★★★★★ 0/5

Tough debut for Ben Elton

1.94m for Packed to the Rafters gives Seven reason to smile, while Ben Elton's debut of just 455,000 will have Nine execs worried.

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Tuesday night delivered good news for Seven, but bad news for Nine.

Packed to the Rafters returned to 1.94m viewers last night, streets ahead of NCIS on 1.05m and Top Gear‘s 939,000. The big figure also dwarfs Underbelly‘s debut on Monday night, indicating there are still big audiences there for the taking.

My Kitchen Rules also won its slot on an excellent 1.55m over The Big Bang Theory’s 922,000 and Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation‘s 831,000. Foreign Correspondent had 531,000.

But it was Ben Elton Live from Planet Earth that is the real talking point of Tuesday.

At just 455,000 viewers its debut languished behind an episode of NCIS 1.15m (it went above its earlier episode) and Parenthood‘s 769,000. The figures indicate many viewers weren’t prepared to give the ambitious show a try, while those who did are expressing volatile opinions about its content in online forums and Twitter. Even taking a 9:30 timeslot into account, suddenly those figures for Hey Hey it’s Saturday don’t look too bad.

Seven took its third night of the week with a solid 34.7% network share over Nine’s 24.8% and TEN’s 23.0%.

Week 7

79 Responses

  1. It will be interesting to see how it rates for episode 2. After all the negative press it’s gotten there may be more people tuning in just to see how bad it really is.

    Just like driving past a car crash on the side of the highway, you just have to look…

  2. I haven’t read all the posts but I think there may be a couple of points not raised:
    1) Punchlines? None of the sketches seemed to have them. To paraphrase Amadeus “You need a good bang at the end to let the audience know when to clap.”
    2) Identifiable charaters? So the schollgirls were quite well written but derivative. The female body builder didn’t manage to break through from creepy to creepy funny. The “Toorak drawlers” are stereotypes that are universal but the actual drawl is really a Melbourne thing so…
    3) Live sitcom? All the women were 100% commited but the writing wasn’t punchy enough (and boy do i feel guilty saying that about the guy who co-wrote Blackadder 2-4) and Amy Winehouse & Lily Allen are like so 2009!
    4) dead air….is what you get when a sketch doesn’t have a strong close and there isn’t a decent music sting or graphic to keep you interested until the next bit.

    So there you go. 2 days late and utterly pretentious. That said i did smile a few times during the show but got the overwhelming feeling that this show is too big for one man. Sure it’s his name above the title but surely Mr Elton can open up for some writing input? He must still have Richard Curtis’ number somewhere surely?

  4. Sketch-comedy programs always need some time to build an audience and characters up… Comedy Inc. was really good after it was given some time… Likewise – people only remember the good sketches from Fast Forward and Full Frontal, but there were plenty of terrible ones in there as well…
    If Nine don’t do – well – a Nine and give a chance, I think it will become successful for them. If you want to be the home of laughter, at least stick at the comedy!

  6. It’s one thing to criticise sketch comedy without being constructive, so lastly, for anyone who is interested in successful sketch comedy….It’s one thing to come up with something you think others will find funny. But for something genuinely funny, the performers/writers themselves should find it hard to hold back the laughter themselves. If that’s the case, then you’re onto something that everyone will find funny. Comedy also contains an element of empathy as well. It’s not just hollow entertainment for comedy fans.

  7. I recorded it and watched it tonight.

    It was all just puerile toilet humour. I won’t be watching it again. It is an embarrassment to Australian television and doesn’t deserve to be put to air.

  8. Nine just can’t seem to get this format right even after numerous attempts over the years. Having just watched Adam Hill In Gordon St Tonight, what a contrast to Nines effort, i found it really entertaining, Nine should be jealous (& also take some notes while they’re at it)

  9. I was expecting a more Ben Elton orientated comedy, so i was surprised it was more of a sketch show. Some sketches were funny, some were ok, while some were plain annoying and not funny. I was surprised at the amount of use of stereotypes. In conclusion, the only real funny parts were Ben Eltons monologue. But i will be watching again.

  10. @Sharpy, “They must have gotten a memo that vagina jokes were all the rage because they kept coming over and over again” was funnier than any line I heard during the program last night.

  11. I didn’t think Ben Elton’s show was too bad, but I thought the pop starts living in an apartment sketch was just awful. Looking at the ratings, this could be the next show to be thrown into Nine’s huge axe pile.

  14. Ben Elton really should have done his homework and studied what went wrong with Let Loose Live and do the complete opposite.Unfortunately it was more of the same, and it was just completely unfunny. They must have gotten a memo that vagina jokes were all the rage because they kept coming over and over again. While the live sit-com is a good idea in theory, in reality it was pathetic. Even Arj Barker seemed to have the dullness of the show rubbing off on him as he stammered to get to his punchline in an effort to get the hell out of there before it corrupted him.

    Out of the entire very dull ensemble, the only spark could be that of Genevieve Morris, but I’m sure ANZ / M&C Saatchi won’t allow her to use her fantastic Barbara the bank manager character here.

    Sorry Ben, you may be heavily spruking next weeks show, and seeing what the other characters will be saying over the coing weeks, but I doubt you’ll get beyond the third week…

  15. I always liked Ben Elton’s work, however, this show fell flat, especially the sketches, it was Let Loose Live all over again. And I love sketch comedy too. The show has potential though.

  17. Replay… Are they Serious ????

    As soon as Nine started promoting the show in early Jan 2011 I knew I was never going to watch it…. the promos were rubbish. Thankfully I saved some valuable minutes last night by not tuning in, and I will do the same this evening.

  20. Standby for more Nine catastrophes like this all year. There’s nowhere to hide when the genre heads don’t know what they are doing. Nine have been very lucky to get by the last couple of years, but their luck is due to run our.They need fresh ideas from fresh people. Ben Elton was simply embarrassing.

  22. The Ben Elton Live (Ch9) ratings went down was because it wasn’t funny. I watched 15mins of it & thought it was crap. The sketches were not funny, very dissapointed. I’ll be watching “Lie To Me” next Tuesday night 9:30pm

  23. Poor Channel 9. Kudos for trying a live comedy sketch show. I looked forward to this new show and waited patiently to be entertained. Unfortunately it was truly woeful. Making “jokes” about genitals just doesn’t cut it. I feel like I’ve seen it all before. I was not entertained by a grown man yelling about thrush. I won’t watch again.

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