Axed: City Homicide?
Update: Responding to media reports of City Homicide's demise, Seven says a decision on renewal will be made in the new year.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
3AW has reported that Seven has axed its police drama City Homicide.
The series in its fourth season has been challenged by a slip in audiences and tough competition in the 8:30pm Wednesday timeslot.
This week it pulled 1.03m viewers against The Big Bang Theory 1.18m, second in its timeslot. When it previously aired in its original Monday slot it was pulling figures around 1.8m viewers. Back in 2007 it had less competition from rival local dramas.
Last year the show also screened on Sunday nights.
Noni Hazlehurst recently spoke to TV Tonight about the challenges for the show when it was moved around the schedule, including with late starts.
“There are a lot things impacting on figures, but I don’t think shifting timeslots helps,” she insists.
“I truly believe once something is working in a timeslot you do not move it. But that’s not my decision to make.
“People like reliability. It’s not easy to change viewing habits and I think people get annoyed.”
It isn’t just the changes from Monday to Sunday to Wednesday that factor into the equation, either.
“I personally would like to see it start at 8:30 too but that’s not my call. That’s a decision made for a number of reasons,” she says.
The show has surely boasted a strong cast including Shane Bourne, Nadine Garner, Damien Richardson, David Field, Aaron Pedersen, more recently adding John Adam, Nadia Townsend, and Ryan O’Kane. But since its launch more police procedurals have joined the TV landscape including TEN’s Rush and Nine’s COPS L.A.C. In addition Nine now has its emergency drama Rescue Special Ops. The net result is that TV audiences are showing fatigue with the policing genre.
Unlike its competitors, City Homicide‘s premise has also seen it boxed in by its whodunnit premise, denied the opportunity to explore wider policing issues. This season it began to add more personal stories for its key characters as a way to compensate.
Meanwhile Seven has been expanding its drama slate, including the development of Winners and Losers under producer Maryanne Carroll, who left City Homicide to helm the new series which will air in 2011. The series had changed hands to new producer Richard Jasek this year.
The loss of City Homicide is significant, and follows the end of All Saints last year.
While Seven can boast an embarrassment of local drama riches with Packed to the Rafters, Home and Away and Winners and Losers, City Homicide was still able to deliver in stories and performances.
Seven is yet to respond to enquiries from TV Tonight.
UPDATE: Seven has now confirmed that principal photography on Series Four will wrap on November 12th.
A decision on the production of Series Five will be made in the new year.
Director of Programming and Production, Tim Worner said: “City Homicide is a gripping drama that has continued to improve and develop through each of its 84 episodes.
“In the days of old, its renewal would have been a no brainer.”
City Homicide will remain in Channel Seven’s prime time schedule until the end of the current ratings period with a six part mini series titled “No Greater Honour” guest starring Claire Van Der Boom, Marcus Graham, John Howard, and Graeme Blundell to air in 2011.
“But in this multi channel environment these decisions are not as clear cut as they once were.”
68 Responses
As someone who has watched the show from the beginning, it is nowhere near as good as it used to be. I used to always watch it on the night – either live or close to live, now it ends up being watched on the weekend sometime when there is nothing else on.
Having said that though – City Homicide is still better than the others on offer.
Funny how things change – when this premiered in 2007 and was doing 1.6 it seemed Seven had another Blue Heelers that would be with us for many many years. Four seasons is still not a bad effort though.
Rafters, Underbelly and Sea Patrol are the only Aussie dramas currently still running that haven’t had their ratings go ever below a million viewers.
I can honestly say I’ve never missed an episode of City Homicide and am disappointed it will not be renewed. Let’s hope viewers get behind it over the coming weeks and show Seven they are making the wrong decision.
It is a surprise, CH is now getting double the ratings of Cops LAC, when will Nine put that show out of it’s misery.
Good riddance to boring mundane rubbish. Now all they have to do is officially axe Rush and create some good new dramas like Inside Out.
Never liked CH. So long as Rush doesnt get axed, Im happy.
Sign this petition if you don’t want Channel 7 to axe City Homicide
ipetitions.com/petition/dont_axe_city_homicide/
The next swing of the axe will be channel tens Rush
Commiserations if anyone here’s affected by the axing. It’s always sad to see a drama get the chop, particularly when there’s far worse fare being renewed. But I’m betting there’s been a collective sigh of relief around the offices of RSO and Rush this afternoon.
I don’t agree that TV audiences are showing fatigue with the policing genre. They’re showing fatigue with awful television dramas. CH isn’t included in that, but it seemed to hit the same note and it took itself so very seriously. It’s become such an effort to sit through.
With CH axed and Cops Lack pulling such atrocious numbers, I expect Rush will be renewed for next year…unless Ten decide to axe it anyway.
If it did, that’d be pretty awesome IMO. No more police procedural crap, and a chance to see some original, creative ideas. Just don’t replace it with another medical/cop show
While i don’t think it’s as good as Sea Patrol,Rescue SO or Cops LAC (sadly also looking like being axed) it’s ok without being anything special. Some good actors but the plots were always kind of ordinary.
Ah well as long as we still have Rescue SO and Sea Patrol I’m happy.
I’ve said it before. I think 2011 on & is going to look very different. They seem to have axed a lot of factual fluff, City Homicide etc.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they have another drama in the works for the second half of 2011. But a shame to see it go, has really hit its stride this year once again.
Aw, dammit. I love CH.
Come on 9 put LAC out it’s (or our) misery
Hopefully this is just incorrect scuttlebutt.
if this is true it would sure send a message to the other networks. while 7’s dramas are all ending on top while rating well, other network dramas seem to have set their bar very low with 700k and 800k shows getting renal after renual.
As John Holmes conceded at the recent Film Vic gabfest Underbelly changed everything. The writing on CH always felt a bit yesterday and they didn’t seem able take the show into new territory. It’s not really axed – it’s just not renewed, which comes as no surprise to anyone. Four long seasons is a pretty good innings for any Aussie drama these days.
Ronnie: Yes non-renewal and axings are semantically two different things but to audiences, and presumably cast and crew, it’s the same end result.
Seven you suck. City Homicide is my favourite Aussie tv show and is also one of the best Aussie shows on tv. It is a quality show with a quality cast. Seven killed it when they switched days. Belongs Sunday or Monday nights. Move it back to it’s original timeslot. Don’t axe it. This season has been just as good as the previous ones.
they shouldn’t have axed All Saints. I miss Von!
If its true then thats sad because this is the best Aussie Cop show on the box. The ratings have improved over these past weeks which i think is due to the stability of the show being in the same slot but also because they scheduled The Force and Border Security before it, making it a better flow.
So we lose All Saints last year….still bitter about that….and now City Homicide. Poor form Seven
I reckon Noni’s clipboard should be nominated for a gold logie. just hope this isnt the start of axing local content for cheaper imported rubbish
I’m stunned. This season of City Homicide has been really good. The ratings are picking up too. They’ve grown more story arcs, dealt with a wide range of issues, not just police related, but social issues too. It’s so much better than any other police drama on TV (Cops LAC is the worst. I didn’t think there could be a worse show than The Strip but Nine proved me wrong). Rescue Special Ops is crap as well.
Terrible decision.
Seven can’t rely on Rafters forever, they better hope Winners or Losers is a success next year, otherwise their spend on Australian drama may not pay dividends in years to come.
If true, this is sad. CH was much more realistic than the ridiculous action rubbish of Rush and LAC.
Ch 7 moved CH around too much. It belonged on Monday. The programmers can take the blame for this one.
They better hope Winners and Losers works though to me it sounds a bit soft in an “Offspring kind of way” and will probably have the same issues attracting a wide demographic.