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Network feud over Family Feud ratings

Nine says TEN has gotten ahead of itself on judging Family Feud as a big success.

2015-01-21_0116The February TV war is heating up with Nine questioning the ratings success of TEN’s game show Family Feud, which moves to six nights a week from Sunday.

TEN programmer Beverley McGarvey has previously said, “Australians have fallen in love with Family Feud, making it the most-watched game show on commercial television.”

But while Hot Seat and Million Dollar Minute may arguably be deemed quiz shows -and technically not game shows- Nine head of programming Andrew Backwell suggests the show’s ratings, derived from a simulcast on TEN, ELEVEN and ONE, are nothing to get excited about.

“I don’t really talk down our opposition but if you look at Family Feud the interesting thing is it does half the numbers that Seven and Nine do in the slot. Nine does 1m to 1.2m with the News nationally. Family Feud does 500,000 – 550,000 across three channels,” he told TV Tonight.

“So this is touted as one of the biggest hits on Channel TEN? It does half of what Channel Nine does in the slot and it’s across three channels.

“If you look at the share in the slot, you wouldn’t be touting it as a big success.”

TEN maintains Family Feud has given the network its biggest audience in the 6pm to 6.30pm weekdays timeslot in more than five years. But Backwell points to increased costs involved too.

“Personally I think they’re getting a bit ahead of themselves on the success of the show. In the slot (compared to) what they had there previously, obviously they have grown their audience there, but it’s a local production so they have grown their cost-base in that slot compared to what they had there previously. So your cost base goes up and your audience goes up a small amount,” he says.

“I think it’s done OK but I think people have gotten ahead of themselves about its huge success.

“If everything on Channel TEN is half of Channel Nine I’m more than happy.”

TEN’s Beverley McGarvey says the show is working and has no plans to end its simulcast roadblocking, despite calls for multichannels to offer alternative content.

“It works and it would be crazy for us to on-pick something that works. We have a very robust schedule on ELEVEN and ONE, we offer a lot of first-run content and a lot of Australian content,” she told TV Tonight.

“People engage with Family Feud and it works as a triple test. It’s half an hour a day and we have no plans in the short term to make any changes there.”

This week Nine also premiered The Block on both Nine and GEM to 860,000 viewers.

Family Feud begins on Sunday nights from 6pm this weekend.

36 Responses

  1. If Nine wasn’t concerned about FF they wouldn’t be talking about it.

    Also, I cant watch the news at 6pm as the family is getting ready for dinner. It’s far too graphic. Blood lust and bad news isn’t my cup of tea after a long day at work. It’s all online anyway, why wait until 6pm?

  2. Take a look at either Nines or Seven TV schedule, they may as well be ABC 24. Most shows are news. Refreshing to have shows on that are not news based and 10 offer an alternative. Looking forward to I’m a Celeb…… go ten

  3. With News now saturated in all facets and time slots of our media culture, it’s nice to have a bit of fun in the 6pm slot.
    Good on you Grant Denyer, you do a great job!
    TEN needed to freshen up, their whole programming, and I think FF is a winner.

  4. What i think Channel 9 are more worried about is their overall ratings for their news.Sure they are doing well but they are not getting the numbers they once were.They have dropped away thanks to Family Feud,and their 1 hour news which is to long.Channel 10 would be happy as these figures are the best they had in a extremely long time,but they are in danger of over exposure when they go six nights a week…Should have Wheel Of Fortune on the weekends

  5. Don’t read too much into this Nine are just bitter Tens Family Feud is doing better than their last version. Why? Grant is a young, enthusiastic host as opposed to Bert who naturally like anyone was probably losing that fire in the belly with age. Nine better watch themselves, I think they might fall in a big hole this year with a lack of new, creative content.

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