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Excess Baggage set to be trimmed?

Speculation is running rife that Nine is set to move Excess Baggage from its 7pm timeslot.

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Speculation is running rife that Nine is set to move Excess Baggage from its 7pm timeslot.

Ad News, the Herald Sun and The Australian are all tipping the show to be removed from its timeslot after only three episodes have aired.

TV Tonight has also heard very strong rumours the show will not make it to the first week of ratings, beginning February 12th.

The weight-loss show started with 880,000 on Monday but finished with 555,000 by Thursday. By contrast The Biggest Loser finished the week with 734,000 viewers.

There are even suggestions Nine could move it from 7pm as early as Monday.

Dumping a big brand franchise before the start of official ratings would have to be some sort of TV record, but Nine was forced to bring the series forward after TEN surprised the market with The Biggest Loser back at 7pm.

At its 2012 launch Nine made strong commitments to stripping reality shows in the 7pm timeslot, as part of its push to “dominate early evenings.”

If it gets moved to a later slot or a multichannel, Nine’s options are likely to be The Big bang Theory before the next reality series is ready to roll.

Yesterday a Nine source told TV Tonight they had not been advised of any change to schedule.

37 Responses

  1. I somehow felt this show would not last. The concept seems good but when you get celebrities that barely qualify it does not do the gimmick well. Honestly when you rely on K-Fed on being the big draw for your show you must be desperate and looking at the rest of the celebrities they got it’s not much better I mean an Australian Idol winner who like most of them did nothing once they won. Dipper who i remember was on a weight loss show years ago. I think it’s safe to say 9 could not beat the Biggest Loser. I guess they can only win 7pm with continuous Chuck Loree reruns for years

  3. So once again it looks like Seven has the upper hand with Nine and TEN fighting for 2nd most nights. I’m a TBBT fan so can’t complain if they show it more, doesn’t mean I’ll be watching at 7pm.

  4. @Cameron, agreed. EB has hands down the worst line-up of any celebrity driven reality show. This lot make the average Dancing With The Stars line-up look like A-List superstars. I struggle to understand why celebrities were even needed for this show, it could have stood on its own with the eight contestants, but I guess Nine needed a hook for it. Problem is, they have barrel scraped and the audience knows it.

  5. @Dan, I really don’t think this one is going to build. I’ve watched it twice and was left underwhelmed both times, it really is a strange show that to be frank, is not very appealing. The Renovators never built an audience, it averaged round the 600K for three months. Kudos to Ten for brazening it out rather than yanking it, but it was a massive failure for them. EB is Nine’s Renovators, but Nine will not have the stomach to stick with it at 7pm. They have a long track record of yanking shows quickly, so this one will go to a later slot or onto Gem. The rumours of its demise have already started and it has only been on air for one week. That’s a very bad sign.

  6. First blow to Ten for this year I think, they were bold and brave to go early with The Biggest Loser, and although it isn’t rating extremely well, it will likely see off one of Nine’s big new franchises for the year.

    Part of the problem with the celebrities on Excess Baggage is that they’re not celebrities.

  7. Irrespective of the actual merits of this program, I think that Nine are being punished for the cynical way that they scheduled it against Ten’s TBL. Ten got burnt last year with The Renovators for something similarly stupid and disrespectful. Nine’s programming dept, bless their little cotton socks, have just confirmed that they are incapable of learning any lessons from what has happened previously.

    Despite claims to the contrary, I don’t think that this signals the death of (un)reality TV. Which is unfortunate.

  10. The Big Bang Theory has become the new Two and a Half Men / How I met Your Mother / The Simpsons etc.etc. Repeat after repeat ad nauseum, wherever there’s a spot to fill.

    I agree with randwick, “death to reality television!” It’s all crap.

  11. Channel 10 already makes impact with excess baggage being a flop. 9 got drawn into something they should never have done in the first place. Maybe if 9 were not so occupied with being channel 10 from 10 years ago with weight loss show, singing show, big brother and taking personalities from channel 7 they would realise they are only good for one thing- repeats of big bang theory.

  13. give it more of a chance nine it probaly wont work but just give it a littile more time to try and build oh thats right you dont give anything a chance do you

  14. It might have been a bomb, but at least Ten stuck with The Renovators. You would think Nine would try and keep it going at least until the official rating period to give people time to settle in and watch it. What a knee jerk reaction!

  17. From the company and network that bought you Ben Elton comes the first flop of 2012.

    The numbers the renovators pulled look pretty damn impressive in contrast to EBs numbers.

  18. Heard this just being talked about on morning radio. The rumour is that it will be shifted very soon so I doubt it will still be at 7pm by February 25. So much for stripping being the road to boffo ratings. This one’s a turkey, no matter where they move it, it will probably underperform.

  21. I can imagine it will be similar to last year – Nine has a high flop rate, has to move their other big shows forward eg. celebrity apprentice, the block. Followed later in the year by their new US shows fastracked ASAP to fill the schedule. And every gap between filled with the Big Bang Theory repeats…Surely those will wear thin sooner or later, and I’m not sure Mike and Molly will cut the mustard.

  24. I’m betting BBT repeats will take the reigns for two weeks, before they roll out The Celebrity Apprentice early.

    They’ll probably save The Block for after Easter, to combat Masterchef. Big Brother doesn’t air until after the London Olympics

  25. This really serves them right. Two weightloss shows on at the same time is just too much. Nine are better off moving EB to GEM and run it 7 days a week to kill the series. By the looks of KFed last week in Perth doesn’t look like he has lost that much weight.

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