Puns a Gogh Gogh. The NGV Van Gogh “fake” had the punsters out in force over the weekend:

  • “It’s No Gogh”, 3 August, mX (Melbourne),
  • “Van D’oh!”, 4 August, Ch7 News,
  • “What this Ear? It’s A Van Gogh that isn’t”, 4 August, The Scotsman ,
  • “The Artist Formerly Known As Vince”, 4 August, The Age

Meanwhile, ironic that the NGV ‘loses’ a Van Gogh as Boston Museum ‘discovers’ one .

From go to woe with The Sunday Age . An interesting ad juxtaposition seen on page 13 of yesterday’s Sunday Age .

The death of Irwin a ‘huge buzz’ for Linnell: Over the weekend The Age’s Sunday Life magazine ran a feature interviewing “the most powerful people in television,” including Channel Nine’s director of news and current affairs Gary Linnell. When asked about the work Linnell looked back on most proudly, he gave this rather unfortunately worded answer, which, needless to say, looks a little harsh in print:  

 

  Seven, still the one . Yet another week, another win to the Seven Network, one that was ordained last Sunday night when the second last night of Big Brother and weak Nine programming allowed Seven to sneak home and establish an early lead it never relinquished. Seven has now won all but two of the year’s official ratings weeks (and won the two at Easter.) Seven won with a share of 27.9% (27.2%) from Nine unchanged on 25.9%, Ten with 24.3% (23.0%), the ABC with 16.3% (17.0%) and SBS on 5.6% (6.9%). Seven won Sunday, Tuesday and Friday nights. Ten won Monday and Wednesday nights and Nine won Thursday and Saturday nights. Nine finished in the unaccustomed position of third Sunday and Monday nights. Seven won Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Ten won Adelaide. The highlight was Ten’s final of Big Brother , which averaged 1.9 million viewers and was the most watched program of the week. Seven’s Border Security on Monday nights at 7.30pm and Ten’s Thank God You’re Here on Wednesday nights were the other most watched programs over the week. Nine’s Sea Patrol , or “Neighbours on the Water”, averaged just over 1.6 million people, a healthy figure for Thursday nights. But the program is clunky. Seven News and Today Tonight won the 6pm to 7pm battle, while Nine’s Today again made little impression on Seven’s Sunrise from 6am to 9am while the 9am morning show put a bit more of a gap on Nine’s Mornings with KAK and 9am With David and Kim on Ten. Nine seems to be running dead some nights, such as Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays (tomorrow night seems different this week). Seven is running dead Wednesday nights because of Thank God You’re Here on Ten makes life difficult, as McLeod’s Daughters is finding out on Nine. — Glenn Dyer Ten has a problem and its called Sydney . Last week’s figures again showed the problem Ten has: it’s called Sydney. Its share in the country’s richest TV market was 21.2%, the lowest of all five major metro markets (it won Adelaide!). Ten is down by up to 10% in some timeslots in Sydney (and a bit more in lesser watched slots) in prime time in Sydney. The Network’s daytime audience across the major metro markets is fairly solid after 11am when David and Kim finish, but from 6pm onwards Sydney is the real problem. And it probably was also part of the reason why the network replaced its ad chief last week; Shaun James is now the chief marketing officer, or some similar, meaningless title. He won’t be there in six months’ time. Vance Lothringer is in the slot: he was the former sales boss of the Nine Network for years: a decade or more. He’s tough and knows how to deliver sales revenue in all sorts of markets. Ten is also not doing as well in Brisbane: its share there was 24.3% last week, the second lowest. It’s probably down 5 to 10 per cent. Ten does well in Melbourne and especially Adelaide, while it quite often beats Nine into second in Perth. Part of the problem is the higher penetration in Sydney and Brisbane and the Gold Coast by Pay TV. Pay TV attracts more viewers among Ten’s key demos of 16 to 39 and 18 to 49 than it does in 25 to 54s, which is where Seven is strongest, and in the over 50’s, which is Nine’s only growth demo this year. That’s probably the major reason why Ten has fallen behind in Sydney, and then Brisbane. Ten’s strong programs, like The Biggest Loser and Big Brother , are targeted at the two demos. It also helps to produce programs and identify them with cities in Australia. The ABC’s hit this year, The Chaser’s War On Everything is made in Sydney and it’s clear from each episode that the city is at the heart of the program. Thank God You’re Here is made in Melbourne, the audience is from Melbourne and many of the stars and others on each episode are from Melbourne. And that’s reflected in the higher audiences in Sydney from The Chaser and Melbourne for Thank God each week. The weakness of BB in Sydney was quite noticeable last Monday night for the winner’s program. The highest audience was in Melbourne, Brisbane was OK for the size of the market, but Sydney, a bigger market than Melbourne, had a smaller audience. — Glenn Dyer WIN and Nine restart talks. Let’s all fall about laughing. It’s “we warn the Tsar” from Bruce Gordon and his merry bunch of pranksters at WIN Corporation as they restart talks with Nine about a new affiliation agreement and millions of dollars in income and profits. There was the AFR with reporter, Neil Shoebridge, saying they had an ‘exclusive’ interview with WIN boss, Bruce Gordon and others from the company, and there was Bruce Gordon speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald’s  Lisa Murray. But no one stopped and thought where would Bruce and WIN get their news from for Adelaide and Perth? Without an effective, solid rating evening news and current affairs mix from 6pm to 7pm a TV network is dead in commercial terms. I know Ten doesn’t have one, but it does have an hour of news at 5pm and then spends money on programming from 6.30pm onwards to build its audience share. WIN is talking about doing this in Perth and Adelaide, and presumably on the regional network. They could do their own local news and tap into the WIN regional Network, but it depends on Nine network generated stories from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane (now NBN) and Canberra. Ten and Seven wouldn’t sell them news material because they don’t need to and have competing bulletins in Perth and Adelaide. WIN has dealt with ten in regional WA but Perth is a different matter. And not having ACA or Nine News in the bush would cut viewers for the heart of the WIN business, before the impact in Perth and Adelaide. Win’s regional bulletins would have lower audiences. WIN could do it by itself (CNN and the BBC etc, like low cost Ten does), but that would represent more money and a higher cost than they now pay Nine. They would need more reporters. The 6.30pm slot would be a problem: Would anyone watch whatever WIN programmed at 6.30 if it didn’t have ACA . The market only has room for one network like Ten, two is a recipe for disaster. Today, Nightline could be got rid of and costs cut by not broadcasting anything and networking regional TV programming (which is all but unusable outside its specific markets though). Ten and Seven are quietly cheering WIN to go ahead with its threat; there would be tens of thousand of extra viewers for them (and the ABC) in Sydney, Perth and regional Australia. It’s an understandable threat, but one that would rank with the old Fairfax-controlled Seven Network trying to run the Seven News in Melbourne out of Sydney. That resulted in asteriks in the ratings. Bruce Gordon told the SMH and AFR there were no affiliation agreements in 1979. The world has moved on since then. — Glenn Dyer

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Australian Idol was the most watched program with 1.648 million viewers, up on last year by around 273,000 or so. Was it the return of Dicko and the battle of the male bulls (squibs) Dicko, Kyle and Mark Holden? Its contrived. Next was Seven News with 1.596 million, ahead of Nine News with 1.524 million. The Midsomer Murders on the ABC from 8.30pm averaged 1.524 million. Australia’s Best Backyards with Jamie Durie averaged 1.416 million at 6.30pm (and easily beat Jamie Durie on Backyard Blitz ). 60 Minutes averaged 1.396 million, an Idol victim. Hot Property on Seven at 7pm averaged 1.287 million people and won. The Worst Jobs In History averaged 1.255 million people at 7.30pm for the ABC, Grey’s Anatomy was down at 1.249 million (its lowest audience for the year). Backyard Blitz looked dated on Nine at 6.30pm with 1.224 million people. The ABC News averaged 1.155 million at 7pm and the News update just before 8.30pm averaged 1.070 million. Ugly Betty finished the year on its low point with 1.051 million in 13th slot and the Nine movie at 8.30pm averaged 1.032 million. Idol killed Seven last night from 7.30pm to 9pm and that was enough to see Nine sneak through, the reverse of last week.

The Losers: Losers? Seven was hampered last night by a combination of Ten, Nine and the ABC where the Midsummer Murders last night really cleaned up among the old and the bold. Grey rockers and murder, what a combination. The producers, having killed off many of the residents in the various series of the program, have taken to importing storyline, or exporting them (China last week), the ageing rock star storyline last night. Next we will have someone from the Channel Islands to make John Nettles (the copper, Barnaby, not Bergerac) feel at home with nostalgia. The Circuit fell to 176,000 on SBS at 9.30pm, while the ABC showed pap like Misnomer Murders . The viewers of the ABC and SBS were the real losers last night. Numbers don’t always count in TV and I know they make a powerful argument, but sometimes risk taking deserves rewarding. For the ABC to be showing Midsomer Murders on a Sunday night is an easy way out!

News & CA: Seven News won nationally but only won in Brisbane and Perth, the Perth win was by 201,000 thanks to the clever programming of the Weagles-Dockers game only in Perth by Seven. Seven’s AFL programming is much cleverer on Sundays than Nine’s ever was. But Nine won the big news markets in Sydney and Melbourne. Ten News At Five averaged 663,000. World News Australia on SBS averaged 207,000 at 6.30pm. Weekend Sunrise on Seven from 8am was top of the morning chatters with 436,000. Landline on the ABC at noon averaged 268,000. Nine’s sad Sunday at 9am averaged 222,000. Ross Greenwood and Ellen Fanning have no chemistry whatsoever. The ABC’s Sunday morning line up went from 166,000 on Insiders at 9am, to 119,000 for Offsiders at 10.30am and 111,000 for Inside Business at 10am. Meet The Press on Ten at 8am averaged 62,000 with a smug Finance Minister, Senator Nick Minchin.

The Stats: Nine won with a share of 26.0% (23.5% a week ago), from Ten on 24.7% (24.2%), Seven was third with 23.0% (25.9%), the ABC was on 21.7% (19.3%) and SBS was on 4.6% (7.0%). Nine won Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Ten won Adelaide and Seven won Perth. In regional areas no joy for Ten, Southern Cross or Idol . WIN/NBN averaged 30.4% for Nine, Prime/7Qld was second with 23.4%, The ABC was third with 21.4%, Southern Cross was next with 19.1% and SBS averaged 5.5%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Once again Ten’s weakness in Sydney was revealed by Idol’s return last night. Idol attracted 461,000 viewers in Sydney, 536,000 in Melbourne and a sort of solid 281,000 in Brisbane. In Melbourne it was the most watched program; in Brisbane it was beaten by the Seven and Nine News at 6pm with 338,000 and 289,00 respectively. 60 Minutes also beat it at 7.30pm in Brisbane with 289,000; in Sydney it was second behind Nine’s News. The Pay TV first program, America’s Next Top Model did well for Ten at 6.30pm with 905,000; the Comedy festival did OK at 9pm after Idol with 967,000. Seven was the main victim with its younger viewers for Ugly Betty (the final ep) sucked out to Idol . This made the older skewing, Worst Jobs on the ABC at 7.30pm and 60 Minutes (which skews towards the over 50s) look better by comparison. Grey’s Anatomy also lost younger viewers to Idol and the Comedy festival on Ten. It’s no wonder Seven is spending so much time highlighting the “underperformance” of Ten rather than its old enemy Nine. Ten will cause Seven more problems for the next two to three months than Nine will. Seven though will counter soon with Kath and Kim which are “coming to Sundays” as the promos said on the weekend. Not next Sunday, but the Sunday after that. Tonight could be more of “Why did I watch that?” Ten has pap called The Lost Tomb of Jesus that was an Easter special. To show it now on a Monday night is a form of ratings spak filla. In a night of discovery, Ten searches for an Idol at 7.30, there’s an investigation into a bigamist murderer at 8.30pm on Law And Order , SVU , and then the search for the Tomb of Jesus at 9.30. After that will the answers be found on the other networks? SBS shows the notorious caravan episode of Top Gear ; Australian Story and Enough Rope on the ABC will be enough to provide a few answers to some important questions about why people do things (such as ride in the Tour De France or search for a cancer breakthrough). Seven is the usual Border Security / Surf Patrol , Criminal Minds then a program called Shark , which sounds a bit like ‘Jumping the Shark’ from the story line. That’s when a TV series stopped being believable ( Lost after ep 3 for example, Heroes after ep 1). But wait, there’s more. Nine has the unwatchable What A Year , the unwinnable 1 vs 100 and then double eps of ER with a news series starting. ER died last year, will 2007 be any different with the same inmates in charge of the asylum at Nine?