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The Project to switch to 6pm -six nights a week.

EXCLUSIVE: The Project will move to a 6pm start, including a half hour edition on Sundays, with TEN News back to its one hour edition.

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EXCLUSIVE: The Project will move to a 6pm start on TEN, including on Sundays.

The News-based show will air from 6-7pm weeknights, with a half hour edition on Sundays beginning on January 22nd.

The change comes as TEN faces declining ratings in its early evening timeslot, following its failed News revamp.

TEN News has struggled in its extended 90 minutes, but will now return to its viewer-preferred 60 minute bulletin.

After The 7PM Project dropped “7PM” from its title, TEN doubled the length of its bulletin from 6:30pm.

Now it will retain the sixty minute edition from an earlier start time, as well as adding a half hour edition on Sundays.

The shake-up effectively opens up TEN’s 7pm timeslot for new programming, including the possibility of stripped Reality shows such as The Biggest Loser and MasterChef Australia.

New CEO James Warburton has signalled TEN needs to drive up its ratings on the primary channel.

Time will tell if the latest programming gamble is the right move.

109 Responses

  2. Over a year on and they still haven’t realized just how secure the Simpsons was in its time slot, nothing will ever do until they return it. I honestly think they should attempt a line up similar to Canadian network and former CanWest stablemate Global, they have a similar demo to ten and often are number one in the majors, they had a pretty dramatic shift away from being followers and started having “balls” and moved in their own direction and have had results like nothing else.

  3. The Simpsons belongs to TEN at 6pm. The guide should read as follows:
    4:30 – Cooking show
    5:00 – First at Five news hour (local)
    6:00 – The Simpsons
    6:30 – The Project
    7:00 – Reality such as TBL or MC.
    Move the B&B to 9:00. You’d have TBL or MC for 1 hour then something at 8:00 for 1 hour or two programs for 30 minutes each. B&B has to be edited at 4:30 and doesn’t suit the time-slot.

    I also noticed “The Project” promotion only has Dave and Charlie’s Voice. Charlie “says 6 nights a week” and Dave says “at 6pm”. No Carrie could suggest a promo made in her absence or a move to “Breakfast”, alongside Dr Rochford an the NZ guy.

    Good luck with this one. At least it’s not more news bulletins, it’s eliminating extra news, and changing the current schedule.

  4. There’s alot of talk here about how supposedly alot of people aren’t home at 6pm.. Well if you combine both 9 and 7 you’ll get close to 2.5 million people watching News at 6pm in metro areas… to me that seems like alot.

  5. Why do people think the project is fake news????? They show more news, have more discussion than any of the other news programs on. I think it’s fantastic and smart and the fact I get to laugh as well is a bonus.

  6. I don’t mind what time the Project is on, I’ll watch it anyway. Well, with reservations. Dave Hughes seems to have completely taken over the show, barely 30 seconds passes without his awful voice dominating. I don’t find him particularly funny, he tries too hard.

    Whereas Charlie Pickering is a genuine, well educated talent, with a lot of wit. And they might as well not bother bringing in the 4th person at the desk, people like Steve Kinnane and Barrie Cassidy are completely wasted as they’re never given a chance to say anything much. It’s all Dave, Dave, Dave. So a few changes are needed, but I’d still far prefer it over TT and ACA.

  8. Well, it wasn’t quite what I hoped, my preferred lineup being:

    5:00pm TEN National News
    5:30pm Game Show or Travel / Entertainment / Lifestyle Show
    6:00pm TEN Evening News (Local)
    6:30pm The Project
    7:00pm Neighbours

    But, at least they’ve opened up the 7:00pm slot for a possible Neighbours return, anyway.

  9. Good move in some respred – 10 news at 6pm now is a joke, I don’t know why you would bother. It basically replays the same stories as earlier in the show or just fluff stories to fill the space. But most people aren’t home by 6pm, let alone 6:30pm. Something else needs to go at 6pm but this move could damage its ratings.

  10. @HB – This is still on at the same time as Neighbours though so those who wish to watch both shows have some difficulty in doing so. It is now worse than before because when Neighbours finishes so does the project, whereas where it stands now there is still the last half hour of the project to see if people watched all of neighbours.

  14. An hour of news then an hour of pretend news no thanks , i gave up watching the Reject ages ago , 30 mins was just bearable but now an hour , no thanks.
    Also time to ditch Kitty Flanagan , she just aint funnny no more.

  17. What a great move!. Now I can forego WIN or Southern Cross news and the mind numbing current affairs shows, watch this and still catch the real news on ABC at 7.00pm. Yeah!!

  18. The Thing is will it work?Most of your audience for Project are not home at 6pm due to work or other commitments and don’t see their front door till 7pm or later and then there’s the issue of what to do for a 7pm show to counter against the Big Bang Theory(Home and Away doesn’t count and only idiots or teenage girls watch that)that isn’t a done to death American Repeat.i guess they have to start from Scratch for something new.

  20. Yeah, if this show keeps going the same way, they’ll be broadcasting at midday. Look, let it quietly die, while it’s on a high point. Well, “high” as in “better than really bad”. It is getting moved because even in the silly season, it was not doing as well as expected against Today Tonight nor A Currant Affair (spelling intentional) – now it’s up against various News programs, which will be more difficult to compete with. I guess the real reason is that Ten is desperate for Neighbours ratings to go up.

    Valium Dave and Charlie Pickering need to be quietly replaced, Carrie What’s Her Name is the only intelligent one there, but even if they do go for better hosts, it may well be too late for this program.

  21. Wow I can’t believe that load of crap is still on air! I watched the first few and vowed that was it.
    I wouldn’t miss ABC News24 and SBS News, the only way to find out what’s really happening on the planet.

  22. Great move 10. Now I can’t watch any of it because it finishes by 7. Way to kill your best self produced show. If you’re thinking I’m going to be watching sweating crying yelling fat people make life breakthroughs every day at 7, you’re mistaken. Poor foresight. That and getting that loudmouth liability from NZ. Damn it.

  23. TEN playing draughts/checkers with their programs again…and I do mean ‘playing’……I was going to say chess….but that is an intelligent game.
    As someone said…this show was originally made for the 7PM slot….What the….?!?!?

  25. ‘My concern is that the majority of the target audience for The Project don’t finish until 6pm. By the time they get home the show is finished. ‘

    This.

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