd Programming Moves Inc.

If you like Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, The Vampire Diaries or Moonlight try not to get confused. And what's with these late weeknight films?

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joncryerNine’s upcoming schedule has some strange programming moves.

The new Two and a Half Men episode that premiered on Monday is not being followed up with further new eps yet. Instead The Big Bang Theory is back for the next two weeks. So far two eps have aired in the US.

And that new Vampire Diaries that aired on Tuesday? The rest are all on GO! Seems it was just a repeat. Meanwhile the plan to bizarrely return Moonlight is now shelved too.

Instead Nine will premiere Spiderman 3 -yes another movie on a school night (Tuesday October 13), set to run from 8:30 – 11:30. Yikes. Next Tuesday it has the Transformers premiere on Tuesday. Great flick but again it doesn’t finish until 11:30! What’s going on?

Nine is certainly getting into movie mode in the last few weeks of the ratings year with weekend repeats of The Shawshank Redemption and Happy Feet also coming. How long until The Wizard of Oz?

However, it does have the tough Blood Diamond premiere coming at 9:45pm Saturday October 17th.

While we’re on the movie subject even TEN has Love, Actually back in the planner for the umpteenth time, on Friday October 16th.

Pray we don’t get About a Boy…

37 Responses

  1. Let’s consider the reasoning for a minute.

    Vampire Diaries has always been a Go! programme. We all know that. They;ve been talking about it for months. The ratings were soft, and the run on Nine was to try and boost sampling. Nothing odd about that at all.

    The BIg Bang Theory has beat 2.5 Men in the US over the last 2 weeks, so Nine is obvioulsy feeling it has another sitcom on the cusp of breaking out and no doubt Nine is testing the water with some special screenings to try and boost sampling among the 2.5 Men crowd. If it goes well, NIne will probably spin Big Bang off to a regular slot.

    And the Movies on Tuesday? Ten has monster hit NCIS and Seven has anothet steamroller: Packed to the Rafters. So Nine is counter programming with movies. No point trying to go up against those 2 mighty shows when there is not much potential audience left. They are cutting their losses.

    I don’t see any of these 3 moves as odd. Logic in all of them.

  6. Reading most of the comments here, it’s simple that the networks need to realise that they shouldn’t program for the masses, but solely program for the readers of TV Tonight.

  9. Bizarre programming again.
    Who supervisors these fools/clowns ?
    Or do the network programmers actually think they got it right and the vast majority of viewing public are wrong.
    P.S. TV guides are becoming obsolete

  10. Oh come on Ten time to restock your movie list. There’ s sale at Big W, go down and get a few dvds, and not more copies of Love Actually, or About a Boy.

  15. par 3182, that is your opinion, I loved Transformers and know many more who also did, and I thought T2 rocked too, so bring it on, and being school hols in NSW wont hurt the ratings in Australia’s number 1 tv market

  16. Why no more 2.5 men? This is stupid! If I was interest enough I’d watch it by other means. And I know it was probably always meant to be a one off but now continuing with VD on Nine is a dumb move. At least keep it as a ‘encore’ for those who don’t have digital yet.

  17. @Jack: yes, exactly! And with Foxtel in a good percentage of homes, why would anybody want to see a movie watermarked, overlaid with promos, ads and lotto numbers, chopped into 7 minute pieces and interrupted between them by 5 minutes of shouty ads, and with the end credits speeded up a hundred times so you can have some irrelevant program shouted about at you?

    Seven, curiously, didn’t run City Homicide on their HD channel last night. Two kids’ movies ran instead. Movies the kids would have seen many times before, but which the City Homicide fans would not have been pleased with (thankfully those with Ice Interactive got the SD version). Seven’s flagship drama, made in HD, but not shown in HD because of some random programming decision? Madness.

  19. Channel Ten have been going so well in putting on a lot of classic 90’s movies such as Home Alone 2 and Mrs Doubtfire. Repeating Love Actually seems to be a return to their old ways. If it was at Christmas time, I could understand. But, at a time like now, it’s not necessary.

    When you think of the premieres of Transformers and Spider-Man 3, you think that Nine are just trying to screen some new movies because they can. But when you throw Shawshank Redemption into it, you just know that Nine are trying to be lazy. They have had Little Britain for ages, but have been trying to avoid screening it for a long time, by putting on movies and stuff. At least, it’s good to see the absence of adults only Two and a Half Men, which is not much different to the regulars.

  23. hopefully we will see all of season 2 of big bang on channel nine and the repeats will continue on go !

    I would like to meet these channel nine programmers !

  25. Surely everyone must admit that something is clearly wrong with the TV ratings system if a Network thinks repeats of repeats of movies that people have seen at the cinema, then hired on DVD and probably bought during a budget DVD sale are better TV than new episodes of shows … no wonder shows get cancelled when they should not have …
    It is definitely time that the “ratings” in this country are scrapped in favour of a more realistic measurement of what people really watch and also record to watch later which are always their favourite shows!
    Enough! Aussie TV has officially gone to the dogs…. and clearly forced everyone to the internet to download … no one to blame but the Networks themselves for that!
    Jack!

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