★★★★★ 0/5

Strong case for Rake

Good news for ABC Drama as Rake opens with a strong 900,000 viewers last night, with a second series in negotiation.

23
Leave a comment

Good news for ABC Drama as Rake opens with a strong 900,000 viewers last night.

The show was second in its timeslot, beaten only by Beauty & the Geek on 931,000. It took 302,000 viewers in Melbourne, more than the 269,000 watching in its home city of Sydney.

ABC1 Controller Brendan Dahill said, “I am thrilled with the audience response to Rake and we are already in negotiations with the producers for a second series.

“Scheduling Rake on a Thursday night was risky, as it is a long time since the network aired a drama on that night. But I felt viewers wanted some fun later in the week and this wonderfully irreverent drama series fitted the bill perfectly.”

The bad news for viewers is that the new Aussie drama took some viewers away from another, Rush on 773,000. It was fourth behind CSI on 894,000.

All top 5 rankings on Thursday fell to news and current affairs, with Seven News in first place on 1.37m.

Both Bondi Vet (923,000) and Keeping Up With The Joneses (909,000) won their slots for TEN.

Cops L.A.C (599,000) was beaten by How I Met Your Mother (690,000) -another first-run episode had to settle for just 410,000 at 10:30pm. I, Spry finished in fourth place on 545,000 behind Burn Notice (554,000).

Week 45

Amended.

23 Responses

  2. I have been recording Rake series and yesterday was the first time I got to watch it. Have to say I’m not usually a big fan of Aussie soaps/drama’s. But this show was very entertaining without going to over the top. In my opinion the ABC has hit a winner. I certainly hope the ratings did well enough to go at least a second series of this show. Kudo’s to all concerned. Well worth the watch.

  3. Loved Rake! Know a “Rake” myself… Characters cast beautifully. I was so glad I saw the preview by chance. Short and sweet was a brilliant idea, and of course there is room for another series. The boxset is on my list of purchases. Away with the ratings critics.

  4. Absolutely loved Rake. Is there going to be a second series?? Or would it just mean jumping the shark any way. Deep down I want to see more of the characters but I also recognise that it might be best as a one off.

  5. @Donald – you’re on this site quite a bit. How did you miss David’s three articles about it (2 since 31 Oct)? Do yourself a favour and check it out on iView.

  6. for the legal types watching, it was a mixed bag with numerous continuity errors, such as : the cannibal case was cited as a WA state law, but the courthouse was Darlinghurst District courtroom. The coffee shop scene was outside Society Cafe across the road from the NSW Supreme court, but I know, its just a drama…a fiction, a fable…good on the ABC for having a go and not importing more pommy git productions.

  7. Rake sure is a hit in the 55+ market, who are hungry for Aussie drama on the ABC, but the rest of the demos are not great. I hope it can build a younger audience as it goes along.

  8. JB, I just looked at the figures. 269k for Sydney vs. 302k for Melbourne is barely a 10% difference – I wouldn’t call that Sydney people not liking it, unless you’re also saying Melbourne people didn’t like it either.

  9. Mike,, those shows you mentioned are/were all on commercial channels. For the ABC this is an extremely good figure. Even if it drops off a bit it’s still a good figure for something on Aunty.

    This one slipped under my radar. Don’t remember seeing any ads for it. Obviously it’s synopsis in the EPG failed to pique my interest (wish more EPG synopsis told you what the show was about, instead of just a blow-by-blow of what the characters are doing in this episode – that tells me nothing about what the show is). Annoyed that I missed it since it got such a good reception.

  13. Congrats to the ABC, they may finally have a succesful Australian drama.

    Bryan G, premier ratings don’t always mean people will stay around and watch the full season. Look at Sea Patrol, Cops Lac.

    Also Bryan you do realise this was one of the lowest rated premiers for Australian drama in the last couple of years? Offspring, Cops, Rush and Rescue posted better premier results, and they haven’t exactly set the ratings world on fire.

    I can’t help but laugh at ABC’s premature response. By media standards it isn’t particuarly striong at all, it only looks impressive as this year ABC has been languishing in the ratings and they have had absolutely no luck in Australian drama for the past couple of years. East of Everything and Bed of Roses both got second series, so Rake maybe getting a second isn’t a surprise.

    I’m glad some people enjoyed it.

  14. I don’t think Sydney people like any Australian shows. There was a theory they just turned off shows based in Melbourne like Rush but they seem to avoid Australian shows altogether.

  16. R.I.P. Cops L.A.C.

    I almost missed recording Rake, can’t wait to get to it, for those who didn’t watch there is always iView.

    Rush last night was fantastic and a great 1st part, can’t wait for the conclusion next week.

  18. Looks like a previous poster, the rather negative “Mike” was wrong when he wrote a few days ago: “David, the verdict will be terrible ratings, as always … As a wild guess I’m going to say 500,000.”

    I really enjoyed it too and am pleased by the healthy ABC-TV ratings, coming in at #10 for the night. Shame it’s up against Rush which, like Rake, is just a little bit different from all the other current Australian series. More of both please!

Leave a Reply