Gone: Fringe
Another big US drama is kicked to the kerb as Nine drops Fringe, to be replaced by The Mentalist.
- Published by David Knox
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Nine has just pulled the plug on one of it’s big new dramas, Fringe.
The big budget “thrilling new drama” the network recently promoted as with a big marketing push has been pulled from it schedule effective immediately.
Nine will instead move The Mentalist into its place from next Wednesday at 8:30pm, followed by CSI: NY.
This week the series rated a disappointing 671,000 viewers -thrashed by Criminal Minds’ 1.47m, beaten by Spicks and Specks 1.23m, and pipped by House’s 885,000 viewers.
The complex, futuristic drama starring Australian actors Anna Torv and John Noble has fared better in the US, holding most of its 9million viewers and winning a full series.
Nine has had trouble with its Wednesday line-ups, already pulling Kitchen Nightmares USA and McLeod’s Daughters from the 8:30pm timeslots, the latter last aired to 931,000.
Nine has also had a run of bad luck with sci-fi shows including Moonlight, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles all under-performing, while Seven’s Bionic Woman and Heroes had uneven results and Torchwood and Battlestar Galactica were moved by TEN onto TEN HD.
When Nine announced with considerable fanfare that it had picked up the rights to Fringe, readers on this site were sceptical, vowing to download it for fear of Nine pulling the plug on the show.
Tim Worner, programmer at rival Seven, recently commented on the difficult game of programming saying, “The aim of our game is to try to please most of the people most of the time and it’s a very tricky equation.”
No doubt Michael Healy concurs today.
Plans for a special by Mythbusters on October 29 are also now shelved. Nine is yet to announce plans for unaired episodes of Fringe and a regular Sunday show where The Mentalist was sitting…
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Nine said Fringe’s fastracking was complicated by the US election but could not confirm a new timeslot for the series yet.
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122 Responses
I agree Bindi, Channel Nine has lost the trust of the Australian viewing public. I don’t even watch Nine anymore, but it seems every other week I’m reading about a show that has been axed or moved to a different timeslot by Nine. 671,000 viewers might be ‘disappointing’, but that’s 671,000 viewers who’ll think twice before watching another Nine program. Do that to enough programs, and you’ll seriously erode your viewing base.
Anyway, I think the solution is clear to the ‘downloading issue’: More Australian Content. Is it any surprise that the two smash hits of the year (Underbelly and Packed to the Rafters) have been Australian dramas?
will the mentalist suffer the same fate as Fringe, terminator,etc?
Damn it i hate that nine has done it yet again I’d download it if I had a clue where to go so i guess i’ll just wait and pray that it comes back soon or that it comes out on DVD soon after the first season is over *fingers crossed* great first Moonlight didn’t evern get to finish it’s run granted it is axed i still wanted to see it through hope the Mentalist will last.
Hmm isn’t that other vamp show True Blood supose to be showing on 9 some time next year? i wonder how long thats gonna last.
I’m really disappointed. I love Fringe. I can totally understand moving it from Wed 8.30, which is a tough timeslot, but it doesn’t need to totally vanish from the screens.
Obviously TV execs don’t watch shows otherwise they would understand you actually need to follow a series. Episodes may have individual storylines but there are other storylines and character development that you follow from watching the episodes in a continuous flow – not with huge gaps in time, or out of order as channels have done in the past.
Not happy Nine!
well i guess this is another item to add to my list of:
Nine = cutter – how many shows can they cut, never to be seen again
Ten = shifter – two weeks in a row with the same timetable and that will be a great week
seven = bumper – the channel with all of the best 10:30 shows (this is probably the best of the three atleast there on and it easy to remember where they are- this hasn’t really happened since the olympics, alan sugar, thats it)
Yep after only a few weeks moving The Mentalist in to Wednesday is a bad move and next week the ratings are gonna crash!
as for Sarah Connor I like it and ch9 never canceled it, they just rested it over the xMas break and never bought it back, aka Jericho on ch10 SD.
I think Australia needs it own Sci-Fi channel for free air, the people who like sci-fi will watch and they won’t have to worry about ratings, even if it was on HD I think it go well. I like sci-fi stop canceling it!!!…although the Sarah Connor chronicles was just horrible..
geez, the number of us who must have thought “i told you so” upon reading this headline. exactly what others have said, 9 had no business buying this show in the first place, how about from now on they just keep their grubby hands off these shows as it is obvious they don’t know how to reel us viewers back in, it takes years to rebuild any trust. and i didn’t download but even if i did i could not have affected the ratings as i don’t have a measuring box, and i’m sure most others don’t either, you can’t blame them for downloading if they are part of the invisible australians without ratings boxes who are worth nothing and might as well not be alive as far as the networks are concerned.
Not surprised about Fringe, unfortunately.
But I don’t know whether Mentalist is a good move. I thought it was doing well on Sunday, so why not keep it there. Criminal Minds is going well and House still hangs in there.
Same old, same old. Still the One at Nine to stuff up viewers. Little wonder, I like many was cynical at the start and thought Nine would do thr dirty and pull the plug early. Little wonder when there are 2 shows I could watch (both of similar appeal) I go for the one NOT on Nine.
Kerry Packer must be rolling in his grave at the way his once glorious network has descended into a shambles. Shame on you Nine. Shame. P.S. I guess all your advertisers leaving you in droves too. Loyalty is one word, Nine has forgot.
“Johnson on October 17th, 2008 5:31 pm
So the curse for Anna Torv continues… the dramas she has a role in (Secret Life of Us, Mistresses, Young Lions and now Fringe) rated poorly and in most cases were pulled from the schedule. I feel sorry for her.”
I wouldn’t feel sorry for her, her show is doing amazingly in the US, it’s been picked up for the full series. She’s doing just fine.
Im *shocked*
Why oh why did Nine buy this. Once i went to tape it and i set the programmwer for Seven by mistake. What does that tell you. It never belonged there.
The ONLY thing Nine has got going for it is Survivor:Fans vs Favorites, and thats at 10:30!
Nine – Sell Fringe and Terminator to Seven or SciFi Channel
the networks once again proove why a huge percentage of its old audience now use bittorrent & never even bother tuning in when they have new shows ,
i download everything now apart from the aussie shows , theres not one show i watch on tv now that i dont download .
chan 7 , 9 & 10 you have all blown it & the sooner you sort it out the sooner your ratings might go back up , but you have lost me & all my mates to the internet & we wont be returning ever , so take your advertising & bite me
Utterly disgraceful move by 9 again. Always too quick to pull the plug, and wonder why their shows have no fan base / viewer loyalty??? We all know its only a matter of time before our faves are rescheduled or cancelled.
At least 7 and 10 use their HD channels…
Why does 9 insist on buying the rights to shows, only to pull them after a few episodes???
I’ve never gotten into downloading shows. Although I think I’m going to have to start. I had been setting my VCR for programs shunted to the middle of the night, but I think it’s time to upgrade my broadband, and download, and ditch the commercial station imports all together.
Surprise, surprise!! Channel 9/WIN is at it again. Shelving everything it airs. How Underbelly managed to stay I don’t know!! Obviously the ratings had something to do with it, but anyone that has tuned into anything new since then on a Wednesday night has had their show pulled from underneath them. I watched Canal Road and ended up having to buy it on DVD so I could find out the conclusion…it was like reading a book and having the pages ripped out at the half way mark. I was going to watch The Fringe, but decided against it because i predicted what happened given the fact McLeod’s Daughters was also pulled…There is nothing worse than having something pulled just as you get into it. At least put your shows on at a later timeslot so your viewers can tape it – then the viewers who do love the shows you put off air will still get to see them!
Consider this: maybe if you had all not illegally downloaded the show and watched it when it was on, it would have pulled better figures.
Because that’s the reason Nine pulled it. 600 odd thousand viewers is woeful. (See Russell’s insightful comment above).
P.S. This irrational Nine-bashing is beginning to get tiresome. Seven is just as bad with axing shows such as sci-fi-themed ones and is worse when it comes to running shows late.
Sci-fi is a dead genre here, it will never get the numbers needed to keep it at a decent time. Fringe should have been put in a more easier timeslot to build its numbers, then maybe next year move it to compete against other shows.
Nine just do any sci-fi, just like at Invasion. It was advertised to death, but as soon it was axed in America after its 21 ep, Invasion wasn’t shown here. If only there was fast tracking in 2006.
any bets on how long the mentalist will last now,
very risky move by 9, changing timeslots of a very new show that is only just starting establishing a fan base
Not. Happy. Jan.
We need more scifi fans with ratings boxes. :-/
personally I think it failed because it was poorly written. The characters were unlikeable, and the “science” was indecipherable. It had a miserable air about it, and just didn’t entertain.
One less reason to watch Nine… which in my case, brings it back down to exactly zero. But I’m not surprised. Knew it the moment it was announced that Fringe went to Nine.
Guess no point in tuning for Eleventh Hour, if Nine even airs it.
I’m at a point where I’m treating commercial FTA as TV show sampler. I catch as many eps of a show as I can on TV and decide whether I like it enough to own it on DVD. If I’m not prepared to pay for the DVD, it’s not worth my time anyway.
Science Fiction is my favourite television genre. Doctor Who, Star Trek, Babylon 5, you name it. Sadly, it is a genre that never seems to get really good ratings in this country. There is evidently a very large chunk of the potential television audience who are resistent to programming with even a hint of of fantasy or sci-fi. It is sad as such programs are often the most innovative, dynamic and interesting.
Personally, whilst I do not mind a good crime drama, there is only so many episodes of such dramas that I can tolerate in a given week. An ideal television environment is one where the viewer is constantly stunned by the originality and breadth of vision of those who bring programmes to the screen. Yet we find our selves mired in repitition, stale and uninteresting formats and cheaper and cheaper budgets. It is a tragedy. It really is.
Whether it comes back to a later slot, HD or summer is still in doubt. Networks no longer use terms like axed and they could still re-schedule it today, tomorrow, next week, summer or never. McLeod’s wasn’t axed either but it didn’t return after the Olympics, and Kitchen Nightmares is nowhere to be seen either. But that isn’t “axed” either. Nine says the fastracked eps are interrupted by the US election, but also hasn’t said where next week’s Ep 6 is moved to…
Russel, i think we all agree with you that it had to leave the 8:30 timeslot and that ch gave it every effort that they could. people are only upset that it was not pushed to 10:30 or HD first, and that now they have to download it.
this was always going to happen to a sci-fi there is just not enough of a market for sci-fi on tv anymore
look at LOST literally the very episode that it became a sci-fi (where Mr. Eko saw the smoke monster for the first time) the show went from a high 1mil show and slowly declined to a 10:30 timeslot.
keep sci-fis to a miniseries (ie. the 4400)