Can free-to-air TV survive the streaming revolution
Free-to-air TV is serving up dud shows and second rate knock-offs and viewers are switching off like never before. Meanwhile, streaming services and Foxtel are delivering buzz shows like Chernobyl and Big Little Lies. Is TV as we knew it dead?
Entertainment
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Dead on arrival. That is the fate of more free to air television shows than ever before.
The Super Switch, Chris and Julia’s Sunday Night Takeaway, and Changing Rooms are just some of the titles that launched with a thud in 2019.
Last year programs including Australian Spartan, Game of Games and Dance Boss crashed and burned on takeoff.
Channel 7 had high hopes that The Super Switch would be its answer to Nine reality hit Married at First Sight.
Instead the first episode — which features unhappy couples swapping partners — was a bust with a dismal 308,000 viewers across the five capital cities. Rival The Voice averaged 1.007 million in the same timeslot.
Chris and Julia’s Sunday Night Takeaway was meant to be Ten’s splashy Sunday night prime time entertainment highlight but debuted a measly 383,000 metro viewers.
Changing Rooms, hosted by Natalie Bassingthwaighte did even worse. It launched to a dismal 204,000 and was quickly dumped from Ten’s program line-up.
“We’re really disappointed that Changing Rooms didn’t resonate with viewers,” Ten’s program chief said.
“The show is good … it just didn’t work.”
Experts believe competition from Foxtel and streaming has made it near-impossible for free-to-air programs that don’t immediately excite the public to survive more than a few weeks.
They open to disastrous lows and never gain traction.
“There is more pressure than ever before for shows to be exciting if they are going to cut through the clutter,” media analyst Steve Allen said.
“The sheer volume from Foxtel and multiple streaming sources has raised the bar for success considerably.”
The free-to-air networks aren’t only battling quantity. They’re also fighting quality. Foxtel’s Chernobyl, which details the 1986 nuclear disaster is the top-rated TV show of all time on IMDb.
Big Little Lies 2, also on Foxtel has the combined star power of Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep.
Netflix is rolling out new star-driven programming every week. In the past few days it has launched Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston’s Murder Mystery and Martin Scorsese’s Bob Dylan documentary Rolling Thunder Review.
How can you compete with that?
It doesn’t help that most of the recent flops have been retreads of past glories or second-rate knock-offs of hit shows on rival networks.
Seven commissioned Australian Spartan after seeing the monster ratings for Australian Ninja Warrior on Nine. Changing Rooms was a reboot of the 1990s renovation show hosted by Suzie Wilks.
“Each of the failed shows had no real hook to make them compelling viewing,” Allen said. “They were largely timeslot alternatives or poor copies of successful shows.”
The good news for the free-to-air networks is that they can still attract mass audiences when they get the formula right.
Nine’s Lego Masters, hosted by Hamish Blake launched to 1.377 million metro viewers. Add in catch-up and regional viewing and it pushed past two million.
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