It doesn't help that it's missing the MasterChef lead-out this year.

Last year IIRC it managed to crack the 1m mark for a big episode thanks partly to the above.

These days it's only getting around 60% of that.

When the British soaps were in bad patches at resepctive times, the channels stepped in and replaced the executive producer to try and stop the slide - why on earth haven't Ten?

I wonder though if a daily soap is simply too much of a commitment for young Australians nowadays. Perhaps the money would be better invested in multiple local drama series' over the course of the year.

yes I know of the issues around Neighbours, it has been discussed many times in this thread, but still how can they be happy with it being beaten by The Simpsons repeats?

Its alot like Hollyoaks, only whilst C4 has made a change, TEN does not care at all, its gone as far as recasting characters, there may not be anyway back for Neighbours,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcPk0DcXfk

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2010/05/...-the-week.html

and Neighbours ratings & the Top 100 of the week

86 The Simpsons Ten 650,000
90 Neighbours Ten 630,000
61 The 7pm Project Ten 856,000

91 Doctor Who: Confidential Cutdown ABC1 629,000

that is true, The 7pm Project has hurt it in that respect.

I was over there in 2006 and there are only the big two in peaktime now, although Ten shows imported soaps in the mornings. Australia is a bit like America, soapies aren't a big deal, considering in the eighties they were bigger soap addicts than us.

RE: Neighbours
They need to actually get a good storyline, something that gets people talking. They are so scared of anything that resembles controversial it's ridiculous.

It needs to get rid of Susan Bower (exec prod), and bring in someone that is prepared to go up to the rules and bend them a little bit.

This was edited out of the Logies (Aussie BAFTA's) and was then shown the following night at 7pm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6UNApobsp0
I'm not saying it should all be like that!, but if that was allowed at 7, why should something similar not be allowed at 7.30??

Could Neighbours be reaching the end of the road in Australia although foreign markets could keep it going? Sadly it does seem to be rather passe and is a tad innocent compared with the grittier goings on in our soaps that viewers much prefer these days. Remember Neighbours attracted the same number of viewers as Eastenders in 1989, but now attracts about 20 pc of the audience

I think that's the case now.

I think its pretty telling that the Logies was scared to show it, I assume that the Logies is prime-time.

Its also very tongue in check, something Underbelly probaly isnt.

Really the Aussie networks are overly censored, certainly at times like 18:30, where Neighbours airs, it could never do half of what Hollyoaks gets away with in the same time slot.

In terms of the show having some more mature storylines, a later timeslot would help, but then it faces tougher competition, and TEN have shows to air in those timeslots.

If you like the oz soap operas I'd strongly recommend Underbelly series 1. It's like a soap gone wrong, in a good way.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.63m
18:30 Sunday Night 1.23m
19:30 Border Security (R) 1.11m
20:00 The Force 1.20m
20:30 Bones (20/22) 1.29m
21:30 Castle (22/24) 1.04m

Nine
18:00 Nine News Sunday 1.56m
18:30 Customs 1.33m
19:00 Send in the Dogs 1.25m
19:30 60 Minutes 1.26m
20:30 Underbelly: The Golden Mile (8/13) 1.65m
21:30 Australian Families of Crime 0.84m

Ten
17:00 Ten News at Five 0.59m
17:30 Sports Tonight 0.40m
18:00 The Simpsons (R) 0.51m
18:30 Merlin (5/13) 1.03m
19:30 MasterChef Australia - Challenge 1.67m
20:30 The Good Wife (16/23) 0.93m
21:30 House (14/21) 0.79m

ABC1
19:00 ABC News 0.94m
19:30 Doctor Who (6/13) 0.94m
20:15 Doctor Who Confidential 0.78m
20:30 ABC News Update 0.93m
20:35 Foyle's War (3/3) 1.00m

I see Merlin is doing better than Neighbours, and Doctor Who Confidential might even out rate Neighbours again.

Castle is doing really well at 9:30. Seven should swap it with an underperforming Housewives (Mondays 8:30) next season.

I've vented my anger so much about this in the last six months (and beforehand when the HD plan was first discussed) on the Press Red blog and also made a formal complaint too - but the BBC are just not interested and seem to believe that HD is the be all and end all - not realising their efforts to make BBC HD platform neutral have destroyed BBC interactives neutrality. Indeed only Sky now offers the full service - Freesat only get sport, Cable misses out on some things (News Mulitscreen I think) and Freeview gets **** all.


What annoys me is firstly the BBC have less TV channels on their mux than any other mux, so could squeeze another one in considering it's desperately required. Secondly they struck a deal with Arquiva which created two new channels on Mux C/D post DSO - only for that deal to involve selling the space to Sky for a premium service. And thirdly they just don't seem to acknowledge how damaging this is and that there is a problem - think the French Open coverage is poor - just wait till Wimbledon, especially when you get Wimbledon, F1 and the World Cup running at the same time.




Because they pay a pittance for Neighbours due to Five's vastly over priced deal?

Maybe Five need to interfere - mind you, Neighbours' drop isn't so dramatic here as in Australia, is it? Obviously compared to the ratings it was getting on BBC1 it is, but in comparison to how it started off on Five it isn't too bad?

Five just paid market value for it. ITV apparently offered the same amount, but for 5 years and they went for 10 at Five - a BIG mistake in my opinion, but there you go.

It would have been a big coup for ITV and it could have made them a lot of money. Neighbours was performing better than Paul O'Grady and anything else in its path at lunchtime. It would have held up well on ITV and provided them with an extra hour of daytime content year-round.

I did a comparison a couple of months ago and it is pretty much exactly where it settled at a few weeks into starting on Five.

I have to agree with that, given how much Five paid, its shocking they didnt go a co production credit, and the right to veto some storylines, castings etc

Really what Neighbours needs is a British soap producer at the helm, our soaps are the best in the world, and if Five could get someone with UK soap history in to the job, the show may bounce back.

They didn't really need it though, and it would have left them with some awkward half-hour slots to fill, unless they aired it at 2pm/5.30pm I suppose then ran shows at 2.30, 3.30 and 4.30pm.


I bet Five though are paying more for it than they paid for Family Affairs. Can't find the exact figure they paid, but the BBC said they were told to cough up £300m for an eight year deal - probably over exaggerated, but that works out at somewhere between £100,000 and £150,000 an episode. A few weeks ago people were saying Hollyoaks costs C4 £30,000 an episode - so Neighbours is hardly value for money for Five - and in all honesty I think Five's accountants at least would be rather relieved if Neighbours was axed by Ten.

P.S. Without spoiling anything I certainly now have no regrets about giving up on Lost midway through the first series when they said they'd drag it out six years!

Just checked Digital-I, ratings have been delayed. Too low to record?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/...5875-22281050/

We might have a new low for 9pm, Modern Masters, sinking below Prisoners .7m .
For my sins I loved MM last night, Dali is such a fascinating character, I do realise I am completely alone in this regard.

Attentional has them, so Digital-i must be slow updating this morning.