Ratings

9.42 pm. Saturday night update. Three match points to Clijsters. Please ignore everything below. This has been a totally engrossing women’s final… unbearable tension. Hang on. Gotta let the cat in. 

So I’m watching an Australian Open mixed doubles battle between four players who are almost as good as suburban A-grade singles players. Then whoosh! Just like that! A pigeon lands on the ledge outside my office window.

And not just any pigeon, but one of those really rare and beautiful grey ones! Awesome! An actual grey pigeon. Wow, what a sight.

But back to the tennis. Things are getting really exciting in a fourth round women’s match between two grunting Russian baseliners when… hang on. Hey, I just noticed we’ve still got our Christmas decorations up at work. Oooh, and what about that gorgeous row of paper dalmation baubles. It must’ve been up six weeks and I swear I just saw it for the first time. Heh-he. Dalmatians.

Continue reading "Gosh, hasn’t the tennis been smashing this year…" »

For about the fifty-millionth time on my television screen in recent times, I recently witnessed yet another slimy current affairs story that shouldn’t have been screened at 6.35 pm.

This time it was the tale of a woman who is taking her former boss to the cleaners for sexual harassment.  In itself, the story on Today Tonight didn’t particularly offend my sensibilities; it was quite newsworthy and, if told sensitively, may not have aroused my ire.  But it’s the sleazy manner in which these stories are so often portrayed that really gets up my nose.

Why did they have to give the intimate details of the case – word for word?  Why did they have to quote the man who supposedly said to the young woman during dinner that the dessert was so good it was ‘like a **** in the mouth’?  Oh yes, they beeped out the ‘offensive’ word.  Woohoo!  Good on them for being so ‘family friendly’. 

Continue reading "Yes Today Tonight, your sleaziness has my attention" »

The TV stations are in the final throes of the ratings year and over the past few weeks they have launched the shows to lead them into the Christmas break.

The big three stations have included some new reality TV shows in their arsenal to win over the viewers and therefore gain advertising dollars. How are they going?

The Apprentice:
One of Channel Nine’s highly promoted new programs, made by reality TV gurus Fremantle Media. The show started off to very poor ratings of under 700,000, but this week it improved and look like it is gaining traction. The problem with attracting viewers may not be the show but people lacking faith in Nine not sticking with the program.

Continue reading "How the year-end reality shows are holding up" »

Television ratings from the weekend’s big finals clashes will confirm for most that Australians love nothing more than large chaps smashing each other in pursuit of a football.

(Why would you watch sport when you can watch Antiques Roadshow, this is great)

But there is now evidence that we are not as sports-mad as we might think.

A new survey reveals that the number of TV viewers who think there is too much sport on their regular channels is greater than those who think there is not enough.

Continue reading "Enough with sport, we might not be that keen on it" »

It might be a military doctrine best remembered from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but “shock and awe” could just as easily describe the latest warfare by TV and radio stations in the battle for ratings.

The Austereo network’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O have become the most notorious exponents of this tactic on the airwaves in the past few weeks.

But just as in war, even the best laid plans can backfire when they are unleased on the battlefield.

Continue reading "Kyle and Jackie O may have shocked their last jock" »

It’s a complicated formula, how much a TV network is prepared to pay for ratings.

60 Minutes has just sealed a rumoured $200,000 deal with British back packer Jamie Neale, to do an interview to air this Sunday night, up against the Masterchef final.

Someone at Willougby obviously thinks its worth paying that much for Jamie’s version of how he survived lost in the Blue Mountains for 12 days.

Continue reading "Will you watch 60 Minutes on Sunday? Me neither." »

The online virtual world of Northrend -  complete with Gnomes, Dwarves, Warlocks and Dragons – was the last place I expected to find people swearing about Kevin Rudd.

I can’t remember the torrent of abuse exactly ‘cept that the oedipal noun was used a few times.

The beef? Their world, in the massively popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW) played by 11.5 million people worldwide, could be headed for the Rudd Government’s dreaded internet blacklist.

Broadband and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has confirmed the Government is looking at blocking all online content that is refused classification – ie exceeds the maximum MA15+ rating in Australia.

This, according to Conroy’s spokesman is just enforcing laws agreed by the States and Territories that say it’s illegal to buy, sell or play games deemed too explicit for those 15 years or younger.

Continue reading "World of Warcraft’s ultimate force of evil: Kevin Rudd" »

You can just never tell where the next hit is going to come from. And I’m not talking about Tuppence Moran either. Although, now that you mention it, do you think Nine arranged that? For Underbelly reasons?

Just kidding! Nine hasn’t got that kind of money anymore!

No, I mean Random Acts of Kindness. What an emotional show. Understandably. I’m pretty sure I’d cry too if somebody gave me a horse float.

Continue reading "Random invasive medical procedures, and kindness" »