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Late night show for Seven?

The late night landscape is still a place of opportunity.

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There are rumours once again of a late night show for Seven.

I say do it. It’s an opportunity nobody is capitalising on, unless we count Tonightly with Tom Ballard, whose numbers -admittedly- are quite awful. But grabbing a loyal late night audience will add to nightly share.

The Herald Sun speculates Seven is buoyed by numbers for the very-economic Front Bar as a model, and is considering a Project-style show. Early discussions with Andrew Denton reportedly ended with him focussed on Interview.

Other names that have sprung up in this area are Lawrence Mooney, Andrew O’Keefe, Darren McMullen from previous pilots but it isn’t clear if the current chatter is news or variety.

There has always been a strong call to revive The Panel although Working Dog are selective about their projects. Let me also throw Roy & HG into the mix. But we should also offer up some female hosts too….

Whether on primary / multichannel, weekly / nightly, Sydney / Melbourne, serious / comedic, with audience / without audience….it’s time to take a few risks.

Any other names, people…..?

42 Responses

  1. Anything other than “a Project-style show” is worth a try. It’s all about the host. Why don’t they have a new show “Find a Host” where established and new talent can apply and Australia decides who they want to see 5 nights a week?

  2. I have always thought Australia should have a late nigh variety show like Saturday Night Live.
    Where every night there was a different host. Australia has many great comedians, presenters and actors that could host a great show every night.

  3. >> But we should also offer up some female hosts too….

    Cal Wilson. Brooke Satchwell. Julia Morris. Felicity Ward. Magda Szubanski. Meshel Laurie.

    >> Lawrence Mooney

    I loved Dirty Laundry; I liked the “Moonman” pilot of ABC a while back; and he’s a great stand-up. Not sure about hosting a tonight show – that’s a different gig.

  4. Is a good time for it now, well if the networks run the US and UK shows to the time they are running in those countries. That way the guests can be people from those shows as they are already on the talk show circuit for those shows so a stop over here to promote could be on the cards. Of course an Autralian TV Network would have to accept that having a guest from a show that is on another network is okay, just like they do in the US.

    Could have known Bands on, some do come here to promote they are coming back for an Australian Summer Tour now, so not so bad that the Talk Shows are generally not on when those bands tour in our Summer.

  5. Minimum requirements as far as I am concerned:-

    1) Needs to be nightly Monday to Friday essential.
    2) Consistent timeslot – to the second every night.
    3) Big scope – lots of live music, comedy, interviews with a fast pace
    4) Not just a cheap panel show.
    5) No cross promotions of their endless dreary network programs and no guests allowed to mention/promote their current film/record/tv show – immediate switch off if there is the merest intimation of this occurring
    6) Female host and one who makes a full commitment to the show – no fill in hosts.
    7) Minimum 40 week a year commitment
    8) No repeats – any timeslot, any channel, under any circumstances.

    Meet those requirements and I will happily embrace it as a viewer.

    1. These suggestions sound terribly dated. Realistically you’d need a bit of No.5 if you so push for No.1, sounds like you’re not going to be able to embarrass it as a viewer!

      I’d prefer a little quality not quantity.

      1. Yeah promotion of shows is what drives a 5 night a week one, you can however do it in a good way, a great rapport with your guest is the key. Probably the best example of it would have been when Craig Ferguson was doing The Late Late Show, yes shows/movie/music were promoted but there was a whole lot more in there than that. There where times on that Craig would wonder what where you here to promote again and good guests like like Kirstin Bell would reply I have no freakin’ idea. It was also done on the cheap, no in-house band no co-host, well until Geoff Peterson came along, however that was another kettle of fish altogether.

        They need to look outside the box on it.

  6. 4 hosts, each own one night of the week for variety and so we don’t get sick of them too quick….big characters
    Urzila Carlson, Kitty Flanagan, Gretel Killeen and Celia Paquola
    Short comedy opener, guest for 2 segments, music act alternating with an up and coming stand up comedian
    Maybe a News break beginning and end……or for an alternative, cross to the US/UK local correspondent for an amusing story of the day

  7. The old Vizard show was great. I always liked Friday nights with Richard Stubbs hosting too. I’d love to see him back on TV. Lawrence Mooney would be the best bet for this new show. Something like the Dirty Laundry show would be cool. Doubt it would work though. Different times these days.

  8. Something like Coast to Coast with Graham Kennedy? I liked that. Fast smart funny chatty topical. Not sure who would host the show but Naomi Robson deserves another run on tv.

  9. Instead of all the usual names that come up for these type of shows. How about someone like Lawrence Leung or Hannah Gatsby. Some original thought. 🙂

  10. Would love it to happen. Dirty Laundry Live 2.0 perhaps?

    Problem is that commercial networks have conditioned us all to switch off earlier and earlier in the evening by not presenting anything worthwhile after about 8.30 (although with some exceptions I concede). So getting people to shut down Netflix and tune back in later at night is going to be a huge task.

  11. Kitty Flanagan might be a good choice. Her standup show on the ABC was wildly funny and showed how restrained she is on the panel shows that she is on.

  13. Hmmm… Guess we’ll keep trying this until we eventually learn…

    But here’s a tagline for you – “Come for the tired old wit, stay for the tired old skits!”

    (But I’ll turn off before it gives me the …)

  14. ratings post 9.30-ish aren’t that good in general anyway. No harm in trying something different, instead of airing Gordon Ramsay repeats.

    Although I do prefer a weekly tonight show (aka – Rove), its costs numbers are usually high for our market. A weeknight show, to start at 9.30 or 10pm on the dot each night would be a nice change too.

  17. Yes please but take risks and try something different and let it grow – like what Ten has done for HYBPA for example. Don’t just yank it after two weeks of low ratings – it will need to grow an audience. Only needs to be Monday to Thursday.

    As I’ve said before though any late night show on any channel has to start the same time every night it is on, not varying or random start times due to varying reality finishing times earlier in the night. People will tune in at that time, you can’t expect them to wait for different times each night, nor can you expect them to be watching the same channel all night waiting.

    1. “has to start the same time every night it is on, not varying or random start times due to varying reality finishing times earlier in the night”

      Ironic, really, considering that ‘The Panel’ paved the way for the huge time over-runs & random start/finish times that’ve plagued Australian TV ever since…

  18. I reckon a Clive Robertson style news show would work again with the right personality (Lawrence Mooney maybe), it would be cheap TV as I don’t recall too many guests but I may be wrong. It was funny.

  19. There is definitely a market for it but every single time the networks seem to get the formula wrong be it host or content or both. If they get it right, people will watch. Just keep Andrew O’Keefe, Mick Malloy (not a front bar fan or a footy show fan for those wondering) and Hamish McLachlin far far away from it. Gretel Killeen or even Julia Zemiro could be a good host.

  20. I’d rather see ‘Conan’ back on our screens-running a late night show for most of the year would seem to be beyond the ability of the networks here these days.

  21. They could just reboot 7HD’s The NightCap! After all, that went well: Matt White, Jessica Rowe, Paul Murray and a recent Big Brother reject. Let’s hope they’ve learned from past mistakes!

  22. It’s always the same old names when it comes to this genre. How about you just pick random people of the street (like Gogglebox) and have them talk about anything they like.

  23. A great idea. Steve Vizard’s Tonight Live in the early 1990s is fondly remembered. I couldn’t watch it normally because it was beyond my bedtime and my parents watched something else, but in Feb each year they went away on holidays and I could watch it. It was something I looked forward to.

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