★★★★★ 0/5

Reef Doctors an object lesson in mis-scheduling

Twice-delayed and bumped after one episode. But was the real problem the show, the network or both?

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2013-06-11_1828Reef Doctors has been pulled from TEN’s Sunday nights after just one episode.

From Friday June 21 it will now screen in the low-rent 9:30pm slot. Double repeats of Modern Family will now screen in its place on Sundays from this weekend.

However you look at it, this is has been an object exercise in mis-scheduling.

The show pulled just 357,000 viewers on Sunday, widely reported as the lowest debut for a local drama on a commercial primary channel in prime time. Nobody has bothered to actually verify the claims with any hard facts, but there’s no escaping those numbers regardless.

It follows the network twice delaying the series starring Lisa McCune, no doubt impacting on the audience’s confidence in the show.

But bumping it to a 9:30 Friday night slot further diminishes the network’s faith in the show. It’s a shame it couldn’t make room for it in an early Saturday night slot.

TEN refused to directly answer whether it still expected a family audience for the show in its new timeslot.

“Reef Doctors clearly did not resonate with viewers in its Sunday timeslot and has been moved,” said Neil Shoebridge, TEN’s Director of Corporate and Public Communications.

“TEN remains committed to Australian drama, eg, Offspring, Neighbours and – to come – Wonderland, Secrets & Lies, Batavia and others we have not yet announced.”

It’s fair to say that TEN’s drama slate under Rick Maier, also including Puberty Blues, has been it’s shining light during a difficult period.

Originally due to air last October, then twice-rescheduled, Reef Doctors is in many ways a victim of internal network changes. Since being commissioned the network has had three CEOs, two Programming Chiefs and two Heads of Publicity. At one point we were told the show would be perfect for summer, then perfect for winter.

Eventually it premiered on a long weekend, doing nobody any favours.

Bumping it after one episode is also pretty reactionary, but let’s hope such haphazard treatment isn’t indicative of future TEN dramas, especially given CEO Hamish McLennan recently signalled the network had “over-indexed” on Australian drama of late.

But the network is not entirely responsible for the show’s dud reception. Others have endured in the same climate.

It didn’t help that the first episode was weakly executed (and let’s not start on that terrible opening theme song). Reviews have not been kind.

Trying to score a family audience in 2013 is also a big ask, even if it is the timeslot where Merlin worked. That was when TEN was firing on all cylinders.

Two weeks ago I suggested to producer Jonathan M. Shiff that Reef Doctors may be challenged by its weak timeslot. But Shiff was optimistic, already looking beyond TEN and Australia with his content, as he has done for many years.

“I think the world is turning more and more into content viewing so I’m not really hung up on timeslots. To be honest I think the timeslot days are finishing. Timeshifting is the norm,” he said.

“The audience will find the content. Australia may not be in step with the rest of the world just yet, but come back in a year and we will more and more line-up with the rest of the world that’s show-driven.

“If an audience embraces it and finds it, then I think the analytics of timeslot are an ending game. They’re not the future.

“The content will find the audience, notwithstanding the broadcaster’s timeslot.”

Be careful what you wish for…

55 Responses

  1. The fault clearly lies with Ten’s management.

    I saw a bit of RD and was impressed with the spectacular scenery and photography.

    Putting it up against The Block was a massively stupid move and the show was deservedly thumped.

    And now it will be dumped late on Friday nights – a perfect time for a ‘family’ show …not.

    Nothing wrong putting it on Saturday night after BTG.

    Sadly Ten’s new management are repeating the same mistakes as the previous one.

    And why oh why are they devoting so much time and money on a new breakfast show?

  2. 10 deserve to be where they are. I heard Hamish McLellan interviewed the other day and he said 10 were heading in the direction of event television. I wonder if that was it.

    I don’t think it is that hard to schedule Reef Doctors and as others have said Saturday at 7.30 would be good. We watched it with the kids and it is perfect family viewing and not as terrible as is being made out by some. Oh, and it’s Aussie.

    10 are (currently) a bunch of tossers and it’s my favourite network.

  3. I just couldn’t understand why the promotion for this show over the past month was limited when compared to the complete saturation of Offspring and Mr and Mrs Murder promotions every ad break that lasted for months. Did Ten have no faith in the show and already conceded it was a waste of promotion?

  4. Our family quite enjoyed the show and very disappointed it’s been bumped to an unfriendly family time of Friday’s at 9.30pm – my five and two year old are well and truly asleep by this time.

    Also, our EPG said that was an encore screening on Saturday night, after The Penguin King.

  6. A misconceived, weak, poorly scripted show that was merely a tax write-off and local drama content point collection anyway, and then well and truly sabotaged by dreadful programming decisions.

  7. As family fare, it really wasn’t a bad show. I enjoyed it and thought Sunday 6.30 was a good slot. Why don’t they have any encores scheduled?

  9. The problem lies squarely with Ten. They keep stuffing up the launch, promotion and scheduling of almost every program. How can they be so clueless?

  10. RD is a show of type, family drama, that just doesn’t have a place on TV at the moment.

    It is tough to find a spot for what looks like a kids’ show but is rated PG, which is why it has taken 9 months. Merlin was more adolescent and had an established audience of kids and fantasy fans.

    7 & 9 have very strong 3 hours blocks of TV on Sunday nights. Tough place to launch a new show.

    Saturday night would have disrupted Ten’s Attenborough/Movie lineup. With hindsight the best move would have been to just show it over Summer and blame previous management for the financial loss.

  11. Gee, talk about not giving a show a fair go. I enjoyed it, and thought the scenery was spectacular. Can’t remember the opening song, but that’s a weird thing to judge it on.

  13. I admire Shiff’s past productions and successes, and I agree with him about content viewing but Reef Doctors was so bland compared to other Ten dramas like Puberty Blues and Offspring. I didn’t even make it past the scene with her first patient.

  14. If it was only mis-scheduling this show may survive, but it was a bland set of characters without a plot worthy of the name.

    I saw the first scene catching water snaked and cringed… and the hung-over doctor was a dud.
    I turned to my tablet after that !

  16. Oh ten why oh why? You allow all manner of televisual crap to pollute the airway yet a decent family show you only give one week before shafting it – why not try Saturday night at 630 at very least – same spot where I think young talent time would have also done better business

  18. bumped already after just one episode? That was quick! But with the numbers it got, I don’t blame Ten for doing it.

    Its move to Friday nights interesting. Hopefully it can remain there until the end of the series, without moving it too much around

  19. ch10s main competitor is the ABC, so a Satuday night slot opposite or adjacent to Death in Paradise would give them a better shot at beating them.

    Ch 10 need to understand that they have little or no chance of knocking off 7/9 in the near future and really need to focus on beating the ABC on a regular basis. This show would have helped them with that. It seems they still have outbreaks of poor programming decisions a disease/infection they have had for sometime…

  20. And here we were thinking that Celebrity Splash had the flop of the year award wrapped up.

    Surely 6:30 Saturday evening is the ideal time slot for this turkey on either Ten or Eleven.

  22. First they should have known Sunday at 6:30 was not going to work but maybe they only expected 500k, also I think they should have encored it sometime during the week to pick up some more viewers and at least give it 2 weeks to find it’s feet.

    Over all I liked the show but like many I had to watch it from my PVR as 6:30 is dinner time so maybe they would get more PVR viewers?

  23. That is such a disappointing venture. 1 episode. 10 really has no ticker or confidence for its product. It has lost up to a third of its audience across most of its shows, some even higher.

  25. This is so bizarre. I didn’t see the show – but it looked half decent – it could have found a decent audience.

    Sunday 6.30 is the oddest timeslot for Australian drama – with a non existent lead in with The Simpsons. I just can’t fathom what Ten was thinking with Sunday 6.30.

    Also – there was what 9 days of promos? Was there any marketing campaign at all? Any publicity, social, online marketing? Lisa McCune doing the rounds? Anything.

    There was zero awareness of this show?

    A show needs at least a 2 month marketing campaign to get noticed. And a decent timeslot.

    This easily could have gone Thursday 8.30 – and older skewing night.

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