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Plan C fails for The Renovators

Ten’s late, late change to the timeslot for The Renovators did little to ease the show’s ratings woes on Tuesday night, with it pulling in an audience only a little more than half of Nine’s The Block.

The change came on the second day since Masterchef’s third series came to an end for Ten.

The original plan had been to put The Renovators in the timeslot vacated by Masterchef. Ten had hoped that audiences would be more used to finding a reality contest in the 7.30pm slot than when The Renovators was running at 8.30pm for the first two weeks and mostly falling below 1m viewers.  

However, Monday night was a disappointment for Ten with The Renovators rating just 786,000 in the 7.30 to 8.30pm slot against The Block’s 1.55m. However, the audience for The Renovators grew in the second half hour, suggesting some viewers may have come across after The Block finished.

That may have triggered Ten’s decision to move The Renovators to 8pm last night and push Modern Family earlier to 7.30pm. The network is also to do the same thing on Thursday, but appears to be leaving The Renovators in the 7.30pm slot tonight and on Friday.

The risk involved in such late changes is that fans of Modern Family relying on printed TV schedules tuen in after the show has finished.

Last night, there was almost no improvement for The Renovators and Modern Family also struggled. In a dismal night for Ten, The 7PM Project pulled in 706,000, Modern Family rose slightly to 774,000 and The Renovators delivered 812,000. Ten’s 8.30pm repeat of NCIS was its best performer of the night with 892,000 according to preliminary overnight metro ratings from OzTam.

Ten’s programming boss David Mott has previously told Mumbrella that there is no Plan B for The Renovators, although the network is likely to be hoping that its fortunes improve when The Block ends at the end of next week.

Over on Nine, The Block rated 1.455m last night, The Big Bang Theory rated 1.045m and even Top Gear picked up with 872,000 compared to last week’s 596,000.

Seven, which won last Tuesday with the series finale of Australia’s Got Talent, saw Home And Away rate 1.017m at 7pm, the series return of Four Weddings pulled in 906,000 and Winners & Losers delivered 1.225m. As a result it also won this Tuesday with a 23.2% share.

Ten came third with 15.2% behind Nine on 21.5%.

Tuesday’s top 15 shows:

  1. The Block – Nine – 1.455m
  2. Seven News – Seven – 1.371m
  3. Nine News – Nine – 1.229m
  4. Winners and Losers – Seven – 1.225m
  5. Today Tonight – Seven – 1.147m
  6. A Current Affair – Nine – 1.132m
  7. The Big Bang Theory – Nine – 1.045m
  8. Home and Away – Seven – 1.017m
  9. ABC News – ABC – 0.933m
  10. Four Weddings – Seven – 0.896m
  11. Dinner Date – Seven – 0.896m
  12. NCIS – Ten – 0.892m
  13. Top Gear – Nine – 0.872m
  14. The Renovators – Ten – 0.812m
  15. Modern Family – Ten – 0.774m

Metro channel share:

Seven: 23.2%
Nine: 21.5%
Ten: 15.2%
ABC1: 12%
SBS1: 4.2%
Go!: 4.7%
Eleven: 3.6%
7TWO: 3.1%
7mate: 2.9%
Gem: 2.5%
One: 2.4%
ABC2: 1.7%
ABC News 24: 1%
SBS2: 1%
ABC3: 0.9%

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