Sitcom lost its Sheen: Nine pulls Two & a Half Men.
Updated: Nine pulls repeats of Two and a Half Men from its 7pm timeslot -but only in Brisbane.
- Published by David Knox
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The Nine Network has finally pulled repeats of Two and a Half Men from its 7pm timeslot -but it is sticking by Chuck Lorre.
UPDATED: 2.5 Men is out in the Brisbane market only with TBBT in place. Nine must be testing the waters.
From tomorrow night it will air repeats of The Big Bang Theory, one of three Lorre comedies that air on the network.
The move sees the network finally respond to the headline-grabbing behaviour of the star after enjoying top ratings with the show for more than three years.
Last week the show slipped as low as 545,000 viewers on Thursday, fourth in its timeslot. Recent ratings suggest the audience is no longer seeing the joke on the sitcom and Sheen’s bitter tirades make it increasingly difficult to separate life from art.
In his latest bitter tirade, Sheen says he would be unable to work on the show again under the current producers.
Even Nine’s own News and Current Affairs programmes have been documenting his trainwreck life.
However, Nine still has five new episodes of the sitcom, several of which are currently still scheduled at 7:30pm Mondays.
The Big Bang Theory, which airs on Nine along with Lorre’s Mike and Molly, is now at risk of saturating Nine’s schedule. New and repeat episodes are in place for Tuesday and Wednesday as well as six episodes this week on GO!
But Nine may yet adjust its schedule to reflect the Sheen dramas.
While Sheen’s conduct is hardly the domain of the Nine Network, it isn’t ideal when it is pushing its “Home of Comedy” campaign for 2011. At least there was better news in announcing Hamish and Andy on Friday. They’re not likely to be offending anybody.
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- Tagged with Hamish and Andy, Mike and Molly, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men
62 Responses
“Testing the waters”. Would that be the waters that were recently in Brisbane viewers’ lounge rooms?
david’s once wrong again
Story was updated earlier today to note this was a Brisbane only move. Nine is testing the waters….
@ Franz Chong – Temptation isn’t new and fresh but Caroline in the City is?
There are plenty of other comedies Nine could use to fill the hole and provide something competitive up against Home and Away or 7pm Project….The latter two are the main winners of the axing of Charlie Sheen’s show.
Sale of the Century might have worked from 1980 to 2001 but we are now in 2011 so It is time Nine tried something fresh and new after the hour of News and Current Affairs.
An idea most of you might have overlooked are those Caroline in the City episodes.They unlike 2.5 men were funny and light relief
Damn you Phoenix727! I was going to suggest replacing Sheen with Shat. He could play his dad. That killing two birds line is evil, tho’. Funny but evil.
@Phoenix727 Noticed Scary Movie 2 is on 7Mate Sunday, then on Thursday Scary Movie 1 is on GO??? I get the feeling there is a lack of care for the 2 digital channels despite delivering up to a 6-8% ratings boost.
Warning: Long winded rant to follow.
A TV quiz is by no means cheap. First of all, let’s assume it’s actually been picked up by the network and has a couple of produces attached.
Now you’re going to need to find somewhere to shoot it. Shouldn’t be too hard for a major network and even if you can’t you can always pay another channel to use their studies (Letters and Numbers using the ABC’s for example). Then you need to pay someone to design and build the set.
While that’s going on you need to pay a casting director to find your talent and all the expenses that go with auditions (locations, promotions). Let’s say you there’s no argument over who you want and you’ve now got some talent attached. Congratulations, you now need to get legal in to sort contracts, furnish their dressing rooms, dress them every episode and pay a couple of people to do their hair and make-up. And their salary, of course.
Have you hired your writers yet? You’re going to need to a bucket load (official term), especially if you want to crack the daily market. You also need to pay some fact checkers to make sure the writers get it right and someone to buy the rights to any photos/video you want to use.
I finally have it. Instead of pulling TAHM they could combine it with another crap Nine show and create:
Sh*t Charlie Sheen Says.
Solves two problems at once. (I’d use the kill two birds line but considering Charlie Sheen’s recent trend that actually might be next.)
It’s about time.
It was never funny!!!
2.5 Men will be back next season in some form – CBS may be riding the controversy now but the program literally prints money…there’s no way they’d cancel it outright just from this. Even the repeats of 2.5 Men do better than most of the fresh episodes of their Monday comedy block. They’re sitting on the back seat now but they can easily broker a deal with Charlie by September, and even then, there’s no reason why they couldn’t just try it with another actor like James Spader in a lead role. Doesn’t matter what Lorre wants (he said he wouldn’t want to continue the show without the current cast), the network execs have the final say
Here’s an even cheaper option to replace 2.5 men and that is All Together Now and My Two Wives from the Nineties The days when Nine actually knew how to provide good home grown comedies instead of needing American Garbage.