Television

Australian Idol Grand Final time shift   Author: eNews staff and agencies | Nov 8, 2005, 10:41

Scaled back: Australian Idol Grand Final

Australian Idol isn't doing well and for weeks now the TV industry has been guessing when the final would be held because Ten wasn't really saying.

Well, it will be on Monday November 21: at the Sydney Opera House. The finale will run for two hours from 7.30 pm.

Which would mean they have scaled back Idol dramatically from the near three hours of last year.

No Wednesday night extravaganza like last year when audiences in both the Sydney Opera House and in TV land stayed glued to the set for a production that just ran and ran and ran.

Sunday night's performance episode (for Elvis!) was watched by just over 1.4 million people. That was 39% down on a year ago.

That was a smidge under 2 million viewers.

The verdict episode last night was watched by more than a million people : 1.141 million : that’s almost 300,000 down on Sunday night.

That was another night of underperformance compared to last year, but a night of 'adequate' performance so far as Ten is concerned because it's still doing well enough to give the Network a handy win in the 16 to 39 age group.

Ten has already won that group, its target, this year.

The trend this year has been for the Verdict episode on the Monday to attract a sharply smaller audience than the performance program on the Sunday night.

That means Idol isn't engaging viewers, especially in its target demographic, like it did a year or two ago.

And that in turn will mean changes for next year.

We may get a clue about those when Ten launches its 2006 line-up on November 29.

So far Ten's the only commercial network to go public with its plans. Seven and Nine will do it more low key.

Seven’s reticent because it was burnt in 2003 and early 2004 about what would happen in 2004. And management also realises its put up or shut up year in 2006.

Not to beat Nine, but to boost share, contain costs and turn into a very profitable business.

Nine is low key because it doesn't have a good feel about 2006.

It knows it will have to run hard in the first half and that it will have to pull a few rabbits out of the hat and depend on Seven's legendary ability to lose while winning.

But even the mood at Ten will be one of wary optimism about the New Year.

The 2006 ratings year starts on February 12 and will end in early December.

- Add the eNews XML file to your RSS newsreader and be the first to know.