Friday, October 10, 2003
CrashBurn update
Since I wrote this, CrashBurn’s ratings have gone downhill exponentially – appropriately enough, like a graph of a Gen X’rs career (well, my own anyway).
Channel Ten must be now praying for the return of ratings like those of the Week 2 “slump” – 890,000 – given that Week 7 (the first week in its new 9.30pm slot) saw it down to 461,000, and last Monday (Week 9) saw the show score a breathtakingly low 138,187 viewers nationally.
Ten, clearly not impressed, but nonetheless seemingly committed – contractually or otherwise – to seeing the 13-epper out, has now moved CrashBurn into the 10.30pm slot for its final, four-ep limp along the home straight.
I’m not sure whether CrashBurn was also made from the start with an eye on (and some upfront pre-sale dollars from) the international sales market. If so, the show’s tanking might not be solely the fault of its demographic klutziness – “the arbiter of what foreign audiences want from Australian TV”, Catherine Payne, may well have gone over the draft script with her tragic wand, her prescriptive pen of cultural-blandness:
"Australian TV networks . . . know that when they rely on funding from overseas, there are certain things they can do to make [shows] more internationally appealing," she says. For example, Payne says Australians tend to talk very quickly so the diction of our actors remains critical, and she also requests that colloquialisms be removed from scripts unless absolutely necessary. "I will look at a show and ask them to focus less on this area and more on that, bearing in mind the international sales," she says.
Since I wrote this, CrashBurn’s ratings have gone downhill exponentially – appropriately enough, like a graph of a Gen X’rs career (well, my own anyway).
Channel Ten must be now praying for the return of ratings like those of the Week 2 “slump” – 890,000 – given that Week 7 (the first week in its new 9.30pm slot) saw it down to 461,000, and last Monday (Week 9) saw the show score a breathtakingly low 138,187 viewers nationally.
Ten, clearly not impressed, but nonetheless seemingly committed – contractually or otherwise – to seeing the 13-epper out, has now moved CrashBurn into the 10.30pm slot for its final, four-ep limp along the home straight.
I’m not sure whether CrashBurn was also made from the start with an eye on (and some upfront pre-sale dollars from) the international sales market. If so, the show’s tanking might not be solely the fault of its demographic klutziness – “the arbiter of what foreign audiences want from Australian TV”, Catherine Payne, may well have gone over the draft script with her tragic wand, her prescriptive pen of cultural-blandness:
"Australian TV networks . . . know that when they rely on funding from overseas, there are certain things they can do to make [shows] more internationally appealing," she says. For example, Payne says Australians tend to talk very quickly so the diction of our actors remains critical, and she also requests that colloquialisms be removed from scripts unless absolutely necessary. "I will look at a show and ask them to focus less on this area and more on that, bearing in mind the international sales," she says.
