Glenn Dyer’s TV shorts and ratings

Roy & HG’s Memphis Trousers wear thin:

Only a couple of shows left in Roy and HG’s Memphis Trousers Half Hour.
The duo might be cult heroes to sports tragics and Seven’s Olympic
viewers, but to ordinary ABC viewers their appeal is fleeting. Only
251,000 people watched last Friday night’s program, a dismal number
which will confirm the feeling at ABC TV management that the show’s
time has come. The Memphis Trousers started on Saturday nights
but declining viewer numbers saw it switched to Friday nights, where it
did OK at 9.30pm. But with the ABC showing the second series of the
British spy thriller Spooks at 9.25pm, Roy and HG have been
pushed out to around 10.20pm. The ABC won’t say anything but word will
seep out of the Ultimo Centre eventually that Roy and HG will be
looking for a new vehicle in 2006.

Saturday night: Heartbeat causes Heartbreak at Seven:
The Nine Network won last week by one point after the (not-so welcome) return of the British police soap Heartbeat sank Seven’s chances on Saturday night. Heartbeat‘s
reappearance saw Seven’s share slump and allowed Nine’s cheerleader
movie (yes, it was that bad) to win the night with just over 1.1
million viewers. So bad was Heartbeat that Seven actually
finished third on the night after Ten, which was boosted by a Saturday
night AFL game. This was after Seven had narrowly won Friday night as
the cricket took viewers from Nine’s AFL and NRL games.

Seven won
25.7% on Friday night to Nine with 25.5%. Ten was on 17.4%, SBS on
16.8% and the ABC on 14.7%. This enabled Seven to go within 0.2% of
Nine, 28.1% to 27.9%, holding out the prospect of a draw or even a win
in a week. Seven’s performance has lifted in the past five weeks while
Nine’s has sagged. But then Heartbeat struck. Seven’s share
fell to 20.8% on the night, Ten was on 22.0% and Nine on a solid
26.5%. The ABC beat SBS, 16.3% to 14.4% as Dad’s Army became a lost cause. The wheel ended up with Nine on 27.9% and Seven on 26.9%. Nine’s movie Bring It On,
a repeat, from 7.30 pm, creamed it, as light as it was, with 1.174
million people. Ten’s AFL averaged 843,000 people. Nine won the week in
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide and Seven won Perth.

Sunday night: Audience unmoved by Judge Geoffrey’s mental gymnastics
Some viewers cared enough about Geoffrey Robertson’s return to TV to tune in and lift Sunday‘s audience to 324,000, up around 50,000 on the low 276,000 or so of a week earlier. But unfortunately more people tuned into Sportsworld on Seven (328,000) and it beat Sunday for
the first time in quite a while. The veteran mental gymnastics of Judge
Geoffrey were not sufficiently sporting to draw them away from the
antics of Dad’s Army in the fourth test. But the most interesting result was from 8am to 9am where Seven’s Sunrise was watched by 330,000 people (264,000 a week earlier) giving it a bigger audience than Sunday for the first time since the new format started in May, and the highest audience of the Sunday morning chat shows.

Back to Business on Sunday mornings:
Business Sunday returned
to its business current affairs roots on Sunday after two weeks of
dallying with the soft history and colour stories. Ali Moore conducted
interviews with Chip Goodyear of BHP, Malcolm Turnbull on his new tax
cut plans and Paul Little on taking on Chris Corrigan and Patrick, as
well as hosting the program. It’s clear Business Sunday is
seriously short of top flight journalists to share the burden. Sure,
Ross Greenwood did a competent set-up package to the Little interview
and Katrina Nicholas squeaked her way through a story on Telstra. But
the reason Sol Trujillo didn’t want to speak to Ms Nicholas wasn’t that
Telstra wouldn’t let him, as she said in her script, but because of
that attack dog story in The Bulletin during the week. On Inside Business
the Toll-Patrick battle was assessed in a story (no separate interview)
and interview with Chip Goodyear by Alan Kohler. It was a welcome
return to business current events in both programs, especially Business Sunday. But viewers remained scarce on the ground. Only 144,000 for Business Sunday, about 1,000 more than a week earlier, and only 82,000 for Inside Business, down 2,000 viewers on a week earlier.

Burke’s backyard pilots:
Don
Burke is off making more pilots: this time his CTC (Cut The Cr*p)
Productions has used Noelene Brown and Stuart Wagstaff hosting. The
pilot, shot for Foxtel in Sydney yesterday, sounds like a get together
of some of the guests from the memorial service for Gra Gra Kennedy and
could perhaps find a home on the Grey Channel, or Throwback TV? Burke
has meanwhile been pushing Nine for some commitment to a new project
for 2006. Even though he still has Backyard Blitz with Nine doing very solid numbers in the half-hour format at 6.30pm Sunday evenings.

Ten’s 7pm timeslot woes:
The worst program on network TV in prime time, Ten’s Celebrity Ready Steady Cook, has gone, to be replaced by repeats of Everybody Loves Raymond.
The program already runs during the day on Ten in a totally sponsored
segment (in conjunction with major consumer goods group, Continental),
for an hour. But Celebrity Ready Steady Cook ran for two weeks after the end of Big Brother in
a tie-up. No doubt sponsors, the IGA independent retailing chain of
Metcash, were appreciative of the added exposure. The 7pm timeslot is a
continuing problem for Ten. Except for Big Brother it is a black hole and has seen repeats of The Simpsons and Raymond used there before. Over on Seven they are beating the drum for the return of the third series of Dancing With The Stars,
and have followed Ten’s lead in trying to start a spin-off. A
“Backstage” program hosted by Sonia Kruger will go to air later in the
week. But I want to see Dancing With The Stars: Uncut, like the controversial Big Brother Uncut. Now that would be cool. We could call it Dancing Without the Shoes!

Last night’s TV
ratings