Media Hunter

How Gruen made people love adland

Source: Simon Canning, The Australian

THE ABC's surprise hit of 2008, The Gruen Transfer, which wound up last night, may have unwittingly taught the advertising industry a lesson that for too long has fallen on deaf ears.

Over eight weeks, the show, which revealed the dark underbelly of the industry, attracted more than a million viewers per episode.

But has it been good or bad for adland?

The show's producer, Jon Casimir, and Zapruder's Other Films founder Andrew Denton set out two years ago to work out how to bring to life on TV what happens in the boardrooms of agencies.

The format was a big risk for everyone involved, from the ABC all the way down to those appearing on the show -- and, of course, their clients.

Nine axes Sunday and Lateline

Nine Press Release:

The Nine Network today announced the closure of the Sunday program from Sunday, August 3, to be replaced by a weekly one-hour News bulletin on Sundays at 8.00am.

Nine’s nightly late night news program, Nightline, will also wind up tonight, with the Network scheduling more newsbreaks through the evening to provide viewers with regular news updates.

The Network’s Director of News and Current Affairs, John Westacott, said the decision to close Sunday was difficult but inevitable.

Axed: Confirmation Big Brother will no longer be watching

Source: Media Spy 

There are reports today that Network Ten and Endemol Southern Star will not produce another series of Big Brother next year.

The Behind Big Brother forum reports the decision came as a huge shock to the hundreds of employees who work on the show, which has been running since 2001.

Gretel Killeen hosted the high rating show from its beginning until last year but was replaced this year by radio duo Kyle (Sandilands) and Jackie O on the eviction show, while Tony Squires and Rebecca Wilson host Big Mouth, a replacement for Killeen’s Big Brother Uncut program.

Television's generation & gender gaps

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

If men and women could only unite, Australia might get some stimulating television in the second half of this year. But they can't, so we're stuck with the programming preferred by viewers aged over 55 -- the time of life when, apparently, the sexes are most similar.

Last week this column pointed out that the seniors are the biggest consumers of TV, while the groovers watch the least (37 per cent of prime time viewing is by people over 55, up from 32 per cent in 2003; 28 per cent is by people 16-39, down from 30 per cent in 2003).

So the network that wins the year will be the one with the geriatric appeal. Off the back of a truck has fallen some fascinating research about the age of viewers for each station's most popular shows this year. The median age of Australians is 37, which is to say that half the population is older than 37 and half is younger. But the median age of viewers for most top programs is well above the national figure. Half the people who regularly watch Today Tonight, for example, are over 54. What you're about to read suggests that TV is, to put it politely, a mature medium.

Who's hot on TV, who's not

Source: Richard Clune, news.com.au

THEY are the measure of star quality that the television stations don't want you to see.However, a rare glimpse of the Q Scores on our brekkie hosts shows why David Koch is the star of morning television.

The former finance guru turned host of Sunrise has what television executives call star quality, with a Q Score rating of 14.

The secretive scores are a system of consumer polling employed by television networks to determine how popular a celebrity is.

A score of 10 and above is deemed high, with a low score being three and an average score sitting at six.

Don't count on any new US blockbusters

Source: Michael Bodey, The Australian

THE time may well be past when blockbuster American series could turn around the fortunes of an Australian television network.

This year's muted round of screenings and up-front presentations by US networks has yet to approach any kind of fervour or produce the next Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy.

The risky process of confirming new series on the strength of an expensive pilot episode is no longer in vogue after several high-profile failures in the US 2006-07 season and the recent writers' strike, which curtailed Hollywood production.

Traditionally, US networks ordered pilots early each year, presented them to advertisers and international buyers in May, and premiered them in the northern autumn.

That strategy has changed for most. NBC now spends more time on development but can decide to commission an entire series without producing a pilot.

Nine ushers series online

Source: Lara Sinclair, The Australian

THE Nine Network has broken ground for downloads, promising the first four episodes of medico-legal drama Canal Road online before on-air broadcast.

While other networks have placed single episodes of comedy and current affairs programs on the net, Nine is the first to launch multiple episodes of a local drama at once.

The first two episodes of Canal Road were slated for Ninemsn this week, ahead of the show's TV launch next Wednesday. The next two episodes will be available next week.

Nine has experimented with downloads and "catch-up TV services", making episode one of Sea Patrol available three days before its launch last year.

Ten has traditionally been more receptive than its rivals to making content available online, using YouTube to distribute episodes of Thank God You're Here.

Content from The Chaser, on the ABC, has similarly been widely distributed on the net.

Axed: Power of Ten

Source: tvtonight.com.au

What percentage of Australians thought the Power of Ten was a good idea?

Well, it's hard to say what the percentage was but 521,000 wasn't enough to keep the show going. Nine has pulled it after just two episodes, the same life-span of Monster House.

Remaining episodes of the series, hosted by Steve Jacobs (who received mostly positive reviews), now hang in limbo while the Network considers whether to air them later in the year or in a low-profile timeslot.

Given the contestants didn't win much money from the show, Nine could probably just pay them out to avoid its own Bingo-style scandal.

Nine will fill the spot with the doco series, David Attenborough's Life in Cold Blood, probably not a bad alternative to the genres already stitched up by Seven and TEN in the 7:30pm Monday slot.

A multi-sex theory of programming

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald Blogs

There are four sexes in Australia: men, women, old folks and The Rich. If you want to be perfectly precise about it, you could divide the first two sexes into two sub-sexes: young men and women and middle-aged men and women. Then you'd have an impression of how the viewers are viewed by the programmers and advertisers who decide the content of Australia's favourite medium.

The four-or-six-sex-theory of Australian tastes explains why certain TV shows that appear to be flops are kept on by the TV stations. The various social segments consume entertainment very differently, which means there is no longer such a thing as a mass market. Successful programmers know how to play the niches. A program need only appeal to one of the sexes to justify a spot in the schedule. You may not like it, but as long as 700,000 members of one of the other sexes tune in and turn on once a week, it's a hit.

Axing Out of the Question

In surprising news, Seven has announced there will be a second series of Glenn Robbins’ chat show, Out of the Question. The program premiered to strong national ratings figures but has since dropped to below 800,000 in its crucial 8.30pm Thursday timeslot.

A Seven source told the Herald Sun the show’s format would be “tightened” before it returned.

The show, despite low ratings, performs well for the network in the key 16-39 demographic, which The Australian last week reported was the reason it remained on air.

Thursday nights have been an unusual programming challenge for Seven/Prime so far this year with Out of the Question, The Famly Guy, Lost and American Dad proving to be a strange line-up. Lost has suffered smaller ratings coming off the back of the weaker lead-in shows.