Burnt by Television Predictions

banging on about advertising, marketing and social media

27 October 2009 6 Comments

burnt toast I’m heading to the Channel Ten season launch tonight. I attended the same event twelve months ago. It was there that they unveiled a range of new shows. There were none that really excited me but a few that I thought had potential: Merlin, Guerilla Gardeners, Recruits and Life on Mars had a chance to take off.

Then, the big finale was an imported formula of a show called Masterchef. It was an apparent mix up of declining reality, formulaic cooking and out dated values served up to an discerning Gen Y. It wouldn’t stand a chance. And I wasn’t alone with some scepticism…

“Big Brother was a very big show, and they come along only from time to time. We’ll have to see how it pans out.” Harold Mitchell, Chairman of Mitchell’s Media and Australia’s largest media buyer.

“It’s definitely going to fill the hours, but whether it’s going to fill the void in its core audience of 16 to 39-year-olds, I’m not sure. Not only did Big Brother occupy plenty of hours, but it was also very closely aligned with Channel Ten the brand, and 16 to 39s.” Henry Tajer, CEO of Universal McCann.

“With Ten’s signature reality show, Big Brother, gone and few fresh programs coming up (apart from Master Chef), the ad wranglers are still talking up the network’s big teenage demographic and offering all sorts of reduced rates and sweeteners. It sure does look like being a tough year in local television.” Ros Reines, media and gossip commentator.

“The fly-on-the-wall show, seeing what a professional kitchen is all about might be near the end of its day.” Simon Bryant, from the ABC’s The Cook and The Chef.

As you all know, I was severely wrong. The finale of Masterchef was watched by a peak audience of 4.1m people. That was more than 70% of the potential audience. This made it the highest rating non-sport program since 2001.

Needless to say, I won’t be making any predictions tonight. Sometimes it’s refreshing to be proven very wrong. As Julian Cole states in his latest case study, you can learn more by being off the mark rather than stumbling across the right answer.

In saying that, if you need a tip for the Melbourne Cup, I’m happy to help…

6 Comments »

Jaimee Latta said:

makes betting on ratings a bit tricky though…

# 27 October 2009 at 3:03 pm

Kate Richardson said:

As William Goldman famously said about Hollywood Box Office success and why so many studios passed on Star Wars “because nobody knows anything”

# 27 October 2009 at 3:08 pm

Julian Cole said:

I think when everything is going right, you do not question what is actually occurring, you just take the wins and keep trucking on.

I was confident going into the YKB Twitter Promotion and when my expectations were not met, I spent a lot of time thinking, where the fuck did I go wrong?

Looking back on it, it really helped to make me think harder, which is a great thing.

# 27 October 2009 at 4:58 pm

Nathan Bush (author) said:

but gives better odds!

# 29 October 2009 at 8:55 am

Nathan Bush (author) said:

Nice quote. On Tues night Ten’s chief programming officer David Mott said he was a very happy man after being bagged after last year’s reel. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.

# 29 October 2009 at 8:59 am

Nathan Bush (author) said:

Agree Jules – like that you posted the case study and didn’t make up bullshit excuses or awkwardly justify it. Nice work.

# 29 October 2009 at 9:00 am