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Comedy jitters on ABC1

ABC1's comedy night is in big trouble, with viewers overlooking Woodley and rejecting Outland, so Seven takes out another win.

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ABC had another soft Wednesday night, with Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight its only show over 500,000 viewers after 8pm.

The comedy line-up is in big trouble with viewers overlooking Woodley (331,000) and rejecting Outland in droves. The latter was just 168,000 viewers, less than At The Movies (235,000) and Lateline (182,000) -even Kitchen Cabinet (195,000) was higher on ABC2 in the same slot. Woodley, which is a charming piece of comedy, hasn’t hit the family audiences ABC wanted on Wednesday while Outland may have found a better home on ABC2. With one more week to go of the latter, there’s no point changing the schedule now.

Best for ABC1 was ABC News on 1.01m but it dropped to 572,000 for 7:30.

Seven again won the night with My Kitchen Rules on 1.72m and Seven News (1.16m), then Today Tonight (1.04m), Please Marry My Boy (1.01m), Home and Away (903,000).

Nine News (1.1m) topped Nine’s evening followed by A Current Affair (879,000), The Big Bang Theory (788,000 / 772,000 / 736,000). Sherlock Holmes movie was 567,000.

The Biggest Loser (849,000) held for TEN then TEN News (643,000), The Good Wife (555,000), The Project (456,000), and an NCIS rpt on 296,000.

On SBS ONE it was Arctic with Bruce Parry (267,000), Empire (253,000), and Luke Gamble’s Vet Adventures (185,000).

American Pickers on 7mate topped the night with 292,000.

Sunrise: 436,000
Today: 340,000
ABC News Breakfast: 45,000 / 21,000
Breakfast: 40,000

Wednesday 7 March 2012

28 Responses

  2. I haven;t watched Woodley, & no more than 5 minutes of Outland…
    But then I haven;t watched any of the top 5 rating shows for months, either.
    Should I fear being deported?? 🙂

  3. Woodley is comic genius, congrats to Frank for this.

    However it’s not what the Aussie TV viewing public are used to, or have enough knowledge of comic history to appreciate fully.

    So sad the viewers don’t get it.

  4. Amazing, though, to see the drop off from the numbers they were doing with, say, Hamster Wheel or At home with Julia. (both not far off a million, compared with 168K for Outland in same slot).

    Message? People like daring. When are those shows back?

  5. I gave up Woodley, it could have been better.
    Outland is funny, its better each episode.
    I know the guy (John Richards) wrote the series.
    Adam Hill is brillant.
    I think the trouble with Aussie TV, people find things like comfortable, nice and boring.
    Channel 10 , need new approach to programming.
    Also I agree too many repeats of good show have
    killed them off, there are show we don’t get to see
    because fill up with endless repeats of the same shows every night.

  6. Yeah.. I’m not fully sure what to make of Woodley. I was looking forward to it, but it hasn’t really grabbed me in the way that I hoped it would. ‘the adventures of lano and Woodley’ was a great series, and one I have on DVD, but im not so sure Woodley will be going down as one of my fave shows when the series ends.

  7. I hope there is someone at the ABC with enough guts to stick with Outland and Woodley. In stark contrast to anything offered up by ABC drama lately, both comedies are promising.

    Outland has had a few shaky moments, but episodes two and three were pretty consistently funny. And Woodley has the potential to develop into a cult family favourite along Mr Bean lines. Both are more fun than Angry Boys, which (given all the support Chris Lilley enjoyed) should have been way better.

  8. Enjoyed Outland and Woodley last night on ABC1. Pity they are not doing too good. IMO Woodley was funnier last night compared to last week.

    Good to see 10 get a decent share. Biggest Loser and TBYG are still fun to watch. ood ife deserves better. I did not bother with 7 at all and only watched the news on 9. 9 need to focus less on Big Bang repeats and 7 needs more quality shows.

  10. I hate to sound like a broken record, but Oz TV is some of the most predictably bland and banal TV in the Western world. Nothing slightly left-of-centre or offbeat or genre (boy, Outland had all 3 against it!) seems to play – the exception being Wilfred.

    So we’re doomed to cooking shows, ‘Rafters’ so-called drama, this horrid thing called ‘Tricky Business’ coming from Nine and all the other woeful (usually small-time crime) stuff. We used to be a great TV production nation – alas no more.

  11. What are Outland’s figures for ABC2 on Thursday? I watch it at that time, and watch AHiGST either Friday Night (ABC1) or Saturday evening (ABC2).

    I agree that Outland definitely should have been shown on ABC2. It is a great series, but a poor fit for ABC1’s Wednesday nights.

  13. I was sooo looking forward to Woodley, and was sooo disappointed that we didn’t find it very funny at all. We didn’t even bother with the second episode. Lano and Woodley were part of the re-hash TEN did of old Comedy Festivals the other night, and the routine was hilarious. And it was mainly Woodley. So what happened?

    As for The Good Wife – I persist because I love it, but scheduling it for 9.10 (and it’s always later) is just ridiculous. The preceding program is Talkin’ About Your Generation, scheduled run for 70 minutes. Who makes a 70-minute show (incl commercials)???? Too long for that sort of show.

    Why does bottom-rating TEN persist with these strange timeslots. Sheer stupidity on their part.

  14. I’m very disappointed that Outland hasn’t managed to get a bigger audience. It’s one of the funniest and most unique comedies to hit Aussie TV is a long time.

    I guess it being a bit of a niche category comedy has turned some viewers off – but I really hope there is another series. I have really really enjoyed this series.

  15. Move Woodley to a 6pm Saturday slot or two ABC2 on a Thursday. It’s not funny. I gave it a second chance with episode two, but I was not amused. I was a huge Lano and Woodley fan, but feel let down by this independant series. I was expecting so much more from this, and was waiting so long for ABC1 to put it to air.

  16. If Woodley gets a second series, my advice would be to tighten it up a little and it would be funnier – some of the gags just drag on (like last night’s drunken golf sequence) just a little longer than is needed. I like it, but not as much as I wish I did.

  17. @bh

    I think ABC put Woodley in a perfect family friendly slot – Wednesdays at 8.00pm – it was also their strongest night for the past few years so the programmers would have assumed they had a ready made audience who were used to turning to ABC on Wednesdays.

    Unfortunately, you also need the product and Woodley is good without being great and Outland is ABC2 fodder at best.

  18. Outland is def ABC2 material and I don’t find Woodley (the program) to be funny at all. I think most of us are waiting for Gruen to return.

  20. Maybe the fact TGW was not fast tracked late last year is now playing against TEN?

    Woodley is funny, but good thing he’s on ABC and probably not likely to be shifted, how long is the series?

  24. I think that the notion among the ABC is that because it’s not a commercial network, they can make productions for niche audiences, or cater to niche audiences. Which is very good and fine in other timeslots or other multi-channels (ABC2). But in primetime they should go with what appeals to the populous. Which is why Adam Hills IGST, Gruen Transfer etc. work in their timeslots. The ABC line-up is often inconsistent to the point where people will change channels for half-an-hour rather than put up with something they really don’t find appealing just because the ABC wants you to see it.

  25. The Good Wife is now getting exactly half of what it was two seasons ago thanks to three timeslot changes in the past two years (Sunday 8:30, Thursday 8:30, now Wednesday at the weird ass time of 9pm).

    Ten do this with every show they have, H50, Glee, even NCIS has dropped 500k from what it was pulling just a few years ago. Endless repeats and timeslot changes = a drop in viewers

    So much for Warburton turning the network around, I give it two-three years before anything substantial changes

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