Television

Seven to launch Spicks And Specks clone   Author: eNews staff and agencies | Jul 20, 2006, 14:32

Spicks' Adam Hills.

There's nothing like imitation to flatter someone: so what are we to make of the Seven decision to do a commercial version of the ABC hit Spicks and Specks (Wednesday nights 8.30 pm).

Spicks and Specks is a version of a UK program and there is another version on SBS called RockWhizz.

They are based on the BBC program Never Mind The Buzzcocks .

Spicks and Specks is now doing well for the ABC, averaging around a million or more viewers and it’s funny.

The SBS program gets several hundred thousand viewers when it appears on Saturday nights: it’s not so funny and is more self indulgent.

Now Seven has commissioned a program called ? And will be hosted by Todd McKenney, a judge from Dancing With The Stars.

Talk of team captains or a panel with Lizzy Lovette from Nova and Matt Parkinson of Triple M (and very often a member of the brains trust on the Einstein factor which is hosted by his Triple M Cage co-member, Peter Berner).

Seven claims the program will be more than music and will be stretched to cover movies and TV.

And Nine is going back to the 20 to one format with a program that will look at a year each week with updated interviews with some of the people making news in that year.

That sounds a bit like the popular Seven nostalgia program, Where Are They Now. with a dash of 20 to 1` thrown in. 20 to 1 is reaching the end of its tether, there aren't so many genres that you can list.

Obviously the creative juices are flowing at Nine. As I said there's nothing like imitation to provide a bit of flattery.

Commercial TV would not exist with out.

Forensic science is another area where flattery or imitation has been the driver of creativity.

The ABC has had Silent Witness, Nine has the various CSIs (an of course there was Quincy MD from the 1970s).

All commercial programs with some success (but Silent Witness would have needed a bit of work to get it ready for screening on commercial TV. It was too slow and had too many hand wringing long stares into the distance type shots).

So a producer at Nine called Fiona Baker gets an idea for a factual program based on forensic science, with a bit of investigation and reconstruction thrown in.

Nine doesn’t want, Baker leaves, goes to Southern Star with the idea, they pitch it to Seven and Forensic Investigators is born. There’s been two series with a third coming for Seven later this year hopefully).

Meanwhile Nine sees the success of Forensic Investigators on Seven in 2004 and has a mumble, a snorgle or two and the idea of Suspicious Minds floats into the ether. Great says Nine, we’ll do it.

No go for 2004, too late, nor for 2005” too much confusion.

But Suspicious Minds sees the light of day a few weeks ago and starts confidently at 9.30 pm on Wednesday nights with a million viewers, which settled down into the 900,000s and then into the 800,000.

That’s OK at 9.30 pm on Wednesday evenings for an observational documentary program, as it’s called.

Nine’s other program in this genre, Missing Persons Unit did far better on Thursday evenings in a half hour format with an audience that averaged more than 1.2 million people

The yardstick for success is Nine’s RPA which is due to return later this year. It’s the best program of its kind on Australian TV.

Medical Emergency on Seven is a sort of imitation and the style of shooting ME plus Border Security has its roots in RPA.

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