Hits, misses and regrets of people who decide what you watch
THE people who decide what we watch on TV talk have revealed their best TV decisions and the biggest stinkers they put on air.
THEY’RE Australia’s TV gurus — the men and women who decide what we watch on commercial free-to-air television.
They’ve given us gems like Offspring, My Kitchen Rules and The Voice; dogs like Yasmin’s Getting Married and Ben Elton’s Live from Planet Earth; and hits nobody saw coming — Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud — we’re looking at you.
Commercial free-to-air network television programmers need thick hides, nerves of steel, self-belief, gut instinct, and an eye for what viewers want to watch — often before the viewers themselves know they want to watch it.
Channel Nine’s Managing Director of Programming and Production Andrew Backwell, Seven’s Network Director of Programming Angus Ross and Network Ten’s Chief Programming Officer Beverley McGarvey play a daily Survivor-style game of outwit, outlast, outplay to trump each other in the TV ratings.
They’ll fight mercilessly to secure new shows, and program aggressively to bring down their rivals.
And at the end of each TV year, they’ll likely sit down to lunch and share war stories.
“There is a mutual respect, and in recent years, we’ve had a common foe with the rise of streaming services coming into our markets,” says Backwell.
In layman’s terms, programmers find and schedule the right combination of shows that appeal to the most viewers in the demographics their network advertisers want, says Ross.
Actually delivering that is a far more inexact science.
“If there was that perfect recipe for programming someone would be making a bucket of cash and we’d all be rich and retired,” McGarvey laughs.
“We do use research, science, experience, trends data, and we’re across what’s working elsewhere, but all of those things are just clues to help you make your decision. You can’t rely solely on them for programming.
“People talk a lot about gut instinct. And that’s a large part of it, but who knows what gut instinct is? Scientifically, apparently it’s a way that your brain very quickly analyses previous experience — you might as a programmer look at a show and go ‘yes, that’ll work for us’ but when you actually deeply analyse it you go ‘well, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, shows that have that talent, that approach, that format tend to work.”
Programmers are a resilient lot — they have to be when their success and failures are so public. Daily ratings figures and, increasingly, social media reveal hits or misses literally as shows go to air.
So the big three were disarmingly frank when we asked them to share shows they’ll take the accolades for, the ones that inadvertently made them look like geniuses, and the ones they’d happily mention again.
THE HITS
They’re the ratings juggernauts that give a network its mojo. Viewers love them, advertisers love that viewers love them, and network bosses love that their programmers deliver them.
BACKWELL: “The Voice. Michael Healy (Nine’s Director of Television) acquired it very early on, and it was great to see it become one of the biggest entertainment formats in the world and a huge hit over here.
“And we took a big risk commissioning Married at First Sight when it was only a small Danish format, and were really happy that Australian viewers responded immediately to the concept.”
McGARVEY: “The Bachelor. The format had been around internationally for about 10 years, but it was fresh here in terms of genre, and it was the first Australian version. It worked because it was well-made.
“Another was securing Have You Been Paying Attention from the Working Dog team that had created Thank God You’re Here. We were thrilled that brought it to Ten, because Working Dog can take their shows anywhere.
“And we’re excited about securing the rights for Survivor. It’s been around for a long time and anyone in this industry knows its impact on the global market. We’re happy we have the opportunity to show the audience what we can do with it later this year,”
ROSS: “Downton Abbey. UK drama had not worked for a long time and traditionally skewed older. 7 Creative created a “four quadrant” campaign that captivated everyone and Downton set ratings records for a UK drama.
“And The X Factor. Seven Productions with Fremantle worked their magic on rebooting a show that had failed on Ten and then became a success on Seven.”
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY:
Sometimes, you’ve just got to concede ‘well played’ to the opposition.
BACKWELL: “I would love to have secured the Disney output deal in 2004 that by chance delivered Seven a full slate of hit series including Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy, that equated to hundreds of hours of premium prime-time content.”
McGARVEY: “Ten was very narrowly pipped at the post to secure The Voice. It was really fresh at the time, it had a really unique point of difference at the top of the show (the revolving chairs), It launched in the northern hemisphere on NBC. It was competitive, but it got away.”
ROSS: CSI, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons, and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
“They were game changers at the time for the networks that owned them. The most infuriating thing about Kitchen Nightmares was that we owned the original series! I’m glad to say that we now have Gordon back in our stable and he is still doing good business.”
THE ONES THEY DON’T MENTION
Yasmin’s Getting Married — often cited as TV’s biggest flop — was pretty much doomed when Yasmin was ushered in and the show renamed and rejigged after Rene of Rene Is Getting Married found love outside the show. It was axed after four of nine episodes.
Every programmer has a Yasmin.
BACKWELL: “I unfortunately have a list of shows in this category, but as it’s fresh on my mind, I’ll name The Briefcase, I personally thought it was an interesting and controversial concept that would engage viewers. I was obviously wrong, again!”
McGARVEY: “I could give you a list of ones that haven’t worked over the years — any network could — and shows like Yasmin would be on the list (while it aired on Ten, McGarvey didn’t program it, yet made no attempt to disown it as a ‘fail’ for the network) but you learn more as a programmer from your failures than your successes. We used to only do post-mortems on shows that did work. Now we do it also for ones that don’t as well.”
ROSS: “Mesmerised and Australia Versus.”
This reporter respectfully adds The Renovators, The Resort, Ben Elton Live from Planet Earth, Celebrity Splash. Bringing Sexy Back, The Shire, and I Will Survive to the list, and asks all networks to please refund those hours of her life.
THE ONES THEY DIDN’T SEE COMING
Last year, Nine and Seven’s rival new restaurant reality shows The Hotplate and Restaurant Revolution were eating themselves — and bleeding viewers in the process — Seven dumped Restaurant Revolution and replaced it with — to much mirth — a program consisting purely of funny YouTube cat videos. Seven had the last laugh. Nearly one million viewers tuned in.
BACKWELL: “I personally thought only a very old audience would engage with Dancing with the Stars, but to Seven’s credit, it become a big hit in Australia and a huge international franchise.
McGARVEY: “The biggest risk in the era I have been at Ten — and David Mott was the programmer smart enough to get it — was MasterChef. When it was announced at the upfronts (each network’s end-of-year showcase of what they will air in the next TV year) you could have heard a pin drop. People thought we were mad. And of course it was a hit. In hindsight, of course it was going to work.”
ROSS: “Not saying we didn’t think these would not work but they were riskier propositions — Cats Make You Laugh out Loud, Mrs Brown’s Boys, and Dynamo.”
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