Good news for ER fans -at least those with digital television. Bad news for those without… (cmon its 2010 what are you waiting for?).
From Thursday night it will shift to “its new home” on GO! at 10:30pm.
GO! will pick up first run episodes starting with episode nine of the 14th season, ‘Skye’s the Limit.’ Former Sea Patrol regular David Lyons joins from episode fourteen.
It will follow with the final 15th season including the return appearance of George Clooney.
The announcement addresses aggrieved fans of the long-running medical drama who have been knocked around by erratic scheduling on Nine.
But the move also raises questions about the branding of GO! While the show is not without younger fans, it doesn’t exactly fit the brief of the channel as a youth-skewed network. GO! removed CSI for the very same reason in its initial launch period. This could become an interesting move to watch in 2010, particularly in light of 7TWO having a broader pitch.
ER will replace The Hills immediately, which moves to 11.00am Sundays. It will compete against CSI:NY repeats on Nine.
Welcome Linda. Always click on the show’s Tag for the latest stories on your fave show. ER now moves to 9:30.
Bugger! Have just discovered this website and have seen comments about ER being on GO! How are we meant to keep up with shows on “normal” channels without all these changes on their alternative channels as well?? Grrrrr….
@vid: Glad it did well, hope it builds. As long as they keep it on!
@ andrewB i think GO! will do this next thursday
side order of life at 8.30 then ER at 9.30 then Gossip Girl at 10.30
According to the GO website, ER will be on at 9.30 next Thursday Jan14. Gossip Girl 8.30, Side Order of Life must be out. But the program on their site still has ER at 10.30, and yahoo’s guide still says the Hill on Thur 10.30, Gossip Girl 9.30.
Talk about confusion. Printed guides will probably say something different again. They sure make it hard to keep up.
@andrewB ER rated very well for GO! it might be moving to 9.30pm on thur!
ER felt out of place on GO. But at least it was on. Would love to know how it rated.
Screw you Channel 9! Why go to all the effort of importing a TV show from the states if you’re just going to shvoe it on s secondary channel, at least air it on Thursday instead of Rescue Special Ops, or at absolute worse air it instead of the CSI NY repeat….
No wonder Channel 9 has been dethroned by Channel 7 as Australia’s top Channel
Nine are also playing lots of Gilligan’s Island episodes on the main ch ..it’s like going back in time.
Ninw just realised they had a big name show lying around that they were never going to screen on their main channel.
Seeing as they reecently did a deal with MTV (which must include VH1 and Nickelodeon) surely we could get rid of the 60s gear. The Jetsons seems to be on every time I turn it on. Isn’t is weird that in the ’80s and ’90s I grew up watching ’60s reruns like Bewitched and Get Smart, and they’re still on now?
Actually, rhey have The Partridge Family and Charlie’s Angels (70s), and Seinfeld, Frasier and The Nanny (90s), but they seem to have skipped the ’80s altogether.
@ tad – perhaps not those shows but GO! could show promos for shows like Hey Hey,Underbelly,2.5 Men and others. Nine have many shows that appeal to the younger demos.
Why are GO! playing all those old 50′s and 60′s sitcoms? They are terrible! Surely they could move The Hills or Gossip Girl into some of these slots? I wish they were sticking with their original youth focus and not shifting to the oldies…. there is already so much playing for them on Nine, Seven, Seven2 and ABC!
Some promotion for GO! on Nine would help, but it has to be one way. The last thing GO! viewers want is promos for Domestic Blitz or Getaway being shown on GO!
Treating GO! as its own entity isn’t a bad strategy. It doesn’t feel like Nine junior or a poor man’s Nine.
@ natalie…well said!!
Thank god for TVTonight! I’d probably miss all my shows that get moved otherwise.
I don’t know why I bother getting a sunday paper for the tv guide anymore! (except for being a bit OCD & loving to go through it with a highlighter on Sundays.) The Sunday Tele’s guide had the extra digital channel info on the wrong days & half the programs had changed already. It’s always the shows that I love that get screwed around with, Supernatural, SGU dumped at last minute & ER moved to GO!
Every night I have to study my EPG just in case I miss something that’s magically appeared at a different time or on the other channel. Why can’t the channels have useful info on their home pages, such as program shift announcements? At least ABC & Ten have easy to find/use forums where you have a chance to find out what’s going on.
I think that’s a good point. Ch7 advertise 7TWO and so does ABC1. Why doesn’t Ch9 advertise their GO! programs?
Anyway I’m happy to have ER back.
Not again! Why do stations keep bumping and moving around my favourite shows! Feeling despondent. No wonder people turn to the internet and DVDs to see their favourite shows.
Nine should start promoting GO! on the main ch not sure why they don’t.
And ER has a youngish audience ,it’s always done extremely well in 18-49 similar to Grey’s Anatomy.
Word of mouth is great for cinema marketing etc… but not sure we want our networks to depend on this for daily amendments. I have to agree it would help if Nine gave GO! shows more plugs to alleviate this sort of thing.
People relying on paper guides probably would not have access to Go anyway. Hopefully the DVD will be released sooner so those who miss out can catch up.
@ daivd…. doesnt the papers put out a guide for each day???
ie mondays paper has mondays guide..tuesday has tuesday’s guide?? and so on??
word of mouth is a great form of advertising..so i wouldnt be knocking it…. i wonder how many ppl found out about your website???? just so know i told many ppl about your wonderful website…..word of mouth!
Word of mouth? Good god. Most ER fans won’t know it’s starting tomorrow night (and it’s also an older audience). These switches are too late. Tell me what it has listed in your copy of the Sunday TV Guide / TV Week etc? Mine has The Hills.
@ ryan – nine has always had a “broad pitch” although of late they’ve started aiming towards the 16-39 to compliment it’s traditional 25-54.
@ bruce – i could be wrong but i think nine aired the finale of TGG last year sometime.
@andrewB like i said..people who love the show will know its on GO!
U can find out this on the net or in the paper, word of mouth, radio…hmmmmm so many way to promote it..
@vid – I actually hope ER does well but fail to see how it can with little or no promotion and such a last minute programming change. I also hope that it stays on GO for the remaining 30 or so episodes of S14 and S15.
If they do chose to take it off GO, I hope they have the sense to let go of the rights so the DVDs can be released or the last two seasons can air on 111 Hits.
Well I got sick of Nine shifting ER all the time so I’ve already found other ways to watch it.
I wish Nine would put the unaired episodes of Gilmore Girls on GO!
Did anyone notice that 111HITS on Foxtel was promoting before xmas the fact that from Jan 4 they will be running ER every weeknight?…this was after Nine announced it was dumping the show. I don’t think it’s the latest series but it’s pretty close…makes you think, huh?
Regarding the Youth Skewing Networks etc if Nine/Go really want to focus on youth skewed programming they have to quit the sh!t trying to compete in total people with the likes of The Seven Network and 7TWO; Seven have a broad pitch for their channels with a large % of 50+ I’m happy for Nine to get competitive in total people if that’s what they want; but Go is a digital channel – a youth skewing digital channel – so treat shows with disrespect in regards to programs like The Hills and Gossip Girl they’ve been bumped and ditched and moved all around the schedule and isn’t very fair for the youth viewers the network is thus aiming for.
On a side note though I don’t think ER at 10.30 is horrible – but maybe on a Friday night
Nope. I checked. It’s definitely 11AM.
Don’t you mean 11:00 PM Sundays for The Hills?
@ D@GP – How is SBS3 an even bigger yawn than SBS1? Considering the former is literally a retransmission of the latter.
Will the 300th ep of ER finally air-great to see it on Nine’s GO!
Thats fantastic that they are finally getting on with screening ER. However I won’t be watching. They lost me with all the mucking around they’ve done with this show. As soon as its on DVD I’ll be watching it the way it should be…it in continuous flow.
Too little too late. I was really enjoying the Curtis Ames (Forest Whitaker) story arc a few years back when the show was yanked off air. Never did find out what happened because I couldn’t keep up with the erratic scheduling. No desire to fall for the same crap yet again. New Year’s resolution is to be more selective about what I watch on free to air. Anything on Nine and Ten are automatically struck off the list.
Haha! Do the programmers at Nine pay the man at the GO! gate before they dump all their unwanted s**t there? On well. At least the Salvos are saved from a clean up.
Personally I would of thought ER would of been younger skewing then some of the 40 year old shows that GO shows.
For what it’s worth – In our home this week, we’ll watch / time shift:
ABC1 = 10 progs/movies
ABC2 = 3 progs
ABC3 = c’mon!!!!
7 = 2 progs/movies
7TWO = 3 progs/movies
9 = 1 movie
GO! = 0
TEN = 0
ONE HD = 0
SBS1 = 1
SBS2 = 0 yawn
SBS3 = 0 even bigger yawn
Never really considered myself a regular ABC viewer, until 9 in particular started to dictate what their (falling) viewers would watch. Guess I was in the wrong demographic – for Nine, at least. We’re looking forward to the return of 24 and Lost this year on 7TWO. Plus the Despos on 7. Oh, on Foxtel, I have 2 shows I enjoy (The Practice and All You Need is Love) while the wife like her lifestyle stuff. Time Shift is the way to go.
Beggars can’t be choosers! At least it’s on somewhere.
(I’ve seen up to S15 ep11 and I have to say it’s still a fantastic show! Shame it had to end.)
Yay!
The biggest problem Nine has with GO! is cross promotion, ABC has done it for years with ABC2, Seven is doing it with 7TWO and even TEN does it with ONE so why won’t Nine do it with GO!?
ITA the HD STB are cheap now but maybe Rudd who loves to throw money around and has an election coming up this year will help those on low income and pensioners to update to DTV?
dear god, there never ever going to finish season on of The Hills are they.. just like what they did with gossip girl, i thought GO! was suppose to appeal to the youth. i obviously was wrong.
the hills are replys of season one!! so good move to replace itwith New ep’s of ER!
@andrew B…..i think this time u have no idea what your on about…ER will do Well!! and its great for GO! to have this program! u may know your television..but so do alot of other ppl including me! ER will do just fine… as for 7Two… its boring and old!
at the end of the day..ppl who are keen on their shows will find out when their shpows are on and what time etc… honestly..ther are so many way to find out information on tv..radio..anything!!!
ER did quite well among 18-49s in the US. It’s a better fit for GO! than The Wire was. GO! isn’t really a youth channel anyway. It’s a youth slanted general entertainment channel. There’s room for shows like ER.
GO is not strictly youth oriented it also airs a lot of great 60′s/70′s shows.
Now how about The Closer? Such a cool show that Nine seems to have forgotten about.
@Andrew:
You know, with the way the networks treat shows like this I think it’s best that they Do fail, just to get the message to them that there needs to be time for viewers to find out. Just take a look at Rove’s final episode – had they prewarned fans from say a month beforehand, imagine how their final eps would have gone!
Obviously why it will be on at 10.30 and not earlier. Still I’m sure Nine could have stuck in on at 9.30 in double episodes over summer.
@George – No ER will not do well on GO at all. Noone will know its on initially, and Nine won’t promote it. Printed guied will be wrong. Internet guides and probably GO’s own EPG won’t update till tomorrow, etc… Too short notice for all the fans to find out that it is on again.
Thankfully, this and a few other TV web sites will at least have stories up about ER so hopefully some fans will find out in time!!!
@Andrew:
I’ve seen HD set top boxes for around $50, and I have a feeling some places would be even cheaper. The prices on them are falling so fast. However I wish we had only HD set top boxes being sold here so that the networks wouldn’t be so scared to have anymore breakaway content on their HD channels (well with the exception of TEN, but they’re only making One HD-only because of the stupid restrictions by the government).
And I’m not sure ER will go really good on GO! considering there’s no cross-promotion on Nine and it’s mainly the youngins who watch the channel, so the older generation wouldn’t know it’s on.
I can’t believe it. Go feeling some pinch from 7TWO finally or did the Nine network suddenly hear the voice of the ER fans?
Problem with such a last minute change is many will not know it is on while Hills fans will be annoyed at their show being bumped.
If you don’t have digital by now, then you will miss out on shows. You can get set top boxes from $20 these days, and HD set top boxes from $70 or so…