There’s precious little that Nine have in the cupboard that would rate higher and provide an overall net benefit to the network revenue wise that an encore of Lego Masters (and considering it was a lousy encore it did pretty damn well in the key demos despite the relatively low total people numbers).
Despite Sully’s “vindication” about that there is little to no basis or evidence in saying that it “backfired” or impacted the rest of the night. It’s lazy scheduling but to say that they’d be at all unhappy about the results is 100% speculation.
Rubbish. 9:30pm weekday ratings would be just as if not more important than Saturday ratings.
I’d actually say 9:30 would be more important to the advertiser. The people watching 9:30 weeknights are more likely to be willing to spend money than those at 7pm Saturday.
I’d love to see new variety programming like “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” scheduled every Saturday night instead of reality encores. But the reality is that sort of programming is no longer economically viable in the current media landscape.
Production commenced this week in Melbourne on Emergency, a gritty new real-life medical series that lifts the curtain on one of Australia’s busiest hospital emergency departments.
With unprecedented access, Emergency will reveal the tribulations and triumphs of the doctors and nurses at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
Told through the eyes of an extraordinary and dedicated team of medical professionals, with a busy stream of patients coming through the door, Emergency will give viewers a unique insight into the inner workings of Victoria’s first hospital.
From life-threatening conditions like strokes and heart attacks to patients treated after car accidents, falls, assaults and major public emergencies, the series will reveal the compassion and amazing composure of doctors and nurses as they battle to save lives.
Emergency will be produced by WTFN, creators of Nine’s hit series, Paramedics.
WTFN’s Director of Content, Steve Oemcke, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Victoria’s most famous hospital on this compelling new series. Australia has fallen in love with the heroes of Paramedics, and we’re excited to now tell the story of the doctors and nurses at the Royal Melbourne as they take over the life-saving care of these patients.”
Nine Program Director, Hamish Turner, said: “The success of Paramedics highlighted the real appetite for this style of blue light factual and storytelling. Emergency will go behind-the-scenes of one of the country’s busiest hospitals to showcase the incredible life-saving work performed by the unsung heroes who work there.”
I’d probably say “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” originally going off the air was the point that all three commercial networks completely wrote off Saturday nights by always airing cheap filler programming whenever there wasn’t any sports or election coverage.
Like @parano1a, I’d personally prefer it if Nine and the networks invested more in new programs on Saturday (heck, Friday and even Thursday) nights. But at the same time, I completely understand and accept the reality that it’s no longer viable. Times, the TV industry and even technology of the transmissions/screens we’re watching have changed dramatically since the 1980s and 1990s.
What will Nine air next Thursday night? Given the Melbourne Storm are playing in the NRL I would give that a run on the main channel.
But they’ll probably go for a movie.
An Age article sheds some light on Nine’s plans to fill the programming gap left by The Footy Show’s axing:
“We’ll fill the slot with RBT and Paramedics in the short term,” programming director Hamish Turner says. "Then we’ll look at what Nine’s relationship is with AFL and start thinking about what that looks like at the back end of this year, and moving into 2020.
“We’d be stupid not to be looking at ways we can provide an alternative and a connection to that brand [AFL],” Turner adds. “This chapter is closed but we’ll definitely be looking at alternatives going forward.”
