Ten hands out 30,000 DVDs of Secrets and Lies to boost viewers
The Ten Network has been handing out DVDs of new ‘whodunnit’ series Secrets and Lies in east coast capitals in a bid to get more people hooked into it after a disappointing debut last Monday evening.
Last Thursday and Friday 30,000 copies of the show were handed out to members of the public by promo staff in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, with a Ten spokesman claiming the action was planned “weeks ago” and saying it was not the first time it has been used by an Australian network.
Shoppers in the CBDs of the cities were approached by promotions staff dressed in black t-shirts and handing out the first episode of the new drama series which pulled in 403,000 viewers for its first outing last Monday evening.
The move comes after experts told Mumbrella last week Ten had an issue with promoting forthcoming series because of a lack of viewers for existing shows, while the director of Puberty Blues admitted he was hoping the show would rate well because of a strong fan base for the first series. The network has struggled in the ratings in recent weeks, and pulled just 8.8 per cent audience share last week.
Both Nine and Seven have told Mumbrella they have never used the tactic of distributing free DVDs.
One rival network executive said the move “smacked of desperation” adding: “Most networks wait until the end of the series to sell it on a DVD box-set, or put it online so people can catch up. Never do they stand in the street handing it out like the town crier.”
Last month Nine previewed the first four episodes of new period drama Love Child on its Jump In service to 20,000 people on a first-come-first-served basis. The show has gone on to average over a million metro viewers over its first three episodes after getting 1.35m on debut. It is now up against Secrets and Lies in the 8.30pm timeslot.
A spokesman for Ten said the network had decided to follow this course of promotion because the show “is a whodunnit and ideally people should see the first episode.”
He added: “The DVD was part of the strategy to achieve that; the first episode was also, of course, available on TenPlay for catch-up and was encored three times on TV over the past week.”
They said the DVDs did not have any commercial material on them, and denied the network was using the method to make up for any shortfalls in the TenPlay service.
This morning Ten released the numbers for its TenPlay service which had 2.86 million video views last week, up 19 per cent on the previous week and 92 per cent on week ten last year. Secrets and Lies managed 139,000 video views, and got 280,000 viewers for its repeat on Ten and 48,000 for the encore screening on Eleven.
Update: A spokesman for Channel Ten said there was “nothing desperate” about the DVD giveaway and it had been planned weeks ago. Secrets and Lies also had 91,000 capital city viewers for the late night encore of the show on Saturday, the spokesman said.
Alex Hayes
Credit to Ten – at least they didn’t hand out VHS cassettes. Small wins.
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In my humble opinion the problem with Secrets and Lies is that they’ve put some of the most interesting stuff online. An interview with the daughters boyfriend and the revelation of the murder weapon.
Compare it to Broadchurch where the anguish of the victims family really made you feel that a terrible crime had been committed. Secrets and Lies is like an episode of Law and Order where we don’t really care about the victim. They want us to feel sorry for a shirtless suspect for being inconvenienced while the cop hangs about without any dialogue looking smug. If some of the online stuff had of been in the show it would have been an actual whodunnit. Ten is smart to try and generate interest but I think the problem is the product. They haven’t established the stakes.
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Although I haven’t seen this done by Au networks before it was very common in the US a couple of years ago. I received DVDs of the first episodes of new seasons of a couple of already-hit shows (Desperate Housewives, Cougar Town) which were distributed free with magazines in an effort to boost viewership. ‘Recap’ DVDs of previous seasons are also common before a new season debuts. Although Ten’s tactic is a little out of date it doesn’t seem desperate….
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What a waste of time and money. Perhaps Ten should be asking why it went head on against other Australian drama. Ten got carried away with the cross/trans media hype over the show (which they thought its supposed tech savy audience would like) and it failed to deliver the level of drama craft one expects in a good whodunit. This is a very tough genre to compete in when there are so many better dramas from the UK and USA available on PAYTV and more importantly streamed online. Ten must do some real soul searching into its commissioning. Forget all this lame marketing bullshit.
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If they were smart, they would have handed them USB sticks, on one hand a great promo giveaway that people could be used again and secondly people could have watched in offices over lunch on their computers. Sadly for poor old Ten, a great idea, something different but typically poor execution.
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“One rival network executive” has forgotten how Nine and Seven once gave away DVDs of their new or returning programs with newspapers.
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I watch the sat night show, very surprised it was a great show , maybe programming had a bit to do with it
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The problem with Secrets & Lies is that the first episode didn’t really amount to much. The whole point of a whodunnit is to present a GROUP of characters who all have the means and motivation to commit the crime. The audience gets its enjoyment from figuring out what are the clues and what is the misdirection, and what sorts of intrigues arise from the relationships betweent he characters. Instead, we got a first episode where a guy moped around wondering (along with the audience) why the cops were picking on him. There was a huge amount of padding and repetition as well.
Broadchurch’s first episode managed to introduce around twenty characters and their relationships and roles in the town, plus introduce the whole police side of things, plus show the family’s grief, plus sow the seeds of doubt among the main characters, plus generate multiple lines of conflict. All in the first episode.
My prediction is that S&L is going to turn into a soap opera.
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Being Brisbane-based myself and knowing people that know people in Hoodlum, I really, really wanted to like this. REALLY. But the first episode just went nowhere. At what point if someone stumbles across a body in the woods and calls police themselves, are they instantly prime suspect?
And the paparazzi photographer outside his house had a $600 DSLR. Lol.
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Interesting. Does seem a tad desperate. Maybe a better move would be to distribute DVD’s before the show went to air to generate some hype and word of mouth. Once the show has aired and failed it is ancient history. Handing out 1 million DVD’s afterwards wont make a difference.
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Killing kids to try and make drama has been done to death by the Poms, “Wire in the Blood” years ago and still doing it with rubbish like Broadchurch today. So to Ten i say “Ho hum, nothing new to see here, move along”.
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Is this just a remake of Broadchurch?
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I think ratings dont necessarily mean people aren’t watching, you have to take the type of show into consideration. When shows have one main plot the whole season, twists, clues, learning characters and you need to watch every episode… I’m more likely to record it. 1. so I can watch the end of the block and 2. in case I get distracted by real life, I can just rewind or pause and not miss essential clues.
Having said that, I still have no clue who did it.
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