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TV Tonight Awards 2012: Readers slam TEN mismanagement

Viewers have not forgotten TEN's flops, giving the network a hiding and voting ABC as Best Free to Air Network.

2013-01-08_1303After getting some love in the “Best” categories in the TV Tonight Awards yesterday, TEN comes in for a major drubbing in the some of the “Worst”categories today.

Readers have slammed TEN in both the Story of the Year and Blunder of the Year after programming bombs saw the network dive in the second half of 2012.

The Shire has been voted the Worst Show of the year, but Everybody Dance Now and Being Lara Bingle followed suit, while Paul Henry and Lara Bingle both featured in the Worst personality votes.

Readers have also not forgotten TEN’s axing of The Circle while Breakfast persisted, seen as a bad decision.

TEN also slumped in the Best Free to Air Network stakes, tumbling a long way from winning the category only two years ago. This year it was won for the first time by the ABC.

However, ELEVEN retained its title as Best Multichannel.

More encouragingly, there also remains some major love for “underrated” personalities Shaun Micallef (a regular winner), Jackie Woodburne, Charlie Pickering, Chrissie Swan and Kat Stewart.

These divisive results indicate viewers are separating their affection for specific shows and faces from a network brand, which is severely tarnished. TEN could do well to position its marketing behind specific individuals as it enters the 2013 battle…

In other results Karl Stefanovic remains a polarising personality, yesterday included in the Favourite Male stakes but today also featuring in the Worst Male and the Most Overexposed Personality.

New names appearing in the Worst or Overexposed categories this year include Paul Henry, Sarah Murdoch, Lara Bingle, Andrew Bolt, Brian McFadden and former fiancee Delta Goodrem.

Readers were also critical of US comedies, led by Two and a Half Men, voted Worst International show for the third year in a row.

More positively, there was recognition for Big Brother, The Voice and Nine being saved from the brink of financial ruin. But Nine’s Olympics coverage, which didn’t maximise multichannel potential, was slapped while Foxtel’s comprehensive coverage was praised.

FOX8 again won Best Subscription TV channel.

Congratulations to the ABC on taking out Free to Air Network of the Year.

* denotes runaway winner

THE STORY OF THE YEAR: TEN ratings, shares and brand plummets to new lows*
Big Brother returns
The Voice ratings / Australian Drama remains a powerhouse
Nine survives financial ruin / Foxtel Olympics coverage
(2011 winner: News coverage of Queensland floods)

BIGGEST BLUNDER OF THE YEAR: TEN flops: Everybody Dance Now, The Shire, I Will Survive*
Paul Henry for Breakfast
The Circle axed
Nine’s Olympic coverage
(2011: MasterChef’s finale interrupted by The Renovators)

WORST SHOW (Australian): The Shire *
Everybody Dance Now
Being Lara Bingle
Excess Baggage
(2011: Ben Elton Live from Planet Earth)

WORST SHOW (International): Two and a Half Men 
Two Broke Girls
The New Normal
The Big Bang Theory
(2011: Two and a Half Men)

WORST MALE: Kyle Sandilands / Paul Henry  / Karl Stefanovic  
David Koch
Eddie McGuire
Andrew Bolt / Brian McFadden
(2011: Kyle Sandilands)

WORST FEMALE: Lara Bingle*
Sarah Murdoch
Melissa Doyle / Sonia Kruger
Delta Goodrem
(2011: Jackie O)

MOST OVEREXPOSED PERFORMER: Karl Stefanovic
Eddie McGuire
Lara Bingle
Kyle Sandilands
(2011: Kyle Sandilands)

MOST UNDERRATED PERFORMER: Shaun Micallef  / Jackie Woodburne
Charlie Pickering / Chrissie Swan
Julia Morris / Kat Stewart
Adam Hills
(2011: Jackie Woodburne)

INTERNATIONAL SHOW WE NEED TO SEE ON AUSSIE TV: Arrow
Nashville
Go On
Elementary
2011: The Walking Dead)

BEST SUBSCRIPTION CHANNEL: FOX8
Showcase / FOX Sports
Lifestyle
Arena
(2011: FOX8)

BEST MULTICHANNEL: ELEVEN 
GO!
ABC2
7mate

BEST FREE TO AIR NETWORK: ABC
Seven
Nine
TEN
(2011: Seven)

87% of readers voted TV Tonight as “Excellent / Very Good” with just 1% voting “Disappointing.”

69% of readers indicated they visited “More than Once a Day / Once a Day” with “News / Programming / Independence and Credibility” the most important features of the site.

Thanks again for your participation.

Part One: TV Tonight Awards 2012: A ray of hope for TEN

23 Responses

  1. Dunno how Paul Henry can be accused of being overexposed. He was only here a short time and nobody watched him anyway.

    I only ever saw him in promos.

    (I wonder whether he’s slunk back to NZ)

  2. We watch a lot of ten at our place but I still miss GNW every Monday night! I love NCIS but I missed a lot of this season if it was even aired. Never ever watched the breakfast show in protest and miss the circle too. They are my major grievances. I liked lots of other stuff about 10 like the renovators, puberty blues, masterchef, living room, project and tayg.
    I agree about getting the footy back.
    One other thing that i have to say re I will survive, as a huge Priscilla fan I looked forward to it but when it was on it just seemed wrong, am I wrong in thinking drag queens are usually gay? straight guys doing it just didn’t appeal to me

  3. I’ll admit the international show I’m most looking forward to is Elementary. But as a viewer I fear they’ll put it on Sunday. I can’t commit to Sunday. I think I could commit to Wednesday. I did watch House for 5 years (I believe) on Wednesday and only quit it when it moved to ironically Sunday…

    That said I won’t be surprised if it does show up on Sunday. Of course the next fear is Arrow and Elementary will be on the same time. I’ll admit I expect Arrow to end up on GO! So no problem in the end.

    I wish Ten and all the TV Networks the best. I just wish the ABC would stop mutilating their shows; it made me avoid watching QI. I’d be happy if they respected the shows they had. Oh well.

  4. @Rayne
    I think Voyager moves to Fridays while Saturday Night Movie and Sex and the City takes its spot.

    David, is TEN broadcasting the Aquatic Super Series here in Perth under the agreement of Swimming Australia

  5. ELEVEN has advertised new Supernatural and American Horror Story as “coming soon”. But they are being very lazy in repeating repeats of Star Trek Next Gen when they could put something else in that Thursday slot (I’m still watching Voyager however 🙂 ).

    No interest in Neighbours….;)

  6. I’m another one who has absolutely no idea who Jackie Woodburne is. Never heard of her. As for Ten, they deserve the slapping they are getting and boy, they need to be slapped hard for the shocking year they have just had. I have no idea how they are going to right their sinking ship, as it has been going down the gurgler for several years now. What the hell can they do to get credibility back??? Shareholders must be white hot with fury over Ten’s underwhelming ratings performance and amateur management/programming style.

  7. I believe ten would not be were it is today without some bad decisions.
    1 – If Ten had not hired Paul Henry, Breakfast and the Circle would still be on air. Paul was a very bad choice. The Circle was a result of cost cutting to pay for debt incurred by Breakfast. I truly hope they are developing a new version cause the network needs a breakfast show to build itself around.
    2 – If Sarah Murdoch was not host of Everybody Dance Now, the show would have had some energy and life between good performances and rated better and lasted on air longer. And therefore would not cost the network an fortune which resulted in sackings of on air news personalities the audience bonded with. I am sure Sarah is a lovely person but she should never have been put in this position of such a flagship show. But then again who was ever going to speak up against this decision!
    3 – Ten should have partnered with Seven for AFL. OK it is is expensive but it gives the audience (in the southern states) a reason to watch and hence get exposed to other ten programs promotions.
    4 – If not AFL they should have really pushed for NRL Rights. Again to give people reason to watch and give ten exposure.

    These four reasons go back to one person and one person only. One Mr L Murdoch.

    Ten need to invest in proven programs like Nine did with The Voice, and proven personalities, if they want to make a fast return. But do the co-owners of Foxtel and one co-owner of WIN really want ten to be a success?

    Geez I truly hope so!!!

  8. “Best Multichannel: ELEVEN ”

    I can only presume all the Star Trek / Neighbours fans voted this way.

    In 2012, Eleven:
    Bumped Nurse Jackie to 11:30pm;
    Removed Californication completely… and we are still waiting;
    Bumped Fresh Meat to late Sunday nights;
    Removed repeats of American Horror Story;
    Bumped The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to 11:30pm.

    IMO, these were all dumb programming decisions and Eleven is not a worthy winner in this category.
    Clearly, the apple does not fall far from the TEN mothership.

    Now that is off my chest, thanks again for hosting these awards.

  9. Apart from promos I never actually saw The Shire, Everybody Dance Now and Being Lara Bingle (and with their ratings i would think not many did either) .

    But I’ve seen Today Tonight and A Current Affair and refuse to believe you can go any lower.

  10. I voted Leah Purcell for most under rated as I reckon it should be somebody that doesn’t get the recognition, a bit like Kay Stewart 2 or 3 years ago. Thanks for giving us a voice David.

  11. No surprises there altho’ I don’t know who Jackie Woodburne is either (guess that’s the under-rated bit).

    Wouldn’t mind betting that the 1% who voted TVT as “disappointing” are the same trolls who vote Seven and Nine as the most reliable networks for starting on time in the other survey. Every anonymous survey has them – their data is known as outliers (altho’ I prefer “out-and-out liars”) and is usually ignored as aberrant.

  12. channel ten is done and dusted. they need to completely rebrand the network. bring breakfast back with a cast we actually want to watch. followed by the circle.

    lachlan murdoch tried to make it a news network, it has been an entertainment network since its launch.

  13. I really didn’t mind The Shire. It was actually fun and entertaining, like Being Lara Bingle…

    Everybody Dance Now, however, was simply awful. A shame it didn’t win Worst Show!

    And Shaun Micallef is hardly underrated anymore… Charlie Pickering would’ve been a worthy winner!

  14. Yes Ten’s revival will have to be based on local content. And that was Warburton’s approach for the second half of 2012. And that was what failed epically. It remains to be seen if they have the talent to do it, and whether a 3rd network can compete in that market now because local content is very expensive and risky.

    The problem is that while technology has raised the premium for 16-19 viewers has increased so have the efforts of Channel 9, Go!, Eleven, ABC2 and Fox 8 and other media on the internet to attract them.

  15. It would not take TEN much to get back on track. Whilst 7 and 9 are similar, 10 always has a point of difference which is their strong point. I think with starting Masterchef before MKR is a good thing. News at 5 is still going well. The Project at 6.30 will do better. Listen to the viewers and rework The Circle. Try it at Breakfast or Midday. If they can get another few hits this year it will be much better than 2012.

  16. Hope you realise the 1% were 7/9/10 employees! The rest of us love TV Tonight.

    Can’t disagree with any of these results. Still don’t know who the hell Jackie Woodburne is and why she keeps getting votes.

    My how Ten has fallen. Gonna take a lot to win me back. Can only see minor improvement for them this year. I still cannot understand how the hell those shows even made it to air last year though. what were they thinking?

  17. Who was that 1% who voted TV Tonight as Disappointing? I’m willing to bet it was either Kyle Sandilands, Paul Henry, Karl Stefanovic or Lara Bingle.

  18. It is possible for Ten to improve its ratings without high profile sport. It just needs to invest in decent local content.

    The ABC regularly beats it now and does it without a high profile sport.

    Bingle and Shire were more suited for 11 and were the reason why a quality series like Puberty Blues didn’t exceed 1 million.

    Cricket or V8’s might seem like a quick fix for ratings woes but the former is played during the summer and the latter is played fortnightly. There would still need to be decent local content to keep the eyeballs on Ten.

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