Ten rejects analyst’s claim Family Feud will not solve 6pm audience woes
The return of Family Feud to Ten will not solve the channel’s problems in finding an audience to lead into its prime time schedule according to analysis from Fusion Strategy.
Ten is targeting families and its core target market of people 25 to 54 with the new version of Family Feud to be fronted by Grant Denyer, Ten’s chief scheduling officer Beverley McGarvey said.
Claiming comparisons should not be made from historical data, with the show last airing on nine in 2007, McGarvey said in a statement: “We know Family Feud is going into a highly competitive timeslot and we do not under-estimate the strength of the programs it will be up against.
“We are confident that we have created a highly entertaining and engaging show. Clearly we expect Family Feud to lift our ratings in the weeknights timeslot. But our ratings expectations are realistic and modest. While people will rush to judge Family Feud after the first night and the first week, we know it will take time for the show to find its audience.”
The Fusion analysis of OzTam ratings for the timeslot show Ten’s 16-54 audience has more than halved since 2010, after a series of failed experiments with shows including The Simpsons, 6pm with George Negus, The Project, and currently Modern Family continually dropping share.
Launching on Monday night, the show will compete with news on both Seven and Nine, pitting it as the “alternative” scheduling with news dominating Seven and Nine. However with digital offerings already providing alternatives to news it will find itself competing against the likes of The People’s Court on Gem, Regular Show on GO!, Cops on One, Frasier on Eleven, Eggheads on ABC1 and Tour de France highlights on SBS One.
In 2010, before the advent of digital multichannels, the slot was rating 403,000 in the demographic, however it currently pulls just 190,000 for Modern Family.
Asked why Ten believed the revamped format of Family Feud could draw a larger audience McGarvey said in a statement: “Grant is a great presenter and Family Feud is a much-loved and well-tested format. Together they make a great combination and will give Australians a fun, exciting and entertaining show.
“Ten’s fresh, re-energised version of one of the world’s best game shows delivers great entertainment for the whole family to kick off weeknight viewing. We need something with big, broad family appeal for the 6pm weeknights timeslot and Family Feud is exactly that. It also offers a strong and hghly engaging alternative to news bulletins on the other networks.”
Ten is also offering what it’s describing as a “series of too-cheeky for TV” clips which will be exclusively available on its catchup services website tenplay.com.au and YouTube while TV viewing companion app Beamly will also be offering a play-along Family Feud game that allows viewers to play along with the game show as it happens on screen.
Fusion Strategy expects it will be “difficult” to win audience away from the ABC, SBS and digital channels.
“Family Feud does not really compete with these. Perhaps this is Ten’s point, a real alternative,” it said in its analysis.
Describing it as “a dated format” it added “we simply do not think will excite the market no matter how heavy Ten’s backing and deafening cross promotion strategy. We do not believe this will recover lost audiences.”
Fusion Stratey, which is headed by analyst Steve Allen, believes unless Ten and Fremantle can change the appeal and audience profile of Family Feud “it will not be of much use”.
Ten has lost more than half of its audience in the 6pm-6.30pm timeslot in the last four years as the channel has experimented with its scheduling, including two attempts at competing in the news/current affairs space, Fusion Strategy said.
These attempts, which saw Ten create its own current affairs show 6PM with George Negus in 2011 and in 2012 move The Project to 6pm to 7pm in 2012, temporarily stabilised audience declines but was “perhaps too costly” according to Fusion Strategy and with management turmoil at Ten, which has had a string of CEOs in the last five years, the strategy was abandoned.
In October 2012 Ten announced The Project would move back to its 6.30pm to 7.30pm timeslot from December, reverting to its “historic ‘alternate’ programming schedule” with The Simpsons returning to the 6pm timeslot.
Previously The Simpsons had been moved, along with Neighbours and other younger programs, to Ten’s digital channel Eleven. This has since happened again, with the station now using repeats of Modern Family to lead in to The Project at 6.30pm.
Last year and the first half of 2014 have shown further audience deterioration, Fusion Strategy highlights, with a 16 per cent loss of audience in the timeslot last year, with nearly another 14 per cent loss this year to date.
Family feud has historically been a staple for both Nine and Seven, with the show first airing on Nine from 1977 to 1984 and on Seven from 1988 to 1996. Nine brought the format back in 2006 as Bert’s Family Feud, however as it rated quite poorly, the show was cancelled in 2007.
For both Nine and Seven, the show has run in the 5pm to 6pm timeslot as a lead for their respective news programs, due to this timeslot it has generally had a biased female 65+ demographic which Fusion Strategy says is “not really saleable”.
Miranda Ward
Just putting it out there. Strike 1 – low ratings for the Ian Thorpe interview. Strike 2 – Extant struggles (even if the 1st ep does OK, it will be failing by ep 4). Strike 3 – Family Feud flops. 3 strikes and who’s out?
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He’s right. The format is terribly dated. Just like Tens management team
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Crikey moses. What is going on? Family Feud?
Rerun Friends and you’ll have better ratings.
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Bring back the Simpsons – or extend Project to 90mins – anything but FF – guess i will be watching tabloid news 🙁
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The first test for Family Feud is whether or not they have created a program worth watching. The second, arguably more important, question is whether or not they can convince people to watch it. TEN’s marketing is one of its least discussed but most serious weaknesses.
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I really am not sure whether I should be laughing or crying…what a debacle….
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If Grant brings the same level of charisma and spontaneity he displayed on Million Dollar Minute… God have mercy on Ten’s soul.
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I’m sure he’s a nice guy in real life, I just can’t handle Grant Denyer on TV. Anybody else would have been better.
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Screaming into the abyss.
If there is one network that should innovate, it’s TEN.
Short, sharp and focussed.
TV New Zealand used to have one day on one day off for advertising. Could you imagine if TEN did that?
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Dear oh dear……
How many Network’s have ‘Fusion Strategy’ scheduled???
Great to be an expert after the fact….how about suggesting a solution?
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Alternate ad free days is not a silly idea, if they are not predictable. Family Feud may well be the success they expect as it happens.
Family television is what is needed at Ten, and it has a good chance of working. Don’t be surprised, or be prepared to be surprised as the case may be.
Formats are sometimes only old fashioned in the memories of the middle aged, and I firmly believe that programmes such as “What’s My Line” could be brought back with very little updating and become popular again in the right hands.
The exhausting search for new, ever more exciting formats and personalities has cost a lot of money and lost a lot of ratings over the recent years. Who would have thought that cooking shows would come back in force say thirty years ago? or that boring DYI would morph into house renovation shows.
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I watch the local news on Prime at 6
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Can someone please explain which idiot at 10 decided to move Neighbours to digital?
That’s when it all went downhill.
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IMHO, it’ll be a nice change from the other channels’ news offerings. I’m actually looking forward to it and the uncut clips are a good marketing ploy (no, I don’t work for Ten, haha).
How can you criticise a show before it has even aired?
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Im really not sure whether Family Feud will fire or not…To its advantage it is sandwiched between two of Tens most popular programs, but the reaction online to it has been less than positive. I think a lot of people will watch during its first week just out of curiosity. Sadly though I wont get that opportunity, here in the Goulburn Valley Southern Cross airs our local news program Weeknights at 6pm.
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I suppose if Family Feud does not work Channel 10 could always try something “new’ at 6pm.
Can I suggest The Young Doctors?
If it worked for Channel 9 in the 70s I am sure Channel 10 could use it in 2014.
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@Lysander: According to the TV Tonight website, the producers of Neighbours signed a contract with TEN agreeing to move Neighbours to Eleven to enable the channel to launch and get established and have at least one high profile, successful show to attract viewers to the channel. The agreement is apparently open-ended for the life of the show so TEN can’t move it back to the main channel even if they wanted to.
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Everyone knows that there is only one ‘FF’ and that is Family Fortunes, with the dear Les Dennis.
This one is a corker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdwOyT9Erso
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5 weeks. 4 if they panic.
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