General TV History

Was hosted out of a studio here in Australia with Andy Harper and someone else. The commentary was the world feed.

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Imagine Seven had the 2006 COmmonwealth Games. Channel Seven will win strongly in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Nine would have finished 2nd. Even 3rd in Perth (by a fraction)
Imagine if TEN had the 2006 Commonwealth Games, TEN would have pushed to 2nd place in Sydney and Melbourne by a fraction. THis would mean Nine would finish 3rd in Sydney and Melbourne. Seven would have reclaimed Number 1 in all 5 cities.

But Nine won the demos in 25-54, 18-49 and 16-39 groups.
In fact, Channel Nine won one week in Perth due to the 2012 summer Olympics in London. Nine News even had a win over SEven News in the west during the night (31 July 2012).
Seven started off strongly in 2012. After easter, Channel Seven was hit hard by Nine with a new lineup, The Voice which was a huge success. THe 2012 Summer Olympics in London had outstanding ratings as well as Big Brother. State of Origin, NRL have performed extremely well during the 2012 ratings. But CHannel Seven still prevailed over Nine.

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Nine won both Olympics weeks in Perth, and as you can imagine Nine News won both weeks in each of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (though by the time of the Opening Ceremony, Seven News won its 21st week in Brissy to Nine’s one - enough to win the year on weeks won).

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Channel 10 in 1988, had put big hope on current affairs program Page One, recruiting the likes of Chris Masters, Maxine Mckew, Jill Singer and Peter George from the ABC. Unfortunately the show was a disaster and bombed in the ratings. By 1989, Bob Shanks renamed the program Public Eye to little success and all those stars slowly went back to the ABC.

Following the end of 2012 Summer Olympics, Big Brother went up against The X Factor. The X Factor has won over BB, NIne won demos in BB.
How many wins has Seven won compared to Nine in the 2012 Ratings Year.

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No idea, though I think Seven had a strong final quarter of 2012 thanks to the AFL Grand Final (Seven won all five markets in the week of September 24), while Nine finished the year strongly in Melbourne alone.

I know that Channel Seven won in Adelaide and Perth thanks to the dominance of news and AFL as well as TV Shows in 2012.
Nine was strong in Sydney and Brisbane thanks to the NRL, The Voice, The Origin series, 2012 Summer Olympics, Big Brother. I would have thought Channel Nine won in Melbourne by a fraction thanks to Peter Hitchener as well as the Footy Show, and the above.

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Actually, Seven just took out Melbourne in 2012 because to my knowledge, Seven has won the last twelve years in Melbourne alone, mostly thanks to the AFL.

However, you are right in the sense that Nine News did take out that market, and very easily: it didn’t drop a single week (and neither would they until about mid-2016) in 2012.

Nine has also won (at least) the last five years in Sydney alone and hasn’t lost a week in this market so far this year. Highlighting Seven’s woes in the Harbour City, it once finished third behind both Nine and Ten in 2015 (the week of July 27).

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and speaking of 2012, what about The Price is Big W.

SEven had struggled a lot in Melbourne with The Price is Right. Seven Melbourne decided to push the show to 3pm. 7 News Melbourne has languished to 2nd and trailed well behind Nine News.

I would have thought that when Larry Emdur hosted the revived Price is Right, the ratings were too soft and trailed well behind, Hot Seat and TEN News at Five.

THis was similar to Nine perth back in 2005, where STW decided to push The Price is Right at an earlier time at 5pm because of poor leadin to news. The Price is Right ratings have dived. In late 2005, the show ended due to higher production costs. Larry Emdur presented a farewell speech, thanking his colleagues. When Nine had THe Price is Right it was produced in GTV9’s Richmond studios.

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Was Seven on a cost-cutting binge when they brought it back?

A post was merged into an existing topic: Overseas TV History

TV’s general decline in ratings around then would have meant that it would not have made sense to produce an expensive game show like The Price is Right with a big budget (remember, they were giving away $650,000 worth of prizes on some nights).

The obvious answer for a revival at that time was filming the show in a broom cupboard, giving away $50 vacuum cleaners from Big W as pricing game prizes, Nissan Micras as the showcase prize, and giving contestants 10 seconds to complete the showcase. Yikes.

We’re never going to see production values on Australian TV as high as they were in the late 90s-early 2000s.

I suspect The Price is Right on Nine operated at a loss, even at its peak in 2003/04, just as part of the whole Packer ‘to hell with the cost’ mentality, to boost the news ratings.

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The Price is Right gave away considerably lesser prizes (but still better stuff compared to the godawful 2012 Big W-infused version) in the 1990s, yet still had around five years on Nine?

It was only really 2004/05 when The Price Is Right was starting to feel the heat from Deal Or No Deal that showcases really became worth hundreds of thousands, if I remember correctly.

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I’d wonder what were the ratings like for the first run of TPIR on 9 in the 90s. Catch Phrase (later Burgo’s Catch Phrase) replaced Price on 9 until 2003 before the 2nd run of TPIR, again hosted by Emdur.

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In 2004 they had a showcase game where contestants either choose the money or the showcase. The monster showcase was worth more than $500000 worth of prizes and a condonium Ramada apartments on the Sunshine Coast, QLD. In 2005, nine started to struggle a 1 hour show as it was beaten soundly by Ten News (iirc). This show was reverted to 30 mins but didn’t have a showcase playoff. Two contestants had to spin the wheel to see who can get close to $1 without going’s over. If they get $1 Larry emdur give The contestant $1000. After the showcase reveal of prizes Larry revealed the total price on the screen.

Don’t know why it gave me the creeps as a 12/13 year old in 1996/97…

Technically their final game was the Collingwood vs North Melbourne game which was the replay game they showed post Sydney vs Carlton or late night in the NRL states (this was Saverio Rocca’s last game before heading to punt for the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins). Russell and Cometti with Brereton called in Sydney, with Brayshaw, Taylor and Lyon handling the secondary call and Tony Jones in the studio. I’m sure there was a package following the late Sunday game but I’ve never seen it since it aired that day.

International feed guys like John Helm and Steve Banyard handled the earlier games, then once the SBS commitments ended Martin Tyler called the semis and final (those games were live on 9 with replays shown on SBS). Andy Harper anchored from the studio for 9 and had a single pundit with him unlike SBS who had Les Murray anchoring with the likes of Craig Foster and in his last appearance before cancer struck Johnny Warren alongside him. All studio coverage on 9 was Sydney based, can’t recall if SBS sent a team on the ground or not.

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I can’t remember, but there were a few times that the replay game ended up being live(with the earlier match being at 12:30). Believe that Russell and Cometti with Brereton called the earlier games with Brayshaw, Taylor and Lyon handling the secondary call. Sometimes Kym Dillon called with either JB or BT if in Adelaide.

Once, in 2004, Dennis or Dwayne and BT called a game between the Sydney Swans and Hawthorn at the SCG, which the Swans won by one point.

And in 2005, Dennis and Mark Readings (then at Nine) called the Sydney Swans vs West Coast Eagles game at the SCG (Swans won by 21 points).

In 2005, Nine televised a Western Derby match between West Coast and Fremantle at Subiaco in heavy rain conditions. The match drew strong numbers in Perth (with more than 300 000 Perth viewers watching the match on Television). I thought that Dennis Cometti called the Friday Night Western Derby match on TV.

He used to be part of Nine news before he left the network in 2013. He joined Seven and has anchored the WAFL matches, Commentated a few AFL matches in Perth and has done Telethon7.