2005 is becoming a year of flops for Ten, who would really be up the creek without a paddle if it weren’t for Big Brother. The latest casualty is the US version of The Office, which went to air on two nights last week – two eps back-to-back on Wednesday night when it attracted 869,500 viewers, and on Thursday night when it was watched by around 683,000 people. Not brilliant.

The original British version of The Office was a huge hit in Britain and here. Why NBC thought an American version would work in the US and why Ten thought it would work here after the original was a hit on the ABC, is difficult to explain.

Ten stuck with X-Factor despite low viewing figures because it had paid millions of dollars for the format and there was too much money and too much ego tied up with junking it.

Another flop was the local version of Queer Eye, which was pulled after three of six episodes. The remaining three episodes shuffled off into the ether last Friday night. The first episode was watched by 610,000 people, the second (at 10pm) by 336,000, while the third didn’t make the top 50 list of most-watched programs on Friday.