REVIEW: How the TV networks covered the fire disaster on the first night of ratings season
The most extraordinary first night of the ratings season in Australian TV history yesterday saw programmers seeking to balance planned schedules with updates on the unfolding Victorian bushfire disaster.
And while none of the big free-to-air channels abandoned their schedules entirely, all moved to keep viewers up to date. Seven and Nine were most reactive, while Ten mostly stuck with its lineup.
Seven
Among the shows facing the biggest challenge (and opportunity) was Seven’s new hour-long public affairs show Sunday Night, which made its debut at 6.30pm. It dumped previously promoted stories about tennis star Jelena Dokic, British band Coldplay and cycle legend Lance Armstrong to lead with coverage of the tragedy.
Mike Munro helmed the show from Victoria, with Chris Bath in the Sydney studio.
The first words spoken on the show set the tone for the night: “The worst weekend in Victoria’s history.” And while Munro, who appeared to be ad libbing at times as events outpaced the script, brought the show gravitas, Monique Wright did not. The heavily made up former weather presenter’s appearance felt hugely inappropriate while interviewing people who had lost everything hours before. She veered between an awkward smile/ grimace to a pantomime hand-to-mouth when one householder walking through her charred property reached the spot where a family dog had burned to death.
But after just 12 minutes on air covering one of the biggest stories in Australian current affairs history, the show took its first ad break. And when it returned from the break it moved on to a new subject, or rather an old subject, last year’s suspicious death of backpacker Britt Lapthorne in Dubrovnik.
This had clearly been planned as the launch package for the first show, and it did include new evidence from other backpackers that raised serious questions about the conduct of the local police. While well done, it was also the sort of material that could have waited another week. Except, the show had given much of the story to that day’s Sunday Telegraph to promote the programme. So presumably it had to be run last night or not at all.
Which meant that it was 7.24pm before the show returned to the subject of the fires again, and reported the news that the station’s former Melbourne newsreader Brian Naylor was missing, feared dead.
For the rest of the night, the station updated viewers with the latest before dropping in an extra news bulletin at the end of the night.
Nine
Nine faced a different issue, balancing a relatively close cricket one-dayer between Australia and New Zealand, with updating viewers on the fires.
One of the most dramatic moments of the night came at 7.55pm. Following the fall of New Zealand’s third wicket, Nine cut to a tearful news anchor Peter Hitchener and colleague Tony Jones who announced there were grave concerns for the safety of former Channel Nine newsreader Brian Naylor, a resident of the Kinglake area, after the pair had failed to contact him by mobile phone.
Ten
Ten stuck with short newsbreaks.
The rest of the night’s schedule
Seven’s lineup: Sunday Night; Border Security; Triple Zero Heroes; City Homicide; Bones.
It was also a night of returning shows for Seven, with Border Security protecting us from Malaysian men who planned to violate their visa by working in a restaurant; suspicious paste that turned out to be… vegetable paste and a French woman smuggling cocaine in her bra.
New series Triple Zero Heroes combined 000 recordings with reconstruction and interviews, while City Homicide returned with a ho-hum script involving the deaths of a judge and a junkie.
Bones meanwhile, was a late replacement for 24 which tanked in the ratings last week. Featuring a team searching through charred remains in a fire, the choice of Bones seemed in somewhat poor taste.
Nine’s lineup: Cricket; news special
Slightly surprisingly, Nine stuck with their late night movie choice – the equally inappropriate Firewall.
Ten’s lineup: The Biggest Loser; So You Think You Can Dance; Rove
As usual Ten was playing to a younger audience than its rivals.
Biggest Loser kicked off with contestants ‘weighing in’ for the first time to avoid elimination. Participants on So You Think You Can Dance also faced the chop as the Top 100 became the Top 20. Topping the prime time schedule was the first Rove for 2009. Guests included Miranda Kerr, Sneaky Sound System and actors Justin Long and Ginnifer Goodwin promoting movie He’s Just Not That Into You, which also featured three times in the ad breaks.
Meanwhile, during Biggest Loser Australia every one of the breaks featured ads for weight loss programs endorsed by past contestants. Similarly, during So You Think You Can Dance Australia, past dancers were used in TVCs for Optus Mobile, promoting content for Optus customers to download onto their handsets. Sponsor Ribena was also featured in the show with contestants seen drinking the beverage.
For media watchers looking for indications of what the coming ratings period means for advertising revenue, there was one extremely encouraging sign across all of the channels. Last week Rupert Murdoch said that a lack of car advertising was “killing us” in the US. But there was no sign of that on Sunday evening, with automotive the strongest sector of the night, albeit with value and price-driven messages. Virtually every break had a car ad, featuring brands including Toyota, Mitsubishi, Mercedes, Ford, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, Subaru and Holden.
Media owners were also investing, with News Ltd ads featuring promotions for The Australian (which went up to$1.50 today) and the Daily Telegraph. In Sydney Austereo’s struggling Triple M was heavily featured in ads fronted by Roy and HG, while Ten saw ads for Nova and Mix. Rival job sites News Ltd’s careerone and Fairfax’s mycareer.com.au also had a strong presence. ACP’s Zoo was also on the air.
Reviewers: Seven – Tim Burrowes, Nine – Martin Lane, Ten – Alice Terlikowski (Reviews based on programmes and TVCs as broadcast in Sydney)
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Hey Mumbles.
Where’s the ABC breakdown? They have set up a twitter account, great radio coverage, dedicated web coverage, TV special report @ 7. Kicked in to disaster mode very nicely. They were reporting updates a good half an hour before any TV news was, and working direct with emergency services.
I also think – it was a bit peculiar switching from horrific bushfire news updates to fist pumping cricketers.
.brett
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Hi Brett,
A fair question. The reason we were specifically monitoring Seven, Nine and Ten last night was that we were already planning to look at the advertising offerings for the first night of ratings season. Obviously events took everyone in a slightly more serious direction.
Credit too to SBS. As far as I could tell, they were the first to put anything online about Brian Naylor
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
774 in Melbourne was awesome. Full coverage, and a key source of information for people in the fire-affected areas.
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Fair enough Tim.
I noticed those big movers in PR kicked straight into gear with FP press ads, huge donations. It’s def interesting to see how advertisers respond aswell as the content providers.
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