Ten rips up schedule in face of Everybody Dance Now ratings disaster
Ten has ripped up its TV schedule for next week in a last minute move to cope with the desperately poor ratings of its reality contest Everybody Dance Now.
Sunday’s episode of the Sarah Murdoch-fronted show has been cut from 90 minutes to an hour.
Monday’s episode of the FremantleMedia-produced show has been dropped altogether.
The last minute switch comes after the show rated a metro audience of just 598,00 for its first episode before falling to 304,000 and 324,000 – remarkably low numbers for a primetime network show.
The changes have reverberations through Ten’s schedule.
The premiere of Don’t Tell The Bride, fronted by Kate Richie, has been brought forward from Tuesday to Monday to fill the hole left by Everybody Dance Now.
The premiere of the new series of Can Of Worms hosted by Chrissie Swan remains at 8.30pm on Monday.
The Shire, which was shunted from Mondays to Wednesdays has now been moved back to Mondays again, but in the later timeslot of 9.45pm.
The Priscilla-themed camp dance contest I Will survive has been moved from a planned 7pm Wednesday premiere to 7.30pm on Tuesday which means it will be up against The Big Bang Theory rather than Big Brother on Nine.
The second episode of Priscilla will then air the next day, on Wednesday. it will provide a lead-in to the second episode of Puberty Blues, which is the only one of the network’s new shows which has so far been an unqualified success.
Class Of, which premiered to an audience of just 431,000 last night, remains in the schedule for a second week.
Thursday’s schedule is now filled out with repeats of Modern Family and Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals.
The network issued a statement from chief programming officer David Mott. He said:
“It is not unusual for television networks to change programs. For some time now, we’ve talked about creating more programming options for Ten and moving away from the ‘one bet, one punch’ mentality of old,” Network Ten Chief Programming Officer, David Mott, said.
“These changes highlight that strategy. We are re-setting Everybody Dance Now. But it clearly remains part of the Ten schedule, along with other exciting new local programs such as Puberty Blues, I Will Survive, Don’t Tell The Bride, Class Of, Reef Doctors and Come Date With Me.
“We believe in the Everybody Dance Now format. We have listened to the feedback from viewers and we are working with production company FremantleMedia to reset the show and make it more engaging for viewers.”
The late changes mean that some printed TV guides may have already gone to press with an entirely wrong schedule for Ten, while elsewhere TV editors will be fighting deadlines to make the wholesale changes.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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” Puberty Blues, which is the only one of the network’s new shows which has so far been an unqualified success.”
The single program that isn’t a tiredly rehashed reality show – think this might say something?
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EDN is an incredibly unengaging format. The variety of dance styles is too much of a scattergun approach. Which audience is meant to find so many different styles interesting?
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I’ll give you some viewer feedback… bring back SYTYCD.
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You could forgive them for thinking there was a large appetite for talent contest TV … it has done very well for 7 in the last 5 years. Problem is, it seems the appetite for this has gone away at exactly the time 10 has their formats ready to go.
The same approach seems evident at DMG – reacting to the market not trying to evolve it – “give them what they want” … which is great if you know what ppl will want in 2 years time.
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I only saw a few minutes of EDN (it was never my intention to check it out anyhow) but I was struck with how awful both Kelly Rowland and Jason D were on camera. I’m not familiar with either host’s music, but you’d want to hope they’re not as awkward in song. Sheesh.
I did DVR Class Of, though. Yet to watch it.
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David Mott is saying to move away from the ‘one bet, one punch mentality’, yet the sales boss Barry O’Brien is saying they ‘only need one’.
Am I missing something here?
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No Mentions of Big Brother audiences?? You are picking on Everybody dance but haven’t mentioned that Big Brother has lost nearly 500,000 viewers in two days?
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Hi RatsRepus,
You mean apart from where we said the words “Big Brother was down around 500,000 viewers on its debut on Monday” in today’s ratings story? https://mumbrella.com.au/puberty-blues-debuts-with-under-a-million-109937
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Hi Tim, I stand corrected. I missed that little snippet… I am just looking for my receipt for the speed reading course!!
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you tell em’ tim!
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Serves them right after burying the last episode of House on Friday night at 10pm with little or no publicity.
Personally, TV sucks….I’m reading a book!
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Ten need to set themselves apart from 7 and 9. Focus on quality and for now, buy in the best of US and high quality UK programming of a HBO / BBC / Channel 4 (UK) standard. Place a different show into key evening slots. Build an audience on that, and then bring back some QUALITY homemade shows in a few seasons time.
Ten seem to have invested more highly in news recently, yet everything around their news programming doesn’t fit. For a commercial channel in Australia they cover more international news stories and chase angles on stories overseas that 7 and 9 audiences aren’t really interested in. This gives them an audience (or whats left of it) that is looking more towards the ABC & the SBS then 7 and 9, so they need their programming to be more aligned with them and less with the other commercial channels. They should model Ten on Channel 4 in the UK.
Let 7 and Nine do their pleb programming and make Ten stand out as the smarter of the commercial options. This way they can create a smaller but more lucrative ad market.
All that said, looking at what they have just done to daytime, this isn’t the way they look to be going in… And frankly, I see everything going to south for them and them driving that way in the Bus Lane.
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David, thats outrageous, surely you’re surfing the web – or don’t folk surf it anymore? What is reading a book all about anyway?
Nonetheless, 10 are in strife!
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“Alas Poor Yorrick. I knew him Horatio”
Ever wondered why Hamlet needs the grave diggers scene? William Shakespeare knew what he was doing in the theatre world.
Hype is hype, laughter is laughter, sadness is sadness, dramatic tension is dramatic tension. All have a prized place in the theatre arsenal, each packs a highly regarded punch whatever the production, but nobody ever could, and nobody ever will make and sustain a show with any one of these forces alone.
Hype is good, but when you give it too much to do, it begins to work against you.
I have heard it a thousand times at theatre management meetings, “The show is so funny, I never stopped laughing , it has stars and it has dancing and it is so very funny, how could it possibly be so unpopular “? The answer is, because it is draining the energy of the audience, they close down and begin to feel as if they are being manipulated, this kills audiences very very quickly.
Be careful when blaming the presenters also, it is an impossible task for any presenter (especially an inexperienced one) to maintain audience interest and enthusiasm, when the show is super pumped already.
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idc the world is grey and claustrophobic until GOT3 is out.
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Cant believe I’ve bothered reading all the hate mail, yet again.
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“We belive in the EDN format, casue we already paid for it and cant find any other rubbish at the last minute to fill the gaping hole in a rapidly crumbling schedule. Now, who should I punt from their gig for getting me into this mess”
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I think need to be a little realistic with BB. There was no way a show that is stripped daily was ever going to rate 1.5 / 1.6 every night. Bit of a negative view of what so far has been a success that should be congratuled rather than negatively criticised (and I don’t work for Nine).
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Hi Interesting. Sure not expecting 1.5 a night. Unless you were talking to one of the reps last week. But after four nights with a debut at 1.6 million. Cross promotion in CA and every second break of the olympics. So after four nights you would expect to be holding more than 973,000! ABC news beat big brother by a good margin.
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Big Brother was 200k off the highest rating show of the night (Ch7 news) and won every demographic. Perspective is a great thing. Thursday is a low-numbers night, Friday will be worse but an advertiser who buys for TP is a poor advertiser imo.
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A request from the Chairman’s wife…
http://tiny.cc/kzo9iw
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