Packed to the Rafters gets lowest ratings in show’s history
Seven’s Packed to the Rafters recorded the lowest ratings in its history last night.
The Logie-award winning family TV series, which launched in August 2008, pulled in 1.118m in the 8.30pm time slot, ranking sixth for the night.
The show was hammered by The Voice on Nine, which aired from 8pm to 10pm, rating with 2.259m, according to preliminary results from OzTam.
“You have to hand it to Nine for turning The Voice into the phenomenon that it is,” said media analyst Steve Allen of Fusion Strategy. “Packed to the Rafters is doing better than most shows against The Voice, but Seven will have learned their lesson for ending the series early last year.”
“If Seven had let Rafters run on, and ended with a cliffhanger, then they could have re-started the series this year with the answer to the cliffhanger. But instead the storyline has been awkward and clunky.”
Nine also claimed the top three shows – The Voice, The Block and 2 Broke Girls – in key advertising demographics 18-49 and 16-39.
Seven’s most watched show was Seven News, which got an audience of 1.333m.
Ten’s top show, The Biggest Loser, rated with just 758,000, ranking 12th for the night.
Tuesday’s top 15 shows:
1. The Voice Nine 2.259m
2. Seven News Seven 1.333m
3. The Block Nine 1.259m
4. Nine News Nine 1.183m
5. Today Tonight Seven 1.161m
6. Packed to the Rafters Seven 1.118m
7. Australia’s Got Talent Seven 1.073m
8. A Current Affair Nine 1.039m
9. ABC News ABC 0.940m
10. Home and Away Seven 0.909m
11. 2 Broke Girls Nine 0.848m
12. The Biggest Loser Ten 0.758m
13. Ten News Ten 0.742m
14. Missing – Episode 1 Seven 0.691m
15. The Project – 6:30 Ten 0.660
Tuesday’s channel share:
Nine: 33.5%
Seven: 22.4%
Ten: 11.4%
ABC1: 10.2%
SBS1: 4.1%
ABC2: 2.4%
7mate: 2.4%
Eleven: 2.4%
7TWO: 2.3%
Gem: 2.2%
One: 2.2%
GO!: 2.1%
SBS2: 1.0%
ABC3: 0.6%
ABC News 24: 0.6%
It is testament to the strength of this drama that despite The Voice it is still able to manage over a million viewers. It is really a tale of the tortoise and the hare. When The Voice is exhausted the solid performers will bounce back solidly.
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Is it just me, or does that thumbnail of the Packed to the Rafters guy look like an advert for erectile dysfunction?
Sorry. Slightly off topic.
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Well if the younger Packed to the Rafters cast didn’t get a ‘taste of stardom’ and quit to ‘head to the US’ after just a season or two then maybe it would sustain a more loyal following.
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I think this show is terrible. Just so bland
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I have just two words for the low ratings of Rafters: Cameron Daddo.
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adrian I agree with you completely. How rafters has survived this long is anyones guess-it is a bland show. characters appear for no reason, no storyline, no plot. what are they all doing there- lots of scenes in the bedroom, sleeping.obvious that once The Voice is over or people get tired of it, they show will not be popular. new format, everyone is excited, like the first season of Masterchef.In the US , The voice has dropped in the ratings due to two and a half men beating it.People have got tired of seeing new faces every week. it will be the same here I am sure.
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“Packed to the Rafters.” The dream of any theatre company at any time in the history of theatre. Theatres that have rafters that is.
Love the show or not, it is a viable entity, a vehicle for those blessed with the theatre
arts and sciences, and its fall from popularity, however small, should be seen as a threat to its existence and a potential disaster to be avoided.
Don’t attack the show on the basis of not liking it as a production; this is as mindless as the parents who used to damn punk rock or heavy metal, designating it as noise.
I don’t care for Rafters, but I care for its existence, and I not only wish it to have a future, I wish it well in that future.
It has been suggested that had “Rafters” extended its run and ended with a “cliff hanger,” it would have averted this eclipse by Nine. This is hindsight logic and armchair wisdom.
I began by connecting the title with the wishes of any theatre company, and it is here, in my honest opinion, that the answer to the decline in audience lies.
Good theatre (like those with or without rafters, television is theatre or a kind) depends upon many elements, but when the dimensions of the auditorium and the stage area have been removed and the proscenium arch, not only imposed, but defined in all scenes by a small square or landscape window, then many of the theatre’s disciplines are ineffective, and are replaced by the disciplines of television.
In the case of “Packed to the Rafters,” some of these disciplines have been overlooked, and some of the overall theatrical disciplines have been ignored completely; first among them in the writing. The writing has not been poor, it has been haphazard, like a story in search of a plot, and that, I suspect, is not without good reason. The overall impact of the vehicle, the force that once drove it from the heart has been lost.
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