As he was previously advised, yes
4 Likes
A friend of mine from high school, Sarah Gardner, appeared in Pop-Stars Live.
2 Likes
We saw what happened when Seven relinquished the AFL rights at the start of 2001 (for the 2002-06 period) - its ratings (especially in Melbourne) went south without any major year-long sport to televise, though they did have the Australian Open, two Winter Olympics (2002 and 2006), the 2004 Athens Olympics, the 2002 Commonwealth Games and the Melbourne Cup.
Also not having the Supercars during that 2002-06 period meant a lot of uneventful weekends as well.
They only had Rugby Tests and the Bledisloe Cup on Saturday nights from 2002-06 when they lost the rights
7 paying overs for the Olympics forced them surrender AFL to 9, 10 and Fox
2 Likes
Though 2018 would see Seven telecast the AFL, Winter Olympics (in Pyeongchang), the Commonwealth Games (on the Gold Coast), the Australian Open, Wimbledon, the Melbourne Cup and also the first of the Tests and BBL as part of their current contract with Cricket Australia.
At the time, the Supercars were on Ten but the FTA component would return to Seven in 2021.
Seven would later offload the Australian Open (in 2019), Wimbledon (after 2019), the Melbourne Cup and the Olympics rights (all to Nine, though the Melbourne Cup took a detour through Ten between 2019-23).
1 Like
Personally, I preferred this format to MKR, and while Curtis Stone did well as host in its first season I think its downfall came when Ian “Dicko” Dickson (then a judge on Australian Idol) was hired by Seven to host the 2005 season, after which it copped the axe.
2 Likes
The period that Seven didn’t have the AFL was nothing short of a disaster for the network.
2003, IMO, was the worst year. It won only one ratings week (the penultimate week of the ratings season during which the Rugby World Cup final took place, with Jonny Wilkinson potting the championship-winning field goal at the death to win his country the World Cup), many of its shows including Australia’s Worst Driver and Deal or No Deal flopped in the ratings (though DoND was later reformatted to air five nights a week before the news, and their flagship 6:00pm bulletins, especially in the problem markets of Sydney and Melbourne were regularly getting thrashed by Nine News by 100K.
Things did not get better in 2004 with its slate of primetime shows also flopping, however Sunrise did begin to overtake Today as the most-watched breakfast TV show (and it still is today), and while Seven News in Sydney began to improve with Ian Ross at the helm, Nine News still won the year convincingly (winning 27/40 weeks).
2 Likes
2003 saw Sunrise, 7 Sydney News, The 4.30 News along with Today Tonight start to make real gains into Nine’s programming. The Athens Olympics 2004 saw Sevens line up build further with the launch of Border Security and Dancing with the Stars. Then we all know what happened in 2005.
5 Likes
It should be remembered that it was through circumstance that saw David Koch temporarily replace Chris Reason as co-host of Sunrise with Melissa Doyle. Reaso had to take time off to fight cancer, which he successfully did; in the meantime, Kochie and Mel began to pick up ratings and by the end of 2004 they would become the number one duo in breakfast television.
I reckon had Ian Ross not left Nine to go to Seven, he would’ve succeeded Hendo as their 6:00pm newsreader and Seven News would not have achieved the ratings they did between 2005-09. In the end, Jim Waley, who took over from Hendo as the chief anchor of Nine News, lasted only two years before being quietly replaced by Mark Ferguson in 2005 (Fergo himself would be - brutally, IMO - replaced by Peter Overton in January 2009).
Would it be fair to say that Naomi Robson single-handedly turned the show’s fortunes around? I remember ACA was rested during the 2005-06 summer period so it could undergo a major revamp after TT emerged as the new number one current affairs show in 2005.
Anna Coren did well at the helm in 2007-08, but TT’s ratings (especially in Melbourne) started going south again after Matt White took over.
Seven has Lleyton Hewitt to thank for that.
2 Likes
The 4:30 news started in March 2003 as a news bulletin about the war in Iraq, hosted by David Johnston who was Seven Evening News Melbourne presenter the previous year After the US invasion ended, it was reformatted to an afternoon bulletin and proved successful as a lead-in program to its early evening game show offerings, News, TT and H&A.
DJ retired in September 2005 after more than 4 decades presenting the news.
Seven during that time gained the Melbourne Cup Carnival from longtime broadcaster 0/10-Network Ten was a silver lining to losing the AFL rights.
1 Like
Looking back at some of these titles it wasn’t hard to see why 2004 was a dreadful year for Seven (with the noted exception of Sunrise which became the number one breakfast TV show that year and has been nearly every year since).
Obviously not having the AFL didn’t help, but I also think a lack of major international titles were also to blame; I remember reading an article online which said something to the effect of “Seven was Desperate for a solution by 2005”, referring to Desperate Housewives, which would become a ratings hit in said year.
2 Likes
Lots of cheap titles that lasted only a few weeks. Losing the AFL rights was to blame for 7’s woes from 2001-04. The 2004 Olympics rated well and of course the 2005 Australian Open Men’s Final drew a record 4.05 million viewers.
3 Likes