★★★★★ 0/5

Seven showing Lost -but where is Part 2?

Seven made a great move in adding Lost to 7HD but not when it means holding off Part 2 of the premiere for Room for Improvement.

36
Leave a comment

First the accolades…

It’s great that 7TWO is screening Lost at a decent timeslot tomorrow night.

It premieres at 9:30pm in a two hour episode, following a one hour special at 8:30. A week later it settles into the 8:30pm slot.

It’s also great that it is screening at 11:30pm on Seven for those without Digital TV, and even better that it can be seen in high definition on 7HD.

What’s not so great is that Seven has opted to screen just the first episode on Seven / 7HD. Instead of showing Part 2 as it will on 7TWO, Seven will air reruns of defunct lifestyle show Room for Improvement.

That will separate the Lost audience in Australia into those with digital and those without. The latter will have to wait a week later to see Part 2 of the season premiere.

The Lost audience is ferocious for this show, even more so when it’s the final season. In this era of PVRs it is better to air the show late than a week later.

While TV Tonight has been fielding enquiries from confused fans, even the Sydney Morning Herald noted, “Time-shifting Lost on 7TWO makes sense, but letting the main channel fall an episode behind seems strange. It doesn’t bode well for how Seven is likely to treat the rest of the series.”

Such a move also makes it impossible for sites like this one to be openly discussing the show when some of the audience, including some regional viewers, will be stuck behind the rest of us.

NB: In keeping with this site’s policy, there will be no Spoiler alerts for episodes that have already aired in Australia. Sorry Seven viewers!

36 Responses

  1. I actually don’t have digital TV and so am delighted Ch 7 has seen fit to screen Lost on its usual channel as well.

    Clever way of doubling its audience – although I’m upset it hasn’t done the same thing for Heroes, which is only shown on 7Two.

    Knowing me, I’ll probably get a digital TV the week before the signal is switched off in 3 years time.

    As always it’s not about the quality of the picture but the quality of the shows!!!!

  3. In this day and age, if you have a computer with the internet, then you should have a digital set top box.
    I think the replay on the main channel is just to silence the cheap viewer whos too cheap to pay less then $50 for a stb, or for the lone regional who still cant receive digital signals.
    Be happy its getting a play on the main channel anyway, i dont see heroes getting a main channel replay, and one would assume given their past ratings, the two shows have a similar audience

  4. It seems ironic that at a time when virtually all new TVs for sale are “True HD” and more and more shows are shot in HD, our TV stations offer less and less content in HD

  5. Don’t see the big deal really I mean for instance all channel 10 shows are not in HD because of 1hd, all other shows on 7two and most GO shows other then Big Bang Therory, Wipeout and maybe the odd movie that screen on 9 are in not in HD and finially with the 3rd digital channels coming won’t that mean 7 and 9 content won’t be in HD content any longer unless they are breakaway channels during non primetime. I mean it is still airing on seven hd who cares if you have to wait an extra week.

  7. Marco, I was referring to Room For Improvment when I said axed. As David wrote in his story “…Seven will air reruns of defunct lifestyle show Room for Improvement.” Which means they are giving preference to reruns of an axed or defunct show (Room for Imrpovement) over episodes of a first-run show (Lost).

  9. So we’re criticising 7 for promoting digital take-up.

    Stop whinging about nothing at all. Even if you live in an area without 7 Two, you are not missing out on anything.

  10. I also assume there would be some online content, including catchup TV and persumably some sort of localised blog and forum on the seven site, which would only benefit by allowing non-digital to catch up sooner rather than later.

  11. I forget exactly how ratings work, but if i were to guess that this may be something related to the 6pm-12am bracket, then just show part 2 the following night. Its a one-off, not going to be needed to occur again.

    And if Seven have come to their senses but regretably can’t do a thur screening this week due to lack of foreplanned advertising to support its screening, then do a two episodes (1 wed, 1 thur) next week. Its un-ideal, because the premiere is meant to be treated like a double-episode, but its a reasonable fix/compromise.

  12. The large majority of what Aus fans are left of the Lost show,don’t have to watch it and/or aren’t waiting to see it on free to air,so you know how they’re seeing it.

  15. If there’s one show on TV that you’re going to timeshift and create alternate timelines for…its only appropriate that its Lost.
    Confusing work from Seven though and unlikely to endear them to anyone.

  16. 7two has (from what I’ve seen) been pretty good about keeping to a schedule, especially for the popular US shows that were once on seven (Ugly Betty, 24, etc).

  18. David, to make matters even more confusing, PRIME is begining airing the final season of Lost this Wednesday nite at 11:30 from episode 1. So that will we three strands of Lost season six aring, all within three episodes of each other.

    The Illawarra has the third biggest population in NSW, 463,000 people!

    It should have acess to the same channels as everyone else.

  20. I don’t mind this move at all. It may push further people who have not yet gone digital to make the move to get a set top box if they love Lost that much.

  22. What are they thinking after midnight and they would rather upset fan and show a re-run of a reality show than keep viewers up to date, bad move Seven.

    Maybe this is all to get more people to move to digital but what of those in areas without 7TWO?

  23. Oh come on Seven, you have got to be kidding.
    Luckily I have already seen the episodes. Not everyone is able to have that access and they are likely to also not have access to 7Two.

  24. That’s a really major kick in the balls for Lost fans… They giveth with one hand, taketh with another… Nothing is ever as it seems in commercial TV land…

    There’s a reason people do what they do to obtain copies of shows which routinely get screwed about.

  25. So episodes premiere on fledgling upstart network 7TWO and repeat a week later on Seven.

    Makes perfect sense to me.

    Seven is trying to build up 7TWO’s audience and increase digital take up. The more people who take up Freeview may not take up Pay TV or migrate over to pay.

    Makes perfect sense. And quite common in the UK.

Leave a Reply