Seven axes Leckie’s ‘shit show’ Cougar Town
Seven boss David Leckie’s hubristic comments about the network’s ability to turn any show into a hit have ended with the embarrassing decision to axe Cougar Town before the end of its run.
Back in February, Leckie gave an interview to promote Matthew Johns’ new NRL show and told The Sunday Telegraph:
“OK, the Cougar Town, it’s a shit show but we promote it and we get nearly 1.4 million watching it. If we can promote Cougar Town, we can promote Matthew Johns. We’re going to promote the shit out of this fucking show.”
Recent weeks saw Cougar Town – which features Courteney Cox as a divorcee returning to the dating scene – slip from 708,000 a fortnight ago to a new low of 626,000 last week.
TV Tonight reports that Cougar Town, and How I Het Your Mother will be replaced on Thursdays by Criminal Minds, which Seven also runs on Wednesdays.
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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You mean people don’t want to watch a 40 something play out her insecurities?? It should have been a reality TV show THEN it would have captured eyeballs.
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There are other things I’d rather watch a 40somerthing Courtney Cox play with than her insecurities… and THAT would certainly boost the ratings back up!
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The shower is just terrible. I barely made it through the first episode and definitely did not watch any subsequent ones.
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Annoyed that they are taking off the new eps of How I Met Your Mother because it ran after Cougar Town…it was rating well until they move it to a later time slot because of the “shit show” that was before it.
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Wish Ten would axe MasterChef
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It is going to be a very exciting ratings 2010. Master Chef is just holding up 10. Nine is truly back as a contender. And seven are dependent on feeding the Desp Housewife Audience to make in roads back into the ratings. It’s going to be a close race.
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Cougar Town is hilarious! I understand it doesn’t appeal to males (like the Matty John’s show… what a joke!) but the decision to cancel was a ‘shit’ decision by Leckie. Hugely disappionting. I think we have done the crime and medical shows to death so do they really need to be continuously repeated! I won’t be watching Ch7 on Thursday nights again.
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Very unhappy. This was a great show. Leckie is clueless. Axe him and bring in a channel 7 leader that knows what they are doing.
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I wish I had one of those set top ratings boxes so I didnt have to put up with all the master chefs and Australias got talent crap. I swear there is a television consiracy against shows that I like!
I LOVED Cougar town and How I met your Mother, they better at least start showing them on 7two!!
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Typical, typical typical, another show finds a hard core following of 600,000 and it’s dumped. It may not be doing the big numbers, but it was still delivering a good audience.
At least Nine have finally realised that GO is more than capable of delivering an audience for programmes that deliver these smaller but loyal audiences. Hopefully 7Two will follow suit.
All I know is, thank god for the ABC, SBS and the launch of GO, as the core FTA channels continue to churn out more homogenous rubbish that appeals to the broadest audience.
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What we need is more cop shows, medical shows and reality tv shows.
More talent shows with very talented judges: like Kyle Sandilands and Danni Minogue.
In fact, that leads me to a point.
If Australia’s highest rating talent show is judged by Kyle Sandilands and Danni Minogue, what the fuck does that say about our country?
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Cougar Town never had 708,000 viewers.
Raw data showed that it actually was on in only 74 of the 1100 homes which have Oztam ratings boxes
If 3 people in each of those 74 metered homes were watching Cougar Town, then the total guaranteed audience was 222 people. Extrapolated data is unreliable and guesswork at best.
Oztam, Neilsen and McNair Anderson always admitted that the methodology and sampling variance affected numbers and when questioned directly admitted that (following from B&T) “no one really knows how many people are actually watching anything. We can only take a guess”.
Coles and McDonalds have what is known as “ASR” Accurate Statistical Reporting.
McDonalds ASR shows how many Cheeseburgers (for example) were sold across all stores in Australia during the previous 24 hours. It is accurate because money was paid for each item. Each cheeseburger was registered. The category total for that item for the 24 Jan 2009 was 367,600 including 15,439 that were sold as part of a Happy Meal.
If Oztam did the data, it would only have boxes in 90 McDonalds stores. Oztam would show that, based on extrapolated data sampling of 90 stores, 943,700 cheeseburger were sold that day, when we know that it was closer to 367,000
No one can say that 708,000 people watched Cougar Town. The only thing that anyone can say for sure is that possibly 222 people were tuned in – but then again, if each of those metered houses only had 1 person in it, maybe there were only 74 people tuned in.
One of them – wasn’t David Leckie.
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Oh please no, I’m sick of switching channels and finding the same cop shows, law shows or medical shows on every single channel. I agree that Cougar Town was boring, but there has to be something better than the fall back genres in its place.
Which is exactly why I love love LOVE shows like Sea Patrol and Packed To the Rafters
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I actually enjoyed watching Cougar Town. I thought it was funny! To replace it with Criminal Minds (which is just ANOTHER bullshit crime spoof of CSI) is ridiculous!!! I seriously HATE how these networks cut shows mid-series because of ratings… And you wonder why people end up paying for Foxtel/Austar?!?! Because free-tv is absolute SHIT!
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If TV stations had a better idea of what audiences would be attracted to specific shows, not only would they be able to monetise success from when it occurred (instead of having to wait a year in the crazy world of the current trading approach), but they wouldn’t have to schedule and then pull shows that disappoint not only those that don’t like the show, but the few that do.
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@ Chris Walton…. Mate if you can find a formula that works that handy piece of stuff out then let me know. I will see to it that your name appears in a ranking list somewhere around that of B. Gates and S. Jobs. And for only a small % too! Trust me I’m in sales.
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I can tell you there were more than bloody 74 people tuned in. Maybe everyone didn’t like it, but I know a lot of people who did! I miss Cougartown giving me Thursday night TV satisfaction! It was a fun show, instead of murder, blood and death!!!
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@R.Mugobme – mate, we have. Give me a call.
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