★★★★★ 0/5

One wedding and two funerals

Four Weddings, Beat the Star & Game Day Prime Time. Whatever can be said of the end result, Seven gets brownie points for taking a punt.

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Seven has wheeled out three ‘new’ shows this week. Whatever can be said of the end result, they get brownie points for taking a punt.

Of the three of them, Wednesday night’s Four Weddings netted the highest Total People figure, of 1.01m viewer. The show based on a UK format may yet make good trash telly, as it trades off the conflict between potential bridezillas. But sitting through four weddings in an hour is also a bit like having to sit through a wedding reception you’d rather not attend.

Beat The Star copped very average reviews and settled on 955,000,  down on Minute to Win It‘s last figure of 1.21m. Already the line-up of stars is being questioned, and that’s before any of them watch a piece of toast being cooked as one of its challenges.

Finally Game Day Prime Time aired in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth last night as Seven’s response to the AFL finals fever. Hosted by Hamish MacLachlan the show is a weeknight version of Sunday morning’s AFL Game Day and comes off the bench to replace The Bounce. Leaving the bells and whistles of the latter behind, and throwing in controversial ex-player Ben Cousins, the show was a more considered talkfest. Cousins was only asked briefly about his recent weeks, avoiding the hard confessions. Jason Akermanis even weighed into the Stephanie Rice debate. In the market where it matters most, Melbourne, it was fourth in its slot with 220,000. In a 9:30 slot The Footy Show was 366,000 in the same market.

Game Day Prime Time isn’t vibrant enough to survive the commercial 7:30 slot yet, but it would be ideal for 7mate in 2011. Seven will probably have to ride out the figures through September on this one, because the alternative of retreating is worse.

Meanwhile COPS L.A.C. lost 234,000 from its first episode, down to 926,000 but still enough to beat Rush on 788,000, a rise of 120,000.

Bondi Vet was best for TEN winning its slot on 1.06m. Nine won Thursday night.

Week 37

22 Responses

  2. @koverstreet – I’m no fan of Nine but they’re no worse than Seven. If I think a show’s good, I’ll say so no matter which station it’s on. But the same goes if it’s turgid drivel, as COPS LAC well and truly is. Even someone who particularly likes the Aussie cop show genre must be able to see that COPS LAC wasn’t even good enough to be mediocre. It was embarrassingly bad. I was unable to force myself to watch all of it.

    You say that you’re not blinded by Nine hate but it’s abundantly clear that the opposite is true. Your biased Nine fanboi commentary has been noted and remarked upon previously by others, so there’s no point in me highlighting it further. Just occasionally try and pry that other eye open so that you can see that the sun doesn’t actually shine out of Nine’s bum, and that there are sometimes half-decent programs on other stations.

  3. I saw a bit of that weddings show. What a bunch of nasty, unattractive, unappealing people. And vulgar! Cashed up bogans are not a nice thing to see anywhere, including TV.

  4. said it before but seven need to learn that there are 453 AFL shows with Victorians talking about victorian issues across the networks =\ why would i bother to watch another one. Have a crack at truly nationally focussed show – god forbid include a few south or west australians and maybe those of us who dont follow collingwood will watch.

  5. Seven served up three steaming turds this week and I hope viewers won’t be back.

    Cops LAC is rubbish…all flash and no substance.

    Rush was tremendous last night. Shame it didn’t rate!!

  7. @koverstreet, it ain’t Nine hate, it’s just exasperation about crappy writing, acting, production values … I tuned in for 20 minutes or so last night and saw an inexplicable scene overlooking the beach between two of the characters, cutting back and forth between them. The male actor was shot in a wide mid tracking shot, which then back and forth with a static shot of the female character. Why?? It made absolutely no sense, was aesthetically confusing and didn’t add anything to the drama of the scene. Just my two cents …

  8. @ 2.5men
    Sam Newman has that same viewpoint. Ever since they had re gained rights he’s advocated their broadcast on Sunday is utterly slow and doesn’t leave us a discussion, club song etc… like Friday on seven & Saturday on ten.

    Game day is just boring. My mum had one minute and thought it was just a show that was yap yap yap about drugs! Good luck Sven m,aube it’s needed as Game Night!

  9. @ secret squirrel – I watched the same show I’m just not blinded by Nine hate like some here.

    @ 2.5 men – I agree cutting to some rubbish show and not showing the winning team celebrating at least is pathetic but in keeping with 7s terrible treatment of AFL since they got the rights back.

  12. I felt sorry for the footballers on Game Day who were present on the panel… firstly to have endure the yawn fest that they were asked about a thousand times before (and in turn the audience suffered through such rehasings of answers) and secondly to sit on that panel anchored by the totally awkward looking host and as someone brought up earlier they had the past few years to get it right and still (and probably never) will get it right. Please AFL dont give C7 the next tv rights to them… p.l.e.a.s.e.

  14. real shame for C7 and their AFL related TV shows. After 4 (?) years with the AFL coverage as the “Premier AFL Network”, they have nothing to show in terms of AFL related TV shows besides the the one of Sundays (provided the Thursday edition doesn’t make the cut)

    i think the problem with C7 footy shows are the personalities they have to present and run the show

    also what’s their deal with cutting off the final celebrations and post match interviews with AFL matches? They went straight to some cooking show last Sunday after a great win by the Swannies. Didn’t get to see the club song! Hang your head in shame C7!

  15. Brownie points for what exactly?
    Commissioning and throwing more utter tripe at audiences?

    Seven have really come a long way from 2005 -2007 they used to have decent programming and treated audiences well.

    Now shows get pulled and the schedule is filled with rip off programs of either other network hits or previous Seven network hits. There is no range, depth or originality on the Seven Network these days.

  16. The Game Day show was simply a format talking about the past few weeks and months
    I mean they were still talking about the tackle inGeelong and StKilda and rehashing clips from Ben Cousins doco.
    The akermanis segment was appalling.
    The show won’t last.
    It had no relevance, and felt like a clip show.

    Shocking.

  17. the producer of Cops L.A.C said it was like the bill, how dare they compare this sh*t to the best police drama in the world. I hope channel 9 falls to pieces under its stupidity

  18. I see that COPS Losing Audience Conclusively didn’t even crack a mill for its second Ep. Not surprising given the woeful script, cardboard cut-out characters, stodgy direction, and the actors’ inability to lift this above the banal (or look as if they were even trying). When will Nine learn that simply chucking a few “stars” into the mix will not magically make a good show? A diamante-studded turd still smells like a turd, and this one’s a stinker.

    @koverstreet – you obviously didn’t watch the same show as everybody else. You quite happily have a dig at Seven for putting out another game show but rush to wave the flag for your beloved Nine foisting the same tired old formula cop show on us. It’s worse than City Homicide – and that’s saying something.

  19. Ben Cousins needs to answer the many questions the public has been asking and make a public appology to the West Coast Eagles as a minimum before I will spend any more of my time watching him in the media.

  20. I wouldn’t call programming lowest common denominator reality/game shows taking a punt. Taking a punt would require taking a risk and not making programs for bogans.

    As for Cops LAC I enjoy it,the actors are first rate and the writing is pretty good. Hopefully it stays around the 900k+ mark so we get a second series.

  21. Seriously, what did Nine expect of Cops LAC? Old idea, old format, old “stars”. Get rid of it, might be more room then for another thousand Two And A Half Men repeats…
    And I loved Four Weddings – I thought it was snappily edited and got through a lot in an hour. Bring it on! Although I would love Fifi Box to have more involvement with the contestants. Was she even there at the end when the winner was announced?

  22. Cops LAC is woeful trash. It will go the way of that other substandard piece of rubbish, The Strip. A drop of 234,00 in a week is a major red flag for Nine execs, and I would be quietly panicking if I were them.

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