Glenn Dyer’s shorts and TV ratings

A Current Affair to getaway?

The
Nine Network is considering sending A Current Affair on holidays for around a
month in December-January as a way to cut costs. Sources say the decision hasn’t been set in concrete but the odds are
slightly in favour of a break as a way of trimming budgets and cutting
back on holiday leave costs. This
would enable Nine to make a clean break with Ray
Martin, if it’s decided to change him for another host. Tracy Grimshaw has been suggested. It’s
thought one option is to go on break from just before Christmas and return in
late January with a new set, new host (if that happens) and new look, and
possibly a new timeslot of 7pm. There
are also thoughts Nine might go to an hour news between
6pm and 7pm.

Rival Seven is planning to keep Today Tonight on air through the break
with Anna Coren hosting in place of Naomi Robson. Chris Bath will host
the week night news in Sydney over summer. Nine
has its 2006 program launch at head office at Willoughby tonight with Liz Hayes of 60 Minutes
– and not Ray Martin or Jana Wendt – hosting. The
reports about ACA come as rumours increase that Nine’s
chief programmer, Michael Healy, is not happy. They
surfaced in the Melbourne Age today.

Healy
though is known to have been unhappy for some months now, since Sam Chisholm
took control in May. He has
had internal discussions with chief operating officer, Ian Audsley (and CFO Brent Cubis) over
program budgets and how much can be spent on new programs for next
year. These
discussions (more like disagreements) are known to have caused delays to a lot
of program commissioning that Nine should have been
doing. Nine
has officially said that these delays are due to Sandra Levy arriving as the new
head of Development. But
these delays were being reported before she arrived in
October. And industry reports say she is known to have been surprised by the lack of money at
Nine.

Missing Persons finds a place

The Nine Network has finally found somewhere to put two
long-heralded programs, Suspicious Minds and Missing Persons
Unit. Tonight, the programs will
appear in Nine’s 2006 schedule, despite the fact that this time a year ago, they were touted for the 2005 line-up. Nine
has very little in the way of new local shows in the pipeline. There’s a series called Twisted Two starring Bryan Brown in a
reprise of the Twisted Tales program and Nine is also promising that the UK-US mega series Rome will now be in the 2006 schedule because it didn’t need it this year.

Suspicious Minds
is being done at Nine by the group behind RPA. It’s an hour long and according to Nine, will “examine Australian stories involving mystery,
murder and crime. It will feature interviews with real victims and their
families, as well as the witnesses and investigative teams involved”.

Last night’s TV
ratings