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Sunday Drama battle looming

The battle for Sunday nights in local drama is coming...

5mgwA major TV Drama battle is looming.

A Place to Call Home begins on Sunday for 13 weeks.

But ABC is also running promos that indicate local drama is returning to Sunday nights.

For some time ABC has been criticised for not programming its premium drama on Sundays, and its its defence, Friday night dramas Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and The Doctor Blake Mysteries have done very good business.

Late last year a series of telemovies were screened on Sunday nights with mixed results.

Coming from late May on ABC1 are Cliffy, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, Serangoon Road and the series The Time of our Lives.

With so much strong content from all our networks everybody is vying for the 8:30 slots but unfortunately there are only so many days in the week.

PVRs at the ready!

14 Responses

  1. Sunday night is when the most people are watching TV. So even if you don’t win you can get a decent audience.

    You can really only expect to get a large audiences for a drama with under 55s early in the week in the M rated slot at 8:30pm. And on Monday and Tuesday 7 & 9 dominate by staggering the most popular drama and comedies to start at 8:50pm backed up by mega contest shows as leadins to damage the competition.

    Wednesday night is tough. Criminal Minds is rating 1m but MMM and The Following struggle to get 500k and The Good Wife at 9:30pm is getting 300k. (We shall see how Arrow does next week).

    Thursday night people go out, do shopping, watch DVDs or recorded programmes. The ABC was only getting 500k for its arty dramas on Thursday. Bones was doing well with 800k with a lot of >55s but 7 replaced it with Mrs Brown’s Boys which rates higher and younger.

    Friday and Saturday (and even Sundays at times) the ABC shows dramas, mostly murder mysteries targeted at over 55s. The commercial networks show sport and old movies.

    So that leaves Sunday night. It is nothing new. This week the final of DA, Elementary, Call The Midwife, 60 Minutes/Mentalist (staggered) and some cosmology counter programming on SBS were all on. Everybody in my house wanted to watch at least 3 of them, and all 5 were watched by somebody.

  2. What about Thursday nights for Aussie dramas? That was working well for ABC in the past and the commercial networks aren’t running anything Aussie there.

  3. I suspect I’ll be tempted by the ABC and maybe SBS. I just hope the ABC announces the shows with Now, Next and Later or ABC1 and ABC2. Rather than other means. It just is more relaxing.

    I still hope A Place to Call Home does well and I’m sure Nine and Ten will do alright if not excellent for them at 8.30pm.

  4. Not everyone goes to bed at 7pm on a weeknight. What is wrong with 8.30pm viewing on a weeknight. I don’t get cramming everything in on a Sunday night.
    Why are the stations so afraid to put a great show on 7.30 or 8.30 on a weeknight; we’ll still watch it. Gheez!
    And, give us some decent TV viewing on a Saturday night – we aren’t all teenyboppers out and about – Saturday Night is Ghost Town on Australian TV (Free to air) and please think about the older generation, a large % of the population.
    Thank you to any Execs reading this.

  5. Great news – Australian drama on Sunday night on the ABC. I am sure I represent many people who prioritise first run premium Australian drama over reality tv competitions or American drama – which I would record and watch later (if at all). The ABC must be successfully in this space if it wants to retain funding support.

  6. Yeah, I remember Sunday night movies, that is a blast from the past. Back in the day before video you only got to see one.

    Nooooo, I don’t need more shows on Sunday nights, I only have so many shows I can tape and watch.

  7. I’ll be watching the dramas on ABC because they’ll actually start on time. I would give A Place To Call Home a go, but why would i sit around waiting until 8.38? 8.43? 8.56? for it to start!

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