Andrew Bolt’s slot: Video Hits out-rates Meet the Press
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If Channel Ten wants starts a Sunday morning talk show to accommodate the likes of Andrew Bolt, it’s in for a long, expensive learning experience. Amanda Meade in The Australian reported today that Bolt has a mentor, the Ten shareholder and director Gina Rinehart. But then non-TV business people the ilk of Rinehart have had an unfortunate track record at Ten over the past 25 years in not understanding the economics of TV broadcasting: she is in a line that includes Frank Lowy and Steve Cosser (who at least had a media background) in failing to understand that to succeed in TV you have to appeal to the middle of the audience, just as in politics you win by appealing to the centre of the political spectrum. Rinehart has no life experience at all that she can bring to TV, except that she’s middle-aged and very rich, which puts her at odds with Ten’s core audience, and the way the network’s new shareholders want the channel to go, back to its low-cost roots appealing to 16 to 39s . Andrew Bolt would make a great role model for someone who’s in that demographic. All up there’s 850,000 to 900,000 viewers who tune in on Sunday mornings between 8-11 for a mixture of news, sport, weather, background information, politics and gossip and chit chat. The programming, apart from the ABC, is general and the generalist programs on Seven and Nine dominate with well over half the audience each week. At the moment Sunday morning TV is dominated by Seven’s Weekend Sunrise Sunday edition, which leads Nine’s Today by about 70,000-100,000 viewers, with the ABC’s Insiders back in third by 30,000 to 60,000 people, depending on the time of year. Last Sunday Weekend Sunrise (8-10am) averaged 350,000 viewers, Weekend Today (8-10am), about 271,000 and Insiders (9-10am) about 220,000. The ABC also has Inside Business at 10am about 150,000 (plus or minus 20,000) and sports program Offsiders at 10.30pm (about 130,000, plus or minus 20,000). And bringing up the rear is Ten’s 8am offering, Meet The Press, which had just 26,000 people watching the half hour last Sunday. And at 8.30am to noon last Sunday the Video Hits segments averaged just over 80,000 viewers. That Video Hits completely out-rates Meet The Press should say something to Bolt and Rinehart about the difficulty of their crusade for a right-wing voice on TV. The problem for them and Ten is that it has little or no credibility when it comes to news and current affairs programming, and never has. Frank Lowy spent millions of dollars on costly current affairs programs for Ten, but they flopped for one very good reason. TV viewers do not associate Ten with current affairs programs in particular. Ten’s News At Five does well around the country broadcasting low-cost, simply written and short material, but that solid performance only happens because the program starts an hour before the 6pm bulletins of Nine and Seven and two hours before the ABC’s main evening bulletins, and audience have shown that when they have a choice, they don’t go to Ten for their news and current affairs. You only have to look at the weak performance of 6PM With George Negus (now 6.30 With George Negus) up against Nine and Seven to see the choice viewers made when confronted with an offering from Ten. Viewers expect Ten to be light and bright, as The 7PM Project is. (Bolt apparently believes 7PM is a soft-left program. Well if it is, it’s got its aim right and found its audience. The 7PM project succeeds because its audience wants to watch it, not be lectured to by the likes of Bolt). At the moment there are 350,000-400,000 people looking for some politics on a Sunday with Insiders dominating that. Laurie Oakes on Weekend Today commands the field because of his expertise and reputation (which Mr Bolt cannot hope to meet in this and future lifetimes). Seven’s Weekend Sunrise has a much less formal political segment mixed into its programming. Overcoming the dominance of Laurie Oakes and then Insiders will be a big ask for a program and a neophyte TV presenter and a network with limited resources. If Laurie Oakes left Nine, the Insiders would move up the rankings and daylight would be second. Sunday mornings is a bit of a black hole for Ten. Meet The Press, the token Sunday political chat show goes to air at 8am for half an hour, after a mixture of religious programs, which pay Ten to show their programs. Then Video Hits starts at 8.30am until noon. And why Video Hits? Well it’s very cheap TV and costs Ten nothing because all the costs of the material are covered by the record companies. Ten makes whatever advertising revenue it can sell, which means it’s being effectively paid to show the videos, on top of getting the ad revenues. So from about 6-8am and then from 8.30am to noon, Ten is in effect, being paid to broadcast other people’s material. All the production costs Ten has is the occasional hostings for the Video Hits segments and the normal station to air costs that have to be met anyway. Ten makes a small amount of money no doubt, but more than its on-air costs, which means to replace any of this it would have to write a lot more ad revenue to cover the costs of the new program (and having been involved in early Sunday TV, revenue is scarce). Weekend Sunrise and Weekend Today would be hoovering up most of the revenue anyway by offering advertisers more than half a million viewers between them each week and the sales operations of both networks would make it very tough for Ten to crack the market. In TV it’s bums on seats in front of TV seats tuned to your network that count, not political views and for that reason, what advertiser would want to be associated with an overtly conservative political host such as Bolt, and on a network that is appealing to a younger audience, not people 54 and over who are the main audience in this country for the right-wing chatterers? (As the radio ratings for Alan Jones and others show.) There is another way to introduce a new program; get rid of Meet The Press and build it around Bolt, or perhaps expand Meet The Press to an hour to encompass Bolt. But that would mean Ten’s Canberra gallery reporters would be seen to having been supplanted by this Melbourne shoo-in. And would we see a dummy spit as a result? Finally, having sacked Grant Blackley as CEO for the loss of revenue and earnings and the added costs of the 6-7pm news and current affairs gamble, is Ten going to gamble on a new program with all the costs (and the questionable revenue earning ability) that one built around Bolt will encompass, especially compared to the very low-cost operation Ten already runs from 6am to noon on Sundays? Seven and Nine are quietly cheering Rinehart’s advocacy of Bolt (and her joining with Lachlan Murdoch to vet new programming purchases and ideas). It will make their life easier if there’s a shareholder and director with no understanding of TV (but with a definite political bent) having a big say at Ten. James Warburton will have his work cut out if he ever gets to run Ten. |
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37 Comments
Channel 10, under the “Rinehart-Bolt Alliance” - will continue to be a “miner player”?
Crikey - Your Website for all news Andrew Bolt.
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I reckon it would be worth it - just to see the vile stuff they would produce - and the the humiliation of being pulled.
One way Rinehart can get her way is to fund Andrew Bolt’s airtime herself. If it cost Rinehart a few hundred thousand a week for a 30 minute or 1 hour timeslot she’s in a position to regard it as small change. And the Ten shareholders would be happy with the revenue. Everyone’s a winner…
Bolt telling the Channel 10 demographic that their uneasy feeling that something is not right with their lives is because somebody (Aborigines, asylum seekers, long term unemployed, single mothers etc) are getting something that they can’t have would surely be a ratings winner. It seems to be working nicely for the Tory parties right now.
Does Andrew Bolt sponsor Crikey? He gets even more publicity on here than on Twitter.
Zut, I have a suspicion there would be regulations/laws against Rhinehart taking such an action (to directly fund Bolt’s show herself). Or it would at the very least have to acknowledge itself as a paid presentation and identify the source (as they do for telemarketing and religious programming). However, to have a specifically political program I’m not sure they can be paid programming (as distinct from advertisements).
But I’m not familiar with the regulations.
We’re all going to laugh at you Glen.
Just you wait, till that delightful Mr Bolt starts his new show and the kiddies all flock to watch it.
I can see it now.
A weekly panel of expert commentators.
Andrew (of course) perhaps Piers Akermann (for intellectual balance) and Janet Albrechtson (for spunk factor)
Now try and tell me that *they* wouldn’t make for “legendary” television, that would quickly make Masterchef’s ratings look puny.
@ZUT ALORS Posted Tuesday, 5 April 2011 at 2:38 pm |
Everyone’s a winner…
Especially us. I mean, whisper it, but Gina would be funding a toxic waste dump unambiguously sign-posted so we can all avoid it. I can go back to watching Insiders, though I suppose it means more space for the likes of Niki Savva (Planet Janet lite). With any luck the new show would be a magnet for the other usual suspects. I think Rinehart should be given an OM to services to the Australian people if she does fund it.
There is little risk that it would be so bad it would be good. Bolt himself is intolerable after about 5 minutes, even less once one has heard his shtick. Then think of the guests, the miners Gina, Tiggy and Clive (I seriously doubt the heavy boys like Marius et al would oblige.). The experts: Plimer, Carter, Marohasy, Evans (the Lavoisier one), Windschuttle. The pollies, Abbott, Morrison, Barnaby, Mirabella, maybe even resuscitate Iron-Bar for a laff or two. The commentators, Miranda, Planet, Piers, Parrot, Sheridan, and let’s not forget the IPA boys with their very own personal toxic waste (though one wonders about any of these wishing to share the stage with Blot.) It could be such a horrorshow maybe it could be fascinating? Oh gawd…..
I’m happy to support anything that gets Bolt off Insiders. I can handle his jaundiced view of the world, but not his talking over everybody till eventually Insiders becomes the “Bolt Show”.
Paddy, what are they going to call it? “Two and Half Men” has been taken.
Please don’t discourage Bolt from leaving the Insiders.
This is the best news I’ve heard in ages!
Hopefully this happens and we no longer have to listen to all this ‘Greenhouse Mafia’ promoted rubbish that pours non-stop out of Bolt’s mouth, continually interrupting and talking over everyone else on the show.
Now we know why Gina Rinehart bought into 10 - but I thought the media had rules about that sort of shareholder inspired propaganda?
Glen
If you are calling Insiders middle of the road politics, you are deranged.
Insiders is a Neo-Marxist political program with an audience of hack journos, communists, socialists, greens, 2 crickets & a rabid dog. Crikey is a NeoCon newsletter compared to Insiders.
Klewso - I have heard it will be The Bolt Hole”.
Why do the ABC “Insiders” or “Q&A” programs always have a token extremist or moron on the panel? I sometimes, just for fun tune in, play the game “spot the odd one out” and once found happily switch off. It shouldn’t be too difficult to present a diversity of views without these twerps! Should it?
Who is Andrew Bolt again?
is it taking an over-simplified view of things to look at Fox Network in the states and think that could never happen here? There are some uncomfortable similarities between Fox in the states and Ten…
David Gibson,
I expect you’re right and my suggestion about Rinehart sponsoring Bolt’s programme would contravene something or other.
On reflection, it would probably be best if she simply bought him his own network, Bolt Bona Fide Broadcasting, and let him loose to educate and galvanise the Oz public against a rising tide of rabid lefties and the snake oil merchants intent on ruining our high end lifestyles whilst purporting to be scientific experts.
Grog had on his blog some really funny tweets that were flying around about what the show might be called after the news broke that Bolty would have his own show. I thought I would share them with you because they were quite funny:
@B_Natural: Australia’s Got Malice
@matthewbevan: Border Insecurity
@AusDude71: Against the Wind Farm
@upulie: Talkin’ ‘bout my Not Stolen Generation
@KathyReid: Incite
@Bor_Seyah: Top Fear
@madcatjo2point0: Steve Price Is Right
@alexmillier: Who wants to be a dill on air?
@crazyjane13: So You Think You Can Rant
@jonaholmesMW: Emission possible
Love to hear other people’s thoughts.
I must say that if I was a shareholder of Channel 10, I would be quite upset at this news (all puns intended). From a shareholder perspective it is quite the tail wagging the dog: a 10% shareholding driving programming (and therefore profit) to my detriment…. and for the purposes of personal aggrandisement! This could become quite ugly lol
Given some of guests that are likely to frequent the show “Nuts and Bolt” might be an apt name for the show.
A vile far-right rant on TV early on Sunday? Perfect preparation to hit the pews and listen to the local padre read a letter from that theological thug George Pell
Well, remember how Stephen King dealt with his local radio station which kept p***ing him off with bad music. He bought the station — as you do — and put his brother-in-law in charge with instructions to play whatever he liked as long as it was hard rock. He expected to have to subsidize the thing, but it started turning a healthy profit for the first time. Which just goes to show that programmers with their polls and ratings and computer algorithms don’t know everything.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Andrew does get a gig on Ten. The big winners will be the Insiders viewers never having to listen to his ravings again.
Never have i seen so many so nervous, is it because Bolt is right or is he just right?
Of course having a different opinion to your average far left loon will have you ostracised from society and exiled from your village! Sometimes lefty’s, people like to be informed of what’s really going on, not told what they want to hear, it isn’t always a bed of roses living in the real world, so if you want to step out of fantasyland for a moment and discover the truth more often than not then Channel 10 might be on the money. Why does Andrew Bolt scare so many of you? A sharp dose of reality never hurt anyone, wake up from your slumber and take it between the eyes because you can’t keep sweeping it under the carpet forever. Stop pretending it will all just go away and we live in a perfect world, Andrew Bolt is just one man, yet he sends shivers up the spine of all who live in dreamland.
“I have a suspicion there would be regulations/laws against Rhinehart taking such an action…”
You’re implying that Australia has media laws?
Andrew Hussein Bolt is literally Adolf Hitler.
@Son of Foro, Australia does have media laws and industry standards, whether either of these things provide any limitation or restriction to Rhinehart is another question. Hence, only my suspicion.
@JohnFromPlanetEarth, can’t say I’m worried about Bolt getting his own portion of TV air time to spruik his nonsense. As many people have demonstrated online how easy it is to show Bolt to be selective (at best) with his ‘facts’ I hardly think it would be any more difficult to continue to show him up to be second-rate as a journalist/commentator. I suspect Bolt is likely to pull a smaller audience on a Sunday morning than he does already online. My real fear is the impact on Channel 10 as it is the only one of the free-to-air commercial networks I am likely to switch on and were it to lose money a diminished capacity to maintain the programming I prefer (for entertainment, not information) is likely to result.
Johnfromplanetearth @ 10.12am
Sorry to disappoint you but my nerves are just fine, thanks…and nil shivers in the spinal area.
I prefer Bolt to be exposed and to espouse to the public unfettered with the spotlight shone on him in all his dubious glory. He’s likely to repel as many as he attracts. Pauline Hanson is a good example of overexposure, eventually she became a self-parody.
And I’ll miss Bolt on ABC’s Insiders, there’s no fun in listening to just one side of a debate. If Piers Ackerman ever departs it will be a sad day.
Who knows, the show might be as succesful as Alan Jones’ foray into the medium.
It could well be a huge over-reach and unwittingly expose how hollow and dishonest so much of the political right in this country really is.
@apathy
The twitter feed from #BoltsNewShow had some absolute classics. My personal favourites were:
“Hateline”
“Ready, Steady, Kook”
“Lie to You”
TB
Hollow & dishonesty is the unchallenged domain of the Left silly boy.
You have that to yourselves.
You want common sense, decency & morality - change your ideology buddy.
So here it is in black and white. ‘Outspoken’ ‘tough’ commentators like Bolt, Nikki Savva, Akerman only have their jobs because their views fit with those of their greedy proprietors. For as long as they snivel, they’re a valued media voice.
Notice how there’s no real intention the public what they want, the ratings are dire, but the proprietors just want a sock puppet like bolt to parrot their views.
If these grovellers ever actually did anything but mouth their proprietor’s views they’d be out on their ears the next day. Its really laughable to see the murdoch pig-monkeys pomping around, thinking they ‘tell it like it is’, when in fact its please your proprietor, or else.
Poor Nikki Savva. All those years grovelling to Rupert, then she left to ‘put Costello in the lodge (oh dear)’ now she’s shovelling out her proprietor grovelling shtick on the soon-to-be-closed Australian.
Glenn Beck to leave Fox show
Bolt to follow very soon after starting his show.
Daniel proves my point! Zut Alors: You should be more worried about Daniel than Bolt. Sometimes the truth hurts and lefty’s never like the truth all that much as they only wish to listen to what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Panic has most definately set in here. References to Hitler and Pauline Hanson only prove just how desperate the left is and how vile they can get when confronted with an opposing view.
Mike its always bracing to see there are folk out there like you. If you broadly divide politics into left and right you’re seriously suggesting one side has a monopoly ‘Hollow & dishonesty’ (whatever that means) or ‘common sense, decency & morality ‘
It was almost funny to see Bolts troubles plaguing him so much on the insiders and Lenore Taylor’s ‘for pity’s sake’ said it all. Why does the ABC reduce serious commentary to the Bolt/Akerman clown show?
Gina, the over weight Rhinestone Cow Girl, wants to get a name for herself in the East. Sigh! She seems admirably suited to bond with the Angry Man of the Deep North. I can almost hear Gina singing to Andrew, “And I’m all yours in buttons and bows”. Cringe.