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Winners and Losers to replace Rafters

Seven's newest drama Winners and Losers will take the place of Packed to the Rafters in just under two weeks time.

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Seven’s newest drama Winners and Losers will replace Packed to the Rafters, most likely at 8:30pm Tuesday March 22nd.

Rafters has its season finale next week.

While it feels very early in the year for a finale this is no doubt because these episodes are actually part of last year’s episode cycle. The show will no doubt resume later in the year.

Whether the finale marks the exit of Jessica Marais from the series isn’t clear -media reports said she would be on air until June. Marais is leaving the show to pursue US opportunities. Mirroring that story last night, Rachel Rafter was even offered a job in the US at a time when she has relationship trouble with Jake (James Stewart).

Still it’s a TV drama, there is the possibility she could exit in the first episode of a new season….

Without Rafters in the Seven schedule the field could open up a little more for the competition.

Meanwhile Winners and Losers has a media launch tonight so expect an onslaught of publicity for the new show.

28 Responses

  5. Plus the 3rd season DVD is set for release in April, with 22 eps.

    I agree this is the mid-season final or hiatus like they say in the US. I can sort of understanding them getting US/UK shows wrong but the most popular local drama? Seriously Seven what are you thinking? I think part of the problem is last year they didn’t have any new eps until midyear. So why bring it forward now? Why not show off W&L sooner or try something else in the time slot?

    If they now consider 6 eps a season they are almost as bad as Nine with Top Gear AU last year and 3 programs in the ‘season’. Ads for the ep in the coming week will be interesting, will they still call it the ‘season’ final, only time will tell.

  7. As I thought, Seven have incorrectly advertised next week as the season finale, when it is actually the mid-season finale. They aired all of the third season last year, this is the fourth.

  8. I don’t know why but I have a bad feeling about W&L. It’s been given the best slot in the schedule as the other networks seem to have given up on Tuesday 830. Good luck girls!

  10. These eps currently airing are part of season 4. They resumed production last sept and as one ep a week is shown and it takes 6 days to film an ep, by starting them so early in the year they were always in danger of running out of finished eps. Winners and Losers has 22 eps in it’s first season which means if they
    run it in full from late march it will go to mid august, then rafter could come back from
    Mid august to early December to finish out the ratings year. Did anyone else notice that
    rafters started much earlier this year as
    previously they started airing from June / July.
    It’ll be interesting to see if the figures drop off
    when rafters does return later this year!

  12. Channel 7 have absolutely No idea of what they’re doing!
    Viewers will not be impressed. I’m certainly not.
    It will end up just like City Homicide if they keep this up.

  14. Didn’t Rafters come back late last year say Oct/Nov?? Then they stopped for the Xmas/Non-ratings period, and now this is just the end of the season that started late last year.

  15. FYI The IMDB website has this season as Season 4, season 3 was 22 episodes.
    Eps 6 &7 are unscheduled but feature on the IMDB website, so I assume Ch7 are just filling the W&L show inthe Rafters time slot in the hope it “has high ratings” but they could be in for a backlash as viewers hate mid season interruptions and may switch off to show ch7 not to much viewers about!

    Have not learnt anything from City Homicide????

    I was looking forward to seeing where they would slot it inh. this is not a good decision!!!

  17. Considering Winners and Losers is more skewed to a female audience than Rafters, I can’t see Winners and Losers rating as high as Packed to the Rafters.

  18. Rafters is ending for now cause basically there close to running out of episodes to show, with easter break coming production will fall furthur behind the airdates, cause production only started late last year. the network shouldnt have shown it so early

  19. David made it pretty clear on how the Rafters seasons work:
    The current “new” episodes were filmed as part of last season.
    The cast have been filming this year and those episodes will most likely air later this year (presumably after Winners and Losers?)

  20. seven is so far ahead each night, with over a 10% channel lead last night, that i doubt this one program switch will make much difference. I think aussies are just used to watching seven on tuesday nights, everything seven has put there over the last few years has rated well.

  23. I’m confuse I thought the Rafter just started a new season since they had the usual 22 eps in S3, or is this a mid season break and if W&L craps put they will be back in a few weeks?

    Just what is Seven up to?

    The only reason I’ll check out W&L is for Michala Banas 🙂

  25. Could I get some clarification, has Rafters finished for the season or is it having a mid season break? It’s being advertised by seven as the finale, but that doesn’t match up with Hugh Sheridan’s comments on twitter. It only started in February and apparently there are 22 episodes per season. I wish networks would let programs run a full season without interruptions.

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