Gruen Transfer delivers the ratings despite adland backlash
The Gruen Transfer may have been coming in for industry flak in the last few days, but it’s ratings have only been getting better – last night the programme was the fifth most watched in Australia.
According to preliminary ratings from OzTam, the programme about Australian advertising clocked up 1.2m viewers last night.
The result saw Gruen rate better than any show on Nine, and beat its stablemate Spicks & Specks for the second week running.
Meanwhile, the programme ‘s extended honeymoon period with the industry apepars to be coming to a close. Last week, issues over potential conflicts of interest involving regular panellist Todd Sampson from Leo Burnett were vigorously aired on the Campaign Brief blog which in turn generated further coverage of the issue in the Sydney Morning Herald.
And today, Campaign Brief has returned to the topic with a guest posting from Darryn Devlin, creative partner at Kastner Sydney. he suggests that the advertising industry has been providing the show with “free” content but getting little in return.
Meanwhile, last night was a strong one for Seven. The evening’s ratings share: Seven – 28.7%; Nine – 24.7%; Ten – 23.2%; ABC – 18%; SBS – 5.4%.
Top ten TV shows:
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Australia’s Got Talent – Seven 1.6m
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Seven News – Seven 1.6m
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Today Tonight – Seven 1.5m
- The Biggest Loser – Ten 1.3m
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The Gruen Transfer – ABC 1.2m
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Spicks and Specks – ABC 1.2m
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Criminal Minds Seven – 1.2m
- Two and a Half Men – Nine 1.1m
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Nine News – Nine 1.1m
- Home and Away – Seven 1.1m
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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The industry backlash has probably fueled ratings.
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Not sure what the industry expected but seemed to me the ABC were never going to make a programme about Advertising that made us all look like Norman Einstein!
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My own view, by the way, is that The Gruen Transfer has been almost entirely positive for the advertising industry.
It has helped people understand the processes behind it; shown that there are passionate, articulate, intelligent, creative people involved and as the AFA has previously said, boosted interest in it as a career.
It has also helped several individuals boost their own (and their company) profiles – and I suspect that’s where some of the sniping may come from, because for everyone who makes it onto the show, perhaps ten people get rejected, which hurts.
If I were to make a list of the ten best things that happened to Australian advertising last year, The Gruen Transfer would be on that list, and I’m not sure what the other nine items would be.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I think ‘almost entirely positive’ is fair and it’s also important to recognise that at the end of the day ‘the industry’ is not the target audience. I did think last night’s conversation on the breakfast cereal category was well balanced (and in the interests of disclosure I used to look after Kelloggs).
Having tutored Advertising at Uni however, I can say that most kids initially think all we do is make TV ads and their first job in an agency will be to write ads. I don’t think TGF has done much to dispel that myth and would be interested to know any feedback on this from the AFA.
As a media person I’m often left feeling misrepresented by comment from the panellists who are mostly drawn from creative and account service, and once or twice from account planning. Then again, maybe no one from media made the cut…
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I agree with you Tim.
It’s been the best thing that has happended to the industry since Mo and Jo.
Cheers,
Richard Wylie – Ursa
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I have to agree with Tim. I have many friends outside the ad industry who say “well I never knew that much thought and effort went into ads – I now begin to understand it”.
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I’m glad my mates outside the industry can now see the thought and consideration that goes into advertising. But I’m gladder still that many clients will too. In ‘marketing land’ many ad people are seen as either incompetent or shonky.
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We’ve been a bit ignorant of the controversy over here in NZ, but having just been a Pitcher on the show I’ve been very impressed by it. It could so easily have become Jasper Carrot’s Funniest Aussie Commercials; what I saw was closer to a high end arts show. The panelists know their stuff, the host keeps things cracking along and it knows when to take itself seriously and when not to. I’d love to see something similar over here – the only problem being we don’t have a non-commercial broadcaster and I’m not sure how this format would work if the producers had to worry about treading on their advertisers’ toes.
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“but it’s ratings” is incorrect
should be… “but its ratings”
Sorry, totally pedantic, but I hate this simple grammatical mixup and you just happen to be the second place I’ve seen it written in the past 60 seconds.
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I believe TGT is positive for the advertising industry. While ‘regular’ people don’t enjoy being told how they are manipulated, they feel a bit more included in the process. The conversational water-cooler value for the industry is immense. Infighting in the media industry will destroy us all.
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Yes I wonder whether the people that are criticising Gruen, aren’t the same people that spend fun filled hours spitting bile at each other about how un-creative their contemporiaries are… on blogs like Campaign Brief.
Talk about confirming stereotypes about up their own asses advertising people can be. Good grief.
Richard
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I think The Gruen Transfer’s The Pitch segment is a great opportunity for normally dull, un-creative agencies to prove they can come up with a pretty good idea, given the chance to let loose. Here’s one I liked: http://www.ursa.com.au/tvc/gtvideo.html
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sounds like a win / win … does this mean all publicity really is good publicity? Even ASCA claimed it had boosted their responses
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Darren Devlin’s post is hysterical. Doesn’t he see that gruen isn’t for people who make the ads but for the people who watch the ads. What should they get out of it?
And the beat-up about Todd’s conflict of interest thankfully didn’t take flight – because it was a beat-up; the ‘conflict’ (existant or non-existant) doesn’t take away from what was a terrible and completely inappropriate.
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….oops, last word chopped off…
…inappropriate execution.
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Kelly… oops… (existent or non-existent), and it’s Darryn, not Darren.
As to the conflict of interest ‘beat up’ not taking flight, it was a big enough story to be ranked #2 that day on smh.com.au and theage.com.au, and because it was linked, crashed the Campaign Brief Blog for most of that day.
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So typical of the self-obsessed ad industry to assume the program is only about them and for them. It is about how one particular industry creates and presents concepts to the public and the impact that may or may not have – it could have been about the fashion industry and worked the same way. Whilst the presenters are interesting and very well informed they are no more important than Kyle Sandilands on Australian Idol, and certainly shouldn’t be discussed over and above the programs content.
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