Ten’s latest Pilot Week show, Taboo pulls 277,000 metro viewers
The latest program in Ten’s Pilot Week lineup, Taboo, pulled a metro audience of 277,000, but received a lot more positive feedback than other Pilot Week shows this week.
Taboo stars comedian and former 2Day FM breakfast host Harley Breen, who spends a week away with four disabled people, before creating a stand up comedy show about them. It was the fourth Pilot Week show to air this week and ran for an hour, from 9pm to 10pm.
Taboo couldn’t attract more than 300,000 viewers but the social media response was positive
Ten’s first pilot program, Skit Happens, screened at 8:00pm on Sunday evening and had a metro audience of 350,000 while Sam Dastyari’s Disgrace, at 8:30pm, had 229,000. On Monday in the 9.30pm time slot Ten aired Drunk History, an Australian spin-off of the American comedy series. It managed 366,000 metro viewers.
But while other programs have divided viewers on social media, Taboo had a more positive response.
Everybody should watch #TabooAU with @harleybreen tonight on @channelten – super comedian, great guy, awesome dad, beautiful human.
— Charlie Pickering (@charliepick) August 21, 2018
To @channelten. For the love of all that is good, commission #TabooAU for a full run. Simply put, it’s fucking brilliant.
— Tom Martin (@TomOfficeNZ) August 21, 2018
What an extremely important show #TabooAu is, it is somewhat confronting at times but heartwarming and honest and so needed. Congrats @HarleyBreen and the team behind it. Another goodun’ to come from #pilotweek.
— bamberee/Bree (@bamberee) August 21, 2018
https://twitter.com/jt_melb/status/1031863374261305346
The positive response for Ten could be what the show needs to run as a full series next year. Last week, Ten’s content boss Beverley McGarvey told Mumbrella she wouldn’t be relying on OzTAM’s overnight preliminary figures as a measure of success.
“It’s not necessarily how many tweets it has, but how people are responding to it,” she said at the time.
“If there’s an overwhelmingly positive response, even if it’s a small number, you know you’ve got somewhere to go. And that’s true of shows that are launched as well.”
But despite the positive rhetoric, a number of programs still beat the show. At 8:40pm, Nine’s True Story with Hamish & Andy fell from 634,000 metro viewers last week to an audience of 546,000. Seven’s 800 Words ran from 8:45pm and had a metro audience of 472,000.
Earlier on in the evening Nine’s The Block led the commercial free to air reality offerings, with an audience of 952,000 and a lead across all key advertising demographics (16-39s, 18-49s and 25-54s). Up against The Block was Ten’s Australian Survivor, with 661,000 metro viewers and Seven’s Dance Boss, which managed just 397,000 at 7:30pm. The show was just ahead of SBS’ Great Indian Railway Journeys, which had 364,000 metro viewers at the same time.
Seven took a lead in news, with its 6pm bulletin dominating OzTAM’s overnight preliminary figures with 1.007m viewers. Nine News at 6pm achieved 910,000 across the metro areas.
From both a network and main channel perspective, Nine won the evening, out-rating Seven, Ten, ABC and SBS. Its main channel share was 20.5%, more than four percentage points ahead of Seven – on 16.2% – while Ten’s share was 12.5%. ABC and SBS had shares of 12.2% and 5.9%.
When adding in the multi-channels, Nine Network’s share was 29.8%, while Seven’s was 25.8% and Network Ten had a share of 18.4%. ABC Network and SBS Network reported average shares of 17.8% and 8.2%. The most watched multi-channel was 9GO, with a 4.2% share.
The standout of the C10 pilots. IMO Harley Breen will tire quickly in an extended season. Strengthening the concept to a full run may be to have an injection of different hosting talent providing a more diverse character/comedy perspective. eg. Flanagan, O’Loughlin. Micallef, Minchin etc
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I thought the show Taboo was excellent and it should run as a full series . It was really good to hear true stories from people who had disabilities .
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I’m an ice skater and a Nurse and I would love nothing more than to take Dee ice skating. She said if she was able to walk that’s what she would’ve liked to have done. And if the rest of the gang want to come then that’d be great too. But I would love to help make that happen if she is happy and willing to come for a skate.
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Taboo is the best show I have seen on commercial TV in a long time. It was a breath of fresh air to watch something that wasn’t dumbed down entertainment. Harley balanced respect, empathy and comedy brilliantly. Well done & Thank you to all involved.
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As a person with a disability. An illeostomy which means i now have a stoma and bag for the rest of my life and a dusease that could spread and take the rest of my gut im so glad to see these issues being brought out into the world instead of hidden away. Too many disabled people shut themselves away or ignored by healthy people because its such a scary thing.. it is so nice to be able to see a light side to life! Well done!
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