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Australia’s Got Talent struggling for Seven

Ratings: Viewers haven't connected with the performers on Seven's talent show this year, allowing Nine to win Wednesday night.

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Australia’s Got Talent is in trouble as it heads into its final weeks.

With viewers having committed to The Voice for the past few weeks, they haven’t connected with the performers on the show, and sports events have also affected its scheduling this year.

Last night it pulled just 881,000 across all 5 cities -a marked contrast to last year’s season when it was well over twice that figure.

Nine won Wednesday with 28.4% to Seven’s 26.8% and TEN’s 22.7%. ABC was 16.2% and SBS 5.9%.

The Block looks like being unbeatable as it heads towards its finale on Sunday week. It was again the top show with 1.51m for Nine. With 1.29m Nine News was inches away from beating Seven News, while A Current Affair (1.22m) beat Today Tonight. Big Bang was 1.06m / 885,000 then Hot Seat (760,000), The Mentalist (671,000) and RPA (403,000).

Seven News was 1.3m for Seven then Today Tonight (1.07m), plus Home and Away (835,000), The Amazing Race Australia (695,000), Deal or No Deal (655,000) and The Price is Right was 395,000.

MasterChef did well with 1.12m for TEN. Offspring was 906,000, TEN News was 803,000, The Project 6pm was 467,000 and House was 365,000.

ABC News was 908,000 for ABC1 then Myf Warhurst’s Nice (597,000), 7:30 (540,000), Randling (442,000), Life’s Too Short (401,000), Qi (399,000) and At the Movies (325,000).

Indian Ocean with Simon Reeve was 350,000 for SBS ONE, East to West was 209,000 and Speed of Life was 189,000.

Neighbours topped multichannels with 306,000. Dumb, Drunk and Racist had 266,000.

Tuesday 20 June 2012.

24 Responses

  1. I don’t watch the show, but watching the ads on 7 I’m finding that AGT is blurring with X-Factor. It can sometimes be hard to differentiate between the two as they sometimes appear to be the same thing in front of a different set of judges…

  3. @Mr J, good post. I actually quite like Grant, I think he is a fairly good host and is personable, but he does have an awful lot of detractors who have not warmed to him.

    Totally agree re dumping Brian McFadden. As I said in another post, he often seems to be bored by the acts (not a good look) and his comments are inane. There are umpteen dozen Aussie showbiz people who could replace him, he would not be any loss at all. Danni & Kyle should stay, they are good judges who know what they are talking about.

    I think the show may be produced under license, so I’m not sure whether Seven would be allowed to fiddle with the logo, theme music, the length of time the show runs, etc. Perhaps David Knox could clarify this, but I think when shows are produced under license, there is a strict template they must follow. Agree with you that it needs to be in a different part of the year next year. It cannot run against The Voice, as there is simply not enough interest in the audience for two concurrent TV talent shows.

    1. Franchised shows do follow templates, but are able to tweak formats for their territories in consultation with the creators. Every show, every deal is different. Most are anal about the slightest change.

  5. i’m surprised no one has mentioned grant yet, i think he should be the first to go. heres what i’d do.
    – dump grant, if you go to the filmings dave thornton is the wamup guy and he runs rings around grant’s hosting abilities.
    – dump brian, there are plenty of replacements
    – tighten up the format, 10 weeks max,
    – relaunch set/graphics/logo
    – put it in a different part of the year, maybe take it off for 2013 and return it Jan 2014.

    i think there is a lot of really great talent and the show is really entertaining and kyle and danii are excellent but because it’s dragged out so much we sit through a lot of dud acts. which bring the whole thing down.

  6. Seven need to take a leap out of the UK’s boots and air 5-6 weeks of auditions and then air a semi-final week and then have the grand final the following week. Plus they need to make the set much bigger. The show isn’t dead but i think people are having talent fatigue due to The Voice. They want a break. It is understandable.

  8. @jonno, agree about Brian McFadden. Yes, he often does look bored by it all and like he’d rather be elsewhere. Brian Mannix is an awesome suggestion for a judge, he should replace McFadden. He has had longer in the business than Brian and he has also done TV acting and musical theatre so he has better all round experience. Great thinking!!

  9. 7 really needs to put some effort into making AGT interesting TV. They aren’t going to get people watching if they don’t have the talent. Maybe the Wednesday night is not as big as a drawcard compared to maybe Monday or Tuesday or even 7:30 Sunday nights could work. They need to work on the show and make it more flash and zazzy like The X Factor. They aren’t killing the show, they are just not putting any effort in it to make it viewable. Make it like Britain’s Got Talent. They should give it one more chance and put more money into it but after that if it still doesn’t attract viewers, axe it and replace it with something better such as that show ‘The Winner is…’

  10. Last year AGT was must viewing but last night i started surfing the web and the show ended up just background noise. I agree Kyle and Danni are great. Brian is sometimes good but he can look bored and he gets very repetitive in his comments. I think he should be replaced next year with Brian Mannix. He is an underrated talent but was a star on DWTS. The show needs to increase its production values to keep up with The Voice and Xfactor. But maybe we have just exhausted our talent pool.

  14. I caught a bit of AGT last night and to be honest it felt like being on a date with one woman when you want another. The vocal
    talent isn’t comparable to that of the The Voice. The set is so last year and production is inferior.
    As PM said, it drags on and you can’t follow where the competition is up to because it’s several weeks before a performer returns.

    If they want to improve AGT they need to offer better structure- have a few weeks of auditions if there is enough talent. Stop showing untalented performers! Cull it to 32 then have 3 weeks of finals with 8 in the GF.

  15. I think AGT is still a great platform for a variety of talents, but the wow factor is just not there this year, with the exception of a few acts. This year there are many acts that have advanced past the auditions, when perhaps they shouldn’t have. I still love the show, but I do agree that it needs a bit of sprucing up for future series.

  16. Yes, AGT’s ratings have suffered terribly this year. Last year it won its slot with ease, but people committing to The Voice has completely stolen its momentum. Also, they have not had a Jack Vidgen style breakout performer this year, so no buzz has been generated about any of the acts. It is still a very good show with plenty of life in it, and it showcases some awesome acts, but it obviously cannot be run in the same time frame as The Voice in future, that will kill it completely. As for the judges, still not loving Brian. but Danni and Kyle are fine. Some tinkering with it needs to be done, for sure, perhaps they should take a close look at Britain’s Got Talent which is a giant slayer, ratings wise, in the UK. It runs on a Saturday night over there.

  20. Perhaps the public has finally awoken to the fact that AGT is just crap television. There needs to be more Mark Vincent types. As for the judges… well that’s a whole other argument

    I caught a bit of TEN late News.. I enjoyed Angela Bishop’s entertainment segment with them all sitting around the desk but I take it’s only a Wednesday offering.

  22. I feel if there is another season of AGT they need to make some changes. Take inspiration from the UK… seven weeks of auditions and then one big mega week of semis airinf from Sun-Thu with the final the following Sun. It is so drawn out in its current format. Also shake up the judging panel with a comedian or two – David Walliams was perfect on Britain’s Got Talent. Production needs to be upped as well.

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