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Reality TV zeroes in on grand final week

Four Reality TV titles ready for grand finals -and most of them struggling for audiences.

2014-11-23_0123The final week of television ratings is underway, with Reality shows reaching their crescendo.

Big Brother, The Big Adventure, Dancing with the Stars and Beauty and the Geek Australia are all waiting in the wings with Reality TV grand finals.

If pre-publicity is to be believed The Big Adventure will give away one million dollars tomorrow night, in a double episode on Seven. Only two other shows have ever given away that kind of cash prize on Australian television before: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (twice) and Big Brother (once). Unlike Seven’s ambitious new format, both were big rating drawcards at the time. Ratings-wise, Seven will be hard-pressed to improve on a value of $2 a viewer.

Dancing with the Stars has no cash at stake, but there is still a title and trophy to be won by either Ricki-Lee, Lynne McGrainger or David Rodan. While ratings have been down on previous years the show still has a decent following. Tip Rodan for the win as the act that best represents the show’s true premise.

Big Brother will give away $200,000 on Wednesday night, in a 3-way finale expected to be drawn from Skye, Travis, Ryan or Priya. At least one of them will be evicted on Tuesday night, probably with Penny and Lina. The initial prize of $250,000 has seen some of the loot already distributed in previous challenges. Starting at 8:30pm (including delayed in several states) the show won’t match previous finales and goes up against TEN’s ARIA Awards, including with Molly and Countdown inducted into the Hall of Fame. That said, the ARIAs has also not been a ratings blockbuster, so tip Big Brother to beat it.

Finally three couples will battle for $100,000 on the Beauty and the Geek Australia grand final on Thursday night: Nicole and Alexander, Oliver and Frances, Tate and Emily and Nick and Candice. At least Seven’s 90 minute finale will be without heated competition on Thursday night.

Meanwhile TEN’s Recipe to Riches will stretch past the end of ratings, for its grand final in December (who planned that one?).

But the real question for these shows won’t be who will win.

It will be ‘Will any of these shows actually return in 2015?’

14 Responses

  1. Big Brother has been run into the ground. god the old girl needed a new life. The producers had three seasons to do so. But instead it simply slipped form bad to worse.

  2. It’s a shame that Big Brother and the ARIA’s are going head to head … any word if either will be repeated later in the week, even if on digital channels like GO! or Eleven?

  3. I actually think Ricki-Lee deserves to win Dancing With a The Stars, she’s been consistently good each week and has gotten better and better. All her performances have been entertaining and engaging plus it’s about time a girl won.

  4. I wouldn’t be surprised if Seven desperately code the TBA final into as many different shows as OzTAM will allow in order to try and find a decent ratings figure to mention in the wash-up. Ep 1, Ep 2, Bit Where We Give Away Money, etc. Of course it’s still not coming back, whatever the outcome.

  5. Out of the ones with finals this week the only i see possibly returning is Dancing With The Stars…Channel 7 and 9 are pretty full up with 2 x seasons of some of their reality and I can see other older brands pushed out so they can still show drama, comedy and factuals

  6. They will all be back except Big Aventure and the tired Big Brother. The BA could of been huge, but they got greedy and did the MKR recaps to camera and that’s what ultimately stuffed it up for me. Add to that; the repetitive swinging over the ocean challenges and the painful team picking and I was done after three episodes. I really wanted to get into it on Sundays with The Block gone, shame.

  7. Recipe to Riches is more about selling stuff at Woolies than ratings for Ten. They pay a shedload of money to be associated with the show. Same reason Jamie Oliver is still on air with poor ratings.

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