Sponsors do their block on The Renovators
Network TEN is making up to sponsors of The Renovators following lacklustre ratings for its $30M reality series.
- Published by David Knox
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Network TEN is making up to sponsors of The Renovators following lacklustre ratings, according to a media report today.
The Australian claims TEN has started giving sponsors, including Taubmans and Telstra, additional air time to make up for the ratings shortfall from the $30M reality series. Other sponsors are Bunnings Warehouse, LG Electronics, Freedom, Ford Australia, Commonwealth Bank, KFC, Rexona and Yellow Pages -including some which abandoned The Block in favour of the new series.
One source suggests sponsors were sold packages of between $2m and $3m each on the promise of audiences of between 1.4 and 1.6 million.
But a TEN spokesperson said they would never guarantee numbers.
“We think the show will build an audience. And we will absolutely be able to deliver on promises to clients, ” she said.
The disappointing launch follows hopes by Shine Australia to see the original format picked up internationally. Producers from Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine International had been overlooking the format prior to its Australian launch.
Amid criticism TEN launched the series too early, it has also had to compete against the popularity of The Block on Nine.
TEN is hoping the show will gain traction after The Block ends this Sunday night. If it doesn’t the network may be forced to move it to a later timeslot.
“You’ll be seeing ads for Bunnings Warehouse on Channel TEN for years to come,” one buying agency said.
TEN plans to send more cheerful news to market this week with its 2012 Programming Launch on Wednesday night.
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- Tagged with The Block, The Renovators
30 Responses
When this program first started, I was happy to watch it nightly. However, now that we don’t see any renovations of the houses, I have given up on watching this program as of last night. I hope it dies.
Isn’t it a case of too bad so sad – nothing is guaranteed in this world, especially not ratings.
It would however seem that the greed of advertisers is guaranteed.
Far too many of the same shows all at the same time … what stupid planning!
In fact … too much “reality” TV. All stressful cooking shows or stressful renovation shows. All competition, competition, competition! We have enough of “competition” at work, why come home for more stress like that?
A “fun” renovation show like 60 Minute Makeover is what we need!!!
Channel Ten is self destructing before our eyes … a lot of really bad decisions lately.
Did anyone see that show that replaced Video Hits??? Aussie Hair Salon owner Tabitha telling failing businesses to pull their heads in and helps them save their business??? She should come to Channel Ten and do that for them!!! Also, what a rediculous time for a show like that to be on … it is not a kids show!
I’m surprised how badly it is rating given that it is a really slick production. I’ve been watching most nights and actually enjoy it. The only other home reno show I’ve watched previously is that british design show on the ABC (forget what it is called – Grand Designs? something like that haha)
@ Moanique in Brisbane…. I never said I didnt like it! i said it crap… 10 spent a truck load of money hoping that it will take off… and it didnt. its that simple…
@ Michael.. I watch one ep of the renovators and didnt like it…its long and its a masterchef wanna be! to answer your question about saying bad things about nine… well here u go! nine needs to fix up the programming… it can be better! way better! there are plenty of shows they could put on but they choose not to! it will be along time before nine gets back to the good old days when kerry packer was alive..he know what worked!
I actually really enjoy the renovators. The judges are very well picked as are the contestants I love the big screens in the warehouse – it is all on such an epic scale! I do agree that more time could be spent showing work on the houses though. Also agree that the poor decisions at TEN have led to the soft numbers, not the show itself.
Ten would absolutely guarantee ratings with their sponsors…its the easy way for media buyers to justify it to the clients. And if the show is rating as poorly as everyone says it is, then any bonus airtime is immediately going to go to those that are supporting the show (ie. sponsors), so this is really a pointless bit of “news”. It happens as a matter of business with any sponsored show or nearly any media campaign!
@ ohyeah, you had a go at someone in the ‘Returning: The Farmer Wants a Wife’ article for having a go at The Block (a Nine show…) and now you’re calling The Renovators (a Ten show…) crap. How about you take your own advice and just don’t watch it. Simple. I look forward to the day you say a bad word about a Nine show…
It’s not the show itself that’s letting it down. They launched it early, they launched it at 8:30pm, then squeezed it in during the MC finale, bumping daytime shows around for ‘encores’, flipping around Modern Family at short notice. So they’ve annoyed people who had their 8:30pm show moved or taken off for two weeks, annoyed MC fans for the interruption during the finale, annoyed MF last week and are annoying Judge Judy fans (me!). Plus, being on while The Block is on was a bad move.
It’s a vain hope for Channel 10 that the ratings will suddenly improve for Renovators once The Block has concluded(next Sunday night).
It’s about as dead as the proverbial dog, and I can’t see how it can be salvaged – I won’t be shocked if Lachlan Murdoch orders the remaining episodes of the series to be shunted onto Saturday & Sunday afternoons, and they’ll attempt to rejig their prime time programming(perhaps by rushing Junior MasterChef to air?).
I guess this explains why they’re repeating Renovators during the day still.
@JB Same! I saw those episodes and thought how interesting it would be see them renovate the houses and what challenges they may face etc.
I haven’t watched an episode in a couple of weeks. I lost interest in the show as like everyone is saying they just show all these challenges or painting white walls.
@Andrew I was wondering the same. I also think that all the effort/time that they put into etc all goes to waste.
The Block is the worse for product placement. We also haven’t seen that much of what they’ve done to the house either.
I’m curious what happens to all these “white rooms” after they are done up? It’s not like in MC where any surplus dishes prepared are apparently sent off to charities… but really what happens to these rooms… is it off to landfill? where do they go? i suppose any furniture just goes back to the retailer that provided them (product placement), but the rest?
i think they made some huge mistakes with this show.
1. they dont show enough of the houses being worked on. all we see are challenges, white rooms. warehouse stuff. we dont want to just see that.
2. the masterchef crap. it should never have been done, i blame david mott for that.
3. this shouldnt have been put on telly until after the block had finished and people had gotten over masterchef. simply because the format is the same as mc.
@ Anthony Mai, I agree with you, Renovators is way better than season 3 Of Masterchef.
@ohyeah, just because you don’t like Renovators, doesn’t mean others can’t enjoy it. It is better than the Block on your favourite channel.
While I don’t go out of my way to go watching the show most of the week, I’ve been enjoying the “masterclass” on fridays – the ‘how-to’s’ . I’d like to see it come back for a second season, so it can at least get a proper launch from the get-go…..but have it on 3-4 times a week (including masterclass) tops.
The ratings have nosedived since some “genius” at Ten decided to ruin the MC finale last Sunday!
The MC finale still did respectable figures – but could have rated at least 300K more if it wasn’t for this stupid programming decision.
The fall out has literally ruined other shows like Modern Family, Bondi Vet and TBYG.
This looks like another One-Tel debacle that Lachlan can add to his CV.
Given the amount of money invested in this show, it deserves the tv trainwreck of the year award. Yeah Ben Elton did pretty bad, but didn’t have 20-30 million riding on it. This is a disaster on an epic scale…..
This really isn’t a bad show. Much better than the Block. But Ten stuffed up big time. They should have launched it after the Masterchef finale, or even once The Block ended. By pushing it too soon meant it was at the wrong timeslot, and saturating the market, with The Block still on. And then once Masterchef ended it gets more timeslot changes.
Some of the challenges are good. But as others have mentioned there is not nearly enough of the actual renovating of the houses. I watched the episode where they all showed their plans for the homes and they looked incredible and thought i’d love to see the progress. But we don’t get to. Major flaw in the show.
The castings been good. The judges are good. The idea is good. Ten just got it wrong and i don’t know if it can comeback from the damage that’s been done.
@ Anthony Mai ….its not a good show. and it will never rate like the block even when the block finished up this sunday… ppl are not interested in this silly show. Ten stuffed up buying this show and they know it! it will take a while for them to get their money back from this.
sorry ten! but this show is crap!
Oh, there is no doubt the series launched too early. It should not have been launched to follow on from MasterChef. I understand that they probably wanted to capitalise on the MC audience, but the gamble hasn’t paid off. If they’d kept it till later this year until after The Block, I think it would possibly have rated much better. My other criticism of it is that there are too many challenges and not enough reno work on the six houses.
I like the Renovators however I think they do too many ‘challenges’ and don’t focus enough on the houses they are supposed to be renovating.
Can’t get past that horrible yellow R. As a tradie, the last thing we need is gooses wrecking their homes and leaving us to clean up after them. Though it will pay for that new jet ski i’m eying off.
I’m quite upset that this show is struggling… If people are comparing it’s formula to MasterChef, then I’d go a step further and say it’s a lot better than Season 3 of MasterChef! Maybe it’s just Renovation overkill at the moment, but I think the quality of the show is high and the challenges excite me… whereas anything MasterChef did felt quite repetitive.
Let’s just hope the Renovators do do better once the Block finishes. It was launched too early! (and at 8.30!)
After the Hothouse, now this, poor 10 should never do reno shows again!!
Does this mean if TEN wish to try it one more time next year that it won’t come with such a big price tag from Shine??
Didn’t TEN say there is no plan B? If they do move it to a later timeslot what would they be replacing it with? Modern Family repeats I suspect…