Eddie McGuire’s Between The Lines narrowly misses out on outrating first moon landing
Despite being promoted to viewers by Nine as “a new revolution” in “events that made TV history”, the debut of the Eddie McGuire sports quiz Between The Lines rated just 696,000 last night.
The show was heavily hyped in a series of promos including one that featured key TV moments such as Neil Armstrong’s first walk on the moon and Bruce Gyngell’s 1956 words “Good evening and welcome to television”. Another promo featured key comedy moments from Nine programming over the years, suggesting that Between The Lines would offer the next such moment.
However, the show – which ran from 8.30 to 9.30 – failed to break into the top 15 for the evening.
The comedy quiz is the latest in a string of new Nine shows that have struggled to find an audience. The network had declared that its 2011 strategy was tbe the “home of comedy”. Among Nine’s comedy failures have been the cancellation of Ben Elton’s Live from Planet Earth, the struggle of US comedies Shit My Dad Says and Mike & Molly to find mainstream audiences and the dropoff of ratings for two And A Half Men.
The debut was not helped by only inheriting an audience of 651,000 from travel show Getaway.
Most of Nine’s pain came as a result of Masterchef’s strong audience on Ten where it averaged 1.571m according to preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTam.
Seven also had a bad night with only three programs – Seven News, Today Tonight and Home & Away rating above 1m
In the ratings week to date, Seven has the greatest share, followed by Ten and then Nine.
Thursday’s top 15 shows:
- Masterchef Ten 1.571m
- Seven News Seven 1.262m
- Today Tonight Seven 1.235m
- Nine News Nine 1.058m
- Home and Away Seven 1.050m
- A Current Affair Nine 1.021m
- ABC News ABC 1.018m
- The Good Wife Ten 0.853m
- The Big Bang Theory Nine 0.827m
- The 7PM Project Ten 0.808m
- RBT Nine 0.803m
- Grey’s Anatomy Seven 0.744m
- The Footy Show Nine 0.719m
- How I Met Your Mother – Episode 1 Seven 0.714m
- Law and Order: SVU Ten 0.705m
Thursday’s share:
- Ten: 20.0%
- Nine: 19.7%
- Seven: 19.5%
- ABC1: 10.2%
- 7TWO 5.3%
- SBS1: 5.0%
- GO!: 3.7%
- Eleven: 3.6%
- Gem: 3.4%
- 7mate: 3.2%
- ABC2: 2.4%
- One: 1.6%
- ABC3: 1.0%
- SBS2: 0.8%
- ABC News 24: 0.7%
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I can’t even remember the last time I watched anything on Channel 9….
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Just such a waste of a good idea…for those Pom’s in Aussie agency land (of which there are hundreds!) will remember shows like ‘Have I Got News For You’, ‘Nevermind the Buzzcocks’ and ‘They Think its All Over’…the latter being one the funniest sports/panel quiz show ever!
Such a shame that we can’t replicate something like that over here…in a sports mad country….but with the lack of decent hosts and A-List celebs that can pull it off….!
Just look at what the Aussies have done to Top Gear and you’ll see it was doomed to fail before it even started…shame, shame, shame…
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Just sick of Maguires face. Do Nine really have to put his tired mug on everything?
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The questions remains, who is actually running 9 now? McGuire or Gyngell?
Seems as though Eddie has still got a pretty strong hold on things to get his mug infront of the camera SO many times, and SO many of his shows bomb.
If it was any other presenter they would have been shifted along time ago.
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This shows are on and off before I have even had a chance to see them the first time. Maybe 9 programmers just don’t give these shows enough time to “bed in” with viewers? It seems that they are just too inconsistent with their choices of what is in and what is out and whose opinions do they ask anyway?
For me, anything with Eddie McGuire will be something that I will turn off as a matter of principal. Why not get to know your viewers Channel 9?
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If Nine were serious about comedy they’d put shows like this on at 11pm Friday or Saturday night and leave it there for 6 months. Comedy shows need to find their feet and find an audience.
Of course, not have Eddie Everywhere hosting everything bar the Lotto draw would help too…
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From the little that I saw, it just seemed like a sport version of Spicks and Specks, without the charm of an Adam Hills hosting.
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Channel 9, GO and GEM are all channels that i can’t get good reception on. I know there are programs i would like to watch but with such bad reception i am happier just watching whatever is on the channels with crystal clear reception (10, Eleven, 7, 7mate 7two even the ABC)
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So fucking B-Grade on so many levels, especially the “celebrities”.
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I love sports, I love comedy. This show didn’t work. What’s worse is the promos showing future epsiodes look even worse than this one.
Agree with @Krystal, needs the right host. Peter Hilliar tried thsi same thing on the ABC, fell flat on it’s face, where as Adam Hills could probably actually pull it off. Eddie has his place, (proper public contestant quiz shows), but this isn’t it.
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they want to be the “home of comedy” and yet we get Eddie McGuire as the host!!!!!
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I know how to improve Ch 9’s ratings – get Eddie Maguire as far the hell away from anything that they have to offer. In fact, why don’t they loan Eddie to Ch 10 for Masterchef or to Ch 7 for Australia’s Got Talent? He’ll take down their ratings and who knows, some of the people who switch off after seeing his face could turn to Ch 9. It could happen?!!
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The comedy seems to have been scripted rather than spontaneous. The people weren’t funny either.
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It was as funny as a bag of drowning guide dog puppies.
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First rule of marketing – know your market. Something clearly ch 9 has not had any grips on!
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Damo I’ll use that line thanks. Channel 9 – Eddie is not comedy, and promoting shows with a big deep voice over and saying its going to be the biggest thing in television isn’t promoting a show.
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