You have to feel some pity for the Australian morning daily papers. All this World Cup excitement, including a game last night won by Australia, but the lead times to get their newspaper onto peoples front lawns by breakfast time means they can’t report the results. They try and make up for it, but there’s only so many World Cup colour supplements one can handle.
Personally I’m nowhere near fanatical enough to tune in that late at night (knowing what havoc it would have the following day through lack of sleep). But there are those that do. One guy at work did the ultimate and flew to Germany for the month, without even having to book a ticket to see a game. That’s dedication.
There’s been talk recently of moving the AFL Grand Final from its Saturday afternoon slot to an evening one, apparently for the benefits of TV. My question is: what could they gain? It’s already a sell-out at the ground, and consistently the highest rating single TV programme of the year. I find it hard to believe they’d gain any more viewers or advertising dollars.
Meanwhile the ABC has finally announced the new series of Doctor Who will air in July, starting with the Christmas episode. Yep, “Christmas in July”. I wonder how long it took the promotional people to come up with that one, and more importantly, did they hold off on showing it specifically to gain that piss-weak tagline?
They don’t seem to have learnt yet that big audiences might be gained by jumping on the bandwagon of worldwide near-simultaneous broadcasts, and harnessing existing publicity. In the global village, I want to watch what my neighbours are watching.
Did they really delay broadcasting Doctor Who (a show which is mainstream enough to be the subject of many downloads on what’s becoming known as Channel BT, and regularly gets mentions in popular newspapers such as MX) just so they could show Rocket Man in that timeslot first? All respect to Robson Green and the rest of the cast, but a cute premise, a setting in yet another UK village full of eccentrics, and an Elton John song for the theme tune don’t make a hit.
6 replies on “It’s all about the timing”
I was surprised when I got my paper off the front lawn yesterday that it had a comprehensive coverage of the result. I wonder if you got an earlier edition?
Actually they would make more money, becuase by having the later time slot they would have a greater TV audience. A greater TV audience means the TV compnay can charge more for the advertising time slots.
And I like Rocket Man!
How are you meant to play kick-to-kick at half time if it’s dark outside?
I dunno. Like I said, the Grand Final already rates exceptionally highly. Last year it was the highest rating programme of the year. I doubt many more people than at present would tune in just because it was on in the evening. Plus for the TV station, they’d replace an evening’s (already profitable) programming with football, whereas at present it fills an afternoon, when normally few would be watching, maximising viewers over the day.
Due to timezones you’d also lose the (potentially valuable) North American market, though you might gain viewers in Europe.
Channel 9’s Tony Jones thinks it should move.
I really need a service to watch the games (US Eastern time). I’m already missing a game and a half because I’m at work!
They want to move the grand final from Saturday afternoon because, even though it rates hugely, it is not included in the weekly ratings (which only cover prime-time) so they can’t use tha ratings from it to push up their prices for ads in other timeslots. (Since I assume if they win the ratings they feel they can charge more)