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Nine backs Elton for third week

Nine's David Gyngell yesterday set the record straight on the state of play for Live From Planet Earth.

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Nine Entertainment CEO David Gyngell yesterday set the record straight on the state of play for Live From Planet Earth.

“Like everyone involved, of course I’m disappointed with the ratings for Ben’s show, but certainly not the energy and talent he and his team is putting into it,” he said.

“We continue to support local and international comedy, and it’s always better to chance you arm and have a go than to take the safe way out and do nothing.”

He confirmed the show for next week and almost certainly the week after despite bookies taking bets on the show being pulled before next week.

46 Responses

  1. @vinny – I was about to say the same thing.

    @PD – I think the thing to be aware of here is that Nine often bumps or drops shows that have twice the ratings of LfPE, that almost no-one is calling for to be axed, and which usually have a solid core of fans. What we have here is a show that is clearly tanking, and which lots of people are bagging and saying should be dumped.

    It really is quite contrary and if Nine don’t manage to understand what people really want and make a conscious effort not to p**s too many people off, they are going to finish a poor second to Seven this year.

  2. I love that for years people have been saying ‘why does Nine always cancel their shows so quickly?’ but when they decide to keep one everybody is all ‘why doesn’t Nine just cancel this crap already?!’

    If we want Nine to support the shows we like, we have to accept them supporting the shows we don’t like as well.

  5. I have split feeling about this. I think it’s very positive that for once Nine isn’t reacting to fear and yanking show’s off it schedule. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case last year.

    But lets all be honest here. I’m sure everyone involved in the Ben Elton show is talented, worked hard and did their best to get this show together. But for whatever reason it hasn’t worked.

    It’s TV and that’s what happens… sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t.

    As for Ben having a go at the people on twitter… well unfortunately like it or not twitter is a new indicator of how people view your content. I personally like the conversation that twitter creates around tv content. Often like in the case of MasterChef it helps the show and creates more momentum.

    It’s sad for the people who worked hard on this that it didn’t work, but no one died here, the world will keep spinning… and it’s time to move on and try and create something that people do want to watch.

  8. not surprising, i assume it is for contract reasons, i hear there are 4 eps that need to be made, sometimes it is just as economical to just sit out the storm. but it will be more than just the ratings that are the issue, Mx melbourne had its flopness on its front page yesterday. it will be very damaging to 9 if they want to push the message that they are the ‘home of laughter’

    on a good note, Conviction Kitchen, which looks alright, will be getting a free run next week on 7, could be a hit.

  9. Australians use to be good at this kind of comedy. fastforward, d gen etc.
    Use to have me in stitches. Now, we are as bad at this kind of comedy as we are at sit coms. Maybe if the people who make this kind of show realised that just dressing someone up to look similar to the person they are mimicking or that talking in a loud voice and just saying stupid things, isn’t funny. Yes fastforward and d gen use to act stupidly. But it had its place.

  12. I was under the understanding that Nine was contractually obliged to show six episodes of the show, or pay out the contact.
    So I would imagine Gyngell is just waiting out the storm.

  14. What are they aiming for here by running the third and fouth shows? I suppose the record for the lowest rating 9.30pm Tuesday commercial network show is always up for grabs Gyngell…if you really want the title.

  20. David Gyngell its time to admit this show doesn’t work and wont work, Axe it now and bring back hey hey its Saturday, why wont you and channel 9 listen to the public?

  22. I just don’t get y Channel 9 are complaining about the ratings for Hey Hey it usually rated Better that the movies that were on, on the other channel 🙂 so i don’t think it did that bad, plus i love the show. Bring bak Hey Hey

  25. The only possible reason is they are contractually obligated to do so.

    From what I hear the show is beyond bad and the ratings the same. It’s not growing.

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