Tough gig for ABC music show
Ratings: ABC has been praised for bringing Live music back to primetime but it's not easy finding the fans.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Making live music on TV sure is a tough gig.
ABC’s The Set has been praised for returning music to Free to Air primetime but despite the fresh approach it only drew 85,000 in its 10pm timeslot last night. That was actually up on last week which was just 58,000.
Earlier The Block won its slot at 834,000, beating out a penultimate Bachelor (760,000) with 10’s show topping the demos and up on last week.
Hard Quiz (570,000), 7:30 (487,000) and The Celebrity Chase (470,000) all followed, but all down on last week.
Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell finished its run at 602,000 then Utopia (572,000), My Life is Murder (413,000) and Queen: Days of Our Lives (405,000) -the latter was a good lift for Nine.
Nine network won Wednesday with 27.8% then Seven 27.5%, 10 21.6%, ABC 16.5% and SBS 6.6%.
Nine News (862,000 / 834,000) was best for Nine. A Current Affair (752,000) and Hot Seat (461,000 / 293,000) Grand Hotel (131,000 / 94,000).
Seven News was #1 with 980,000 / 915,000 for Seven then Home and Away (631,000) and The Chase (524,000 / 332,000). Britain’s Got Talent: The Champions was 331,000.
The Project was 512,000 / 297,000 for 10 then 10 News First (357,000) then Celebrity Name Game (209,000) and Bull (207,000).
ABC News (598,000), Diary of an Uber Driver (217,000) and The Drum (168,000) also comprised ABC’s night.
On SBS it was Tony Robinson’s Coast to Coast (170,000), SBS World News (130,000), The Looming Tower (101,000) and Mastermind (83,000).
NCIS on 10 BOLD led multichannels at 172,000.
Sunrise: 280,000
Today: 227,000
News Breakfast: 118,000 / 36,000.
OzTAM Overnights: Wednesday 18 September 2019
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- Tagged with 10 News First, 7:30, A Current Affair, ABC News, Britain's Got Talent: The Champions, Bull, Celebrity Name Game, Diary of an Uber Driver, Grand Hotel, Hard Quiz, Home and Away, Hot Seat, Mastermind, My Life is Murder, NCIS, News Breakfast, Nine News, Queen: Days of Our Lives, SBS World News, Seven News, Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell, Sunrise, The Bachelor, The Block, The Celebrity Chase, The Chase, The Drum, The Looming Tower, The Project, The Set, Today, Tony Robinson's Coast to Coast, Utopia
20 Responses
Sadly around 25 million didn’t watch this.
I suppose even if it was amazing, fragmentation is stopping many shows getting eyeballs.
To be fair, shows also get audiences thru iview etc.
I just watched The Set…very recently….not music I know…I am old…but I really enjoyed the vibe…Kinda like Bandstand use to feel….good music and conversation scattered throughout…and a whole lot of joy….Don’t think…just give it a try…you will be pleasantly surprised…Infectious happiness….what’s not to love.
I didn’t even know “The Set” existed, otherwise I would tune in to see who was performing.
Here u go.
Nice heading for this post, David. It hit the right note; struck a chord 🙂
I watched it a couple of weeks ago when it came back when Amy Shark and the Tesky Brothers performed, but must admit I had forgotten about it until last night when I watched and saw Kasey Chambers on it. It’s not a bad show, maybe a 9:00 or 9:30 timeslot would suit even if they have to change the night..
The Set may not be rating that much, but I think if it were promoted more on ABC, Triple J and Double J, as well as featuring more mainstream contemporary pop acts, it would get more viewers. It fills and caters for a niche and it is well received and enjoyed by those that watch it.
There was a long anticipated return to the live performance format which was very much enjoyed in past live music shows on the ABC, such as Countdown, Recovery, The 10:30 Slot and Studio 22 that were filmed and produced in the former ABC studios in Elsternwick near Balaclava and Ripponlea in Victoria.
Not sure if Studio 22 was produced in Ultimo or Elsternwick, but the rest of those listed were in Elsternwick.
The original series of Studio 22 were filmed at Gore Hill in Sydney. 1999-2000 I think.
Studio 22 was made in Sydney. The rest were all made at Ripponlea Studio 31 in Melbourne. Recovery started in Sydney for the first few episodes but was quickly moved down to Studio 31 as it was realised the best live music TV studio crew were in Melb. Sorry Sydney, but in this case Melbourne definitely does it better 😛
They need to ditch the balloons and the kids standing around. Give them chairs.
And for God’s sake bring back Molly Meldrum and screen it at 6pm Sundays!!!
Molly probably not up to weekly on air, I suspect.
Ok, minus Molly 🙂 But it certainly could work as family entertainment on a Sunday rather than buried late night mid week. Get a wider audience for the artists.
There is an unfortunately widening gap between mainstream artists and indie artists these days in terms of “coolness” for lack of a better word. Young people my age who consider themselves indie fans turn their nose up at the mere mention of you liking a mainstream song… almost as if you can’t like either equally… you either fall in to the cool kids crowd or the mainstream crowd, which is ridiculous. Music is an insanely snobbish topic amongst my age range… The Set tries to feed into the former… and clearly it’s not working well.
I think there is a place and an opportunity to cater to both of these markets, but I’m not sure it’s worth bothering with to be honest.
I didn’t even realise The Set was live, they don’t seem to point that out in the TV ads. Perhaps they should state it as “Live: The Set” or similar on the TV program guide.
I did mean live music rather than Live TV. Show is pre-recorded.
Are you able to share any numbers for Sports Tonight? I’m interested to see how it’s been performing lately. Thanks
Terrible 58,000.
Utopia is the best viewing on Wednesday night for me , I tried to watch the set, the acts were great but the format of party vibe seems a bit contrived I just find the hosts ego annoying, my teenagers actually turned it off which is a shame.