Television

The Sunday Age

Sunday October 26, 2008

Melinda Houston

Programmers have to stop changing the schedule at the last minute, says Melinda Houston.

There used to be one golden rule of television programming: don't offend. The accepted wisdom was that audiences were pretty evenly divided between the three commercial networks. All you had to do was keep your head down, not upset anyone, and you'd maintain your viewer base.

How times have changed.

These days, it feels like the programmer's mantra is to upset as many viewers as possible. TV scheduling has evolved into a complicated chess game, with each of the commercial networks making complex calculations based on "What have we got? What have they got? Who's watching what when? And how can we steal their viewers?" And making weekly, sometimes daily, changes based on the results.

Sometimes they're big things, such as Dancing with the Stars moving from Tuesday to Sunday nights. For a lot of us this is a real annoyance - even though we had plenty of warning - making us choose between two of the best shiny floor shows on telly, Idol and Dancing.

For Seven, it was a calculated risk. They wouldn't have wanted to mess with their extremely successful existing Tuesday night line-up (including Find My Family and Packed to the Rafters). They would also have wanted to eat into the audience of the two Sunday juggernauts: Idol and 60 Minutes. (It hasn't really worked: Dancing is still rating, but not as strongly, and isn't really denting 60 Minutes.)

Sometimes the changes are impromptu, like the "encore" performance of Nine's new drama, The Mentalist, dropped unexpectedly into the Wednesday night schedule after a strong debut on the previous Sunday. A brand new show, good ratings first time round, Nine would have been counting on word of mouth to get more people taking a look before the second episode aired. (That worked: 1.2million the first time around, another 500,000 the second.) Or Seven's Mind Your Money series, whipped up in response to the financial meltdown and replacing Jamie Durie's Outdoor Room.

Then there's what they call "running dead". Sometimes the opposition is just so strong you give up. It happened during the Olympics, especially on Nine. Then Seven dropped Dancing with the Stars for a week to make way for Nine's telecast of the rugby grand final. Nine used to lie low on Friday nights but now the AFL season has finished, it's taken an interest again, and is programming crowd-pleasing content there instead of stale crime repeats.

What's really annoying, though, is when programs are unexpectedly moved, or worse, dumped from the schedule. It's all about what the competition is doing, what else might be in the pantry, the mix or juxtaposition of programs, and - crucially - how a show is rating.

Kenny's World has been doing badly for Ten. As has the new season of House. Maybe House has been doing badly because Kenny's doing badly? So Kenny's shifted to Tuesday nights and Jamie's Ministry of Food is moved to plug the gap and, ideally, bolster audiences for the drama that follows. (Ministry of Food is actually struggling, and so is House.) The last minute shift, though, is a double-edged sword. It may gazump a rival network. But it really annoys viewers. And makes it hard to keep track of shows you might actually want to watch. How can you enjoy "appointment television" if the appointment keeps being changed? People tend to follow the blockbusters around the schedule but smaller, newer shows with potential can suffer.

The history of television is littered with success stories that slowly found an audience, from Happy Days and Seinfeld to NCIS and Criminal Minds. All those series started with pretty poor numbers, but grew to be smash hits. But how can you tell in advance which of the underperformers is a sleeper? And which is just a dud? It's one of the toughest calls a programmer has to make.

This decision is often about what else is available. If a show's not doing well, but you have nothing better, it's pretty safe. But if you have something stronger coming up, the outcome is pretty much inevitable. So Ten dumps 90210 from Monday nights (where it had disappointing audiences) to make way for Good News Week (a proven crowd-pleaser) and Supernatural (which doesn't rate its socks off but does have a fan base). 90210 will be back over summer, where it may find an audience and be reintroduced into prime time. Or not.

And all these decisions tend to be made in a hurry because that's the way the world is now. Measured, well-considered decisions are so "yesterday".

MORE EGREGIOUS SCHEDULING SINS

Reality TV overruns

The curse of VCR-setters everywhere. We know a 10.30pm finish means 11pm, but when that blows out to midnight we start to lose patience.

Cult shows dropped

The list is too long to detail. But surely it's time the ratings were tweaked to account for passion as well as raw numbers. Every fan of The West Wing, Veronica Mars or Farscape is equal to 10 ordinary viewers, and should be accommodated.

The graveyard shift

It might be your favourite show, but if no one else agrees, it won't last long in prime time. That's why all those great comedies - Boston Legal, Scrubs, Family Guy, 30 Rock, Flight of the Conchords - are scheduled in the middle of the night. It's all about the numbers.

© 2008 The Sunday Age

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