★★★★★ 0/5

Seven downgrades Restaurant Revolution once again

Originally 4 nights a week, but Seven series will now air just 1 night next week.

56
Leave a comment

2015-08-05_0021

Seven has pulled back on its Restaurant Revolution episodes for the second time -now due to air just one night a week.

The Reality series -originally due to air four nights a week- will now air just on Thursday next week, as a double episode at 8pm. Seven has dumped plans for a Monday night episode after disappointing figures this week of 522,000 viewers.

It will be replaced with Highway Patrol and Motorway Patrol at 7:30pm on Monday. Next Tuesday Seven has Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud (which is now attracting dubious press) plus Border Security / The Force on Wednesday.

The failure of the new show puts it into rare company, alongside shows such as Excess Baggage, The Mole, Celebrity Splash, where a network has had to cull its output and frantically reschedule after wholesale audience rejection.

But Seven may not be alone in a major schedule overhaul. If it wins a current legal battle against Nine, the Federal Court may order Nine to suspend further episodes of The Hot Plate.

Yesterday a judge announced he would decide on Thursday if Hot Plate was in breach of Seven’s copyright of My Kitchen Rules. A worst-case scenario for Nine could mean it is forced to replace the show -presumably with The Big Bang Theory.

Justice Nicholas was prepared to watch four hours of rival cooking formats before making his ruling.

“I won’t say I will gladly do it, but I will do it if you ask me to,” he said.

Tomorrow night’s Restaurant Revolution episode remains at 8pm.

Seven has been contacted for comment.

56 Responses

  2. Consulting my crystal ball, I predict:
    ~ RR will not be back next season (yeah I know, it’s not rocket science),
    ~ the cats will rate very well (also not rocket science), and
    ~ FTA will continue in the belief that know what viewers want (even that’s not rocket science).

    So, why the can’t these folks get their act together? Does FTA not see the irony of them trying to prevent the internet talking away their viewers on the one hand, and then on the other hand resorting to showing internet videos when their prime production falls flat?

  4. Seven really seem to be the network of bit hits and huge flops recently. I wish networks understood that at this point in the year, viewers aren’t willing to commit to stripped formats that spread across four/five nights a week after lengthy seasons of MKR, The Block, House Rules, Masterchef etc. If viewers want reality, this is the perfect time for once per week timely and consistent shows such as The Amazing Race Au, Beauty/Geek, the Mole. Put in primetime with promotion, highlighting their once per week episodes, I believe they would be a hit (or at least far better than RR or HP).

    1. I agree with your idea of getting a program to air once a week with an hour long show. Hopefully if they do go down this track they put the show in a good timeslot (9:15 after an X-factor elimination show which goest on forever is not a good slot)

  5. It was a very big risk for 7 to develop new pop up restaurants for an untested format if it flopped. Too bad that is exactly what has happened. 9 were at least smart enough to stick with existing restaurants. I have no doubt that the massive capital already invested in the show is the only reason it’s still on air. If not axing the show is an attempt to avoid negative headlines, that has also failed. Will the last person to leave the restaurant turn off the lights?

  6. The last thing Seven would have expected was for their new restaurant show to be up against their proven ratings winner My Kitchen Rules which has basically been taken and renamed as Hot Plate on Nine. The last thing Seven should do is cancel Restaurant Revolution after all the promotion and the fact that there are millions of people going past these establishments every week. That would be a monumental publicity disaster. They should be sticking it out with the restaurants for the long haul or risk being damned across the board. Remember, people who go out to restaurants usually go out to the football (AFL) and spend money on music (XFactor).

  7. Crazy to think that after House Rules (which didn’t start particularly well), Celebrity Splash is Seven’s most successful new reality show in the past three years. It’s almost as if their usual “come up with a hook for the ads, pad the rest of the show with filler challenges” format doesn’t work at all.

    1. Wait what about TARAu. Quality wise the show was amazing and TARAu2012 was the best TAR I have ever seen (I have seen 30 odd seasons of TAR including the U.S., Australian Canadian and Asian shows). Rattings wise, it had 2 seasons of decent rattings and 1 season with bad rattings (although still higher then RR) in a crappy timeslot with little/no promotion.

  8. I mustn’t be the only person who pity the judge in this case from the tones of his comments in this case.
    Also does this case mean that AFL360 can sue NRL360 for breach of copyright?

  10. I wonder if seven should consider doing an open-pitch, where members of the public can pitch ideas for a new t.v show. That way, we might see something worthwhile on air. The process itself could be a t.v show and the public vote for the show they want to see.

  11. I thought that ‘cats’ program was a belated April Fools joke – but sure enough Seven is replacing RR with youtube videos of cats doing silly things.

    Pity Seven doesn’t have a backup program like Nine does – with TBBT – and Ten does with MF and NCIS.

    Seven will be hoping for the 800 Always Greener Words is a success cos DWTS is not the powerhouse it once was and I can’t see viewers flocking to X factor so soon after The Voice.

    I am just glad there is Netflix, Presto, Stan, cheap DVDs (remember those things?), the movies and of course – reading. Yep – one can still be entertained by something called a book!

  12. This is what happens when you don’t listen to your audience. We wanted a tightly edited 12 episode one per week season of Amazing Race Australia. Seven didn’t agree and thought we needed another cooking. Looks who’s the fool now.

  13. Seven may have had a few flops over the years killy06, but at least they are trying out new series of programmes and not relying on repeats and repeats on old shows like channel 9 always do to keep the ratings, you have to give seven a big ‘A’ for effort in trying new things.

    5. ‘A’ for effort in trying new things… that don’t rate . How about trying to get some new people to come up with the new ideas??

  14. If every production company and network sued each other over copying shows, there’d be lawsuits all over the joint. It seems like almost everything is a rip off, from something else. Lots of “same same”, but not much “different”.

  17. If you try something new it might fail. Nine, of course doesn’t have this problem, sticking to proven formats, even if they are somebodies elses.

    1. I did mean audition eps of X -Factor.
      While the live show dates or x-factor will be locked down. there is no reason they can’t pad out the audition and boot camp episodes more than they had planned to.

        1. I’m not suggesting it’s an ideal situation, but it may become a lesser of two evils. Are you better running factuals three nights a week or extending X-Factor somewhat to plug the gap?

          2. Variety please – do we really need reality competitions 5 nights a week, up to 2 hours on any given night over 40 weeks a year?

    1. What is this “network loyalty”? I watch what I want regardless of what channel it’s on. I’m not “loyal” to any channel – if it’s got rubbish programming I just don’t watch 🙂

      1. Me too, however a couple of years ago, quite a few folk on here commented that viewers would watch anything that ch7 put on. I always doubted that, but some still believe in network loyalty…

  21. Gee the replacement shows are slim pickings. Think Seven needs to rethink their strategies. If Nine looses HP wow pick win for us audience with The Big Bang Theory not

  22. David – Although I haven’t watched Full Time Ads (oops I mean Free To Air television) for over 2 months now I still love reading your TV Tonight Blog. It’s always a great read for me to start my day everyday. Thanks for all the hard work you put into the Blog.

  23. Seems like Seven are in a bad run with commissioning flops over the last couple of years. As mentioned above, Celebrity Splash and The Mole.. then there’s Brynne: My Bedazzled Diary, The Amazing Race: AUS vs NZ, The Big Adventure, Bringing Sexy Back and now Restaurant Revolution to add to that list. One would think that the only shows that really work for them are House Rules (Renovating) My Kitchen Rules (Cooking) & X Factor (Singing) how boring.. it’s no wonder I don’t watch anything on that network.

    1. Me too! I don’t watch MKR, HR and The X Factor because I am sick and tired of these reality shows. I may perhaps start reading a book instead!

Leave a Reply