Australia Versus drops another 60%
Tim Ross’s clip show Australia Versus continued its rapid fall on Tuesday night, shedding a further 60% of its audience after being pushed back to a later slot.
The show – which pits Australia against a different country each week – was given a dream run-in for its debut last week inheriting a 1.8m audience from Packed To The Rafters. But it shed more than a million of them delivering an average of 623,000 viewers.
As a result, it was immediately bumped back by Seven to the 10.30pm slot. Last night it delivered just 245,000 viewers – 46th for Tuesday and fifth in its slot behind not only Nine and Ten but The ABC’s Lateline and SBS’s Tour de France. According to preliminary overnight metro ratigns from OzTam, Australia Versus was just two or three places ahead of Play School (211,000) and Sesame Street (222,000).
Having watched 10 minutes of it last night you’d have to say they’d be happy with the 60%….
Same as Keith, i saw about 10 minutes of this trash last night and can’t believe Rosso’s fall from grace. He must’ve been drunk and/or high when he signed on to do this unoriginal, mindless show.
To have a bunch of nobody commentators barracking for a boy band or pop icon that they probably can’t stand, only to defend their country is made even worse with Ross’ lame-ass quips about what the panel of ‘judges’ has to say for who wins each categories.
If Seven admitted Cougar Town was ‘shit’, i hate to think what expletives are being heard around CH 7 offices re: this rubbish show!
Saying The Castle was equal to Life of Brian did it for me. I love The Castle. But come on… is this supposed to inspire flag-waving Aussie-ness? It doesn’t. It’s a tired, predictable, partisan load of bollocks which could have served up wit and incite. But failed.
I’ve been thinking lately how much heart it gives me that the Gruen Transfer rates so well. There we have a bunch of eloquent, witty people talking intelligently on a topic they know a lot about. Importantly, and unlike so much Aussie TV, they don’t treat the audience as if they’re idiots.
I also take heart that it seems audiences have switched off this Versus trash in droves.