Clive James gets Angus & Robertsoned:

 

The regular chick is back: This lady gets around — today, John Durie is disguised as the mysterious blonde woman licking the top of ice cream containers on The Australian website:

The “Channel 9 Clan” . The second birthday of the fastest growing club in Australian TV will be held in Sydney next month. To mark the 51st birthday of Australian TV, the second annual meeting of the “Channel 9 Clan” (former Nine staff) will be held at the same place, the Newport Arms Hotel in Sydney on September 16. Last year’s offer to Eddie McGuire to meet the cost of the gathering in recognition of the 50th anniversary of Nine and Australian TV starting, went unreplied to. At one stage it looked as though Mr McGuire could be a candidate for membership of this club, but he survived, courtesy of his mate Jeff Browne, and PBL Media’s board and management. This week’s disclosure of Jeff Browne’s attempts to lure away Seven Sunrise boss, Adam Boland, did not go down well with Eddie. There are reports around teleland that Eddie is blaming Seven for leaking the story to make Nine and Jeff Browne look bad, especially how Boland was being offered the news director’s job of Garry Linnell. He could become a candidate for the Former Niners clan/club. What Eddie didn’t like reading as the news that his mate Jeff had been told to ‘smash’ the Nine news culture and replace the news with a program fronted by Eddie. That’s a bit too self interested, isn’t it? What would that do to plans to start a national 5pm news/info program to be hosted by Ray Martin, who is said to be eager to step back into the limelight on a regular basis? At one stage Ray also looked like he could be a candidate for the rapidly growing former Niners club: we can live in hope.

Commercial radio revenue: Show me the money . Commercial Radio revenues continue to climb, pointing to the boom in broadcast media advertising which investment analysts completely missed a few months ago in their valuations of radio and TV broadcasters. Commercial Radio Australia says revenue in July grew by more than 14% to reach $53.1 million for the month. Perth was again the strongest market with a 28.4% increase in revenue for July, compared to July 2006. Sydney had its best July since month since August 2005 with revenue up 12.1%, which will please Fairfax with its purchase of the AM stations of Southern Cross Broadcasting. Sydney radio stations attracted advertising revenue of $18.5 million in July, according to CRA. The second biggest market, Melbourne rose 13.4% to $15.2 million; Brisbane grew by 14.1% and Adelaide by 17.0%. In the seven months to July 30, revenue totaled $354.1 million, up 8.2% over the first half of 2006. Advertising revenue in June rose 10.1% to $58.5 million compared with $53.1 million in June 2006. And in the six month to June, metropolitan radio advertising revenue was up 7.1% to $301.0 million compared with the same period in 2006. This is good news for the commercial TV sector as it shows broadcast revenues are accelerating as we head towards the Federal election campaign and Christmas.

Seven to use Kath & Kim as a battering ram against Idol and 60 Minutes . Sunday nights are about to become quite unpredictable as Seven targets Ten and both forget about Nine, which could end up grinning. Seven’s ‘Beautiful Sunday’ idea ends this Sunday with the completion of the season of Grey’s Anatomy . Showing that it understands Idol’s demographics as well as its own, Seven has the last ep of Grey’s Anatomy down to start at 9pm, meaning the girly chick and other young things in the 16 to 39 and 18 to 49 age groups who watch Idol and just live for Grey’s Anatomy can have both without being forced to choose. The only trouble is that Seven has dropped a movie called The Incredibles (which will be family friendly, and certainly won’t startle viewers like The Village did on Wednesday night) into the 6.30pm slot. That means no Best Backyards or Hot Property , leaving the way for Jamie Durie to shine alone on Nine. Nine’s audience won’t mind what is going on from 7.30pm elsewhere because 60 Minutes and CSI and CSI Miami skew towards older viewers, as do the ABC’s duo, The Worst Jobs in History , and especially Midsomer Murders at 8.30pm. The following week the big change happens with the Beauty replaced by a ‘white trash/trailer home’ approach to programming which will be a bit crude, rude and very funny. It will make the earnestness of the ABC Nine and their standard Sunday night fare, plus Ten and its Idol warblers and Rove’s jokes, pale. Kath and Kim return to Seven at 7.30pm on Sunday week, August 19. At the moment Seven plans running eps of My Name Is Earl at 8pm. Seven will run a movie, Meet The Fockers at 8.30pm, which should make for a powerful line up. There will be an hour of trailer/muffin top power. There are 6 to 8 eps of K&K expected by Seven. Earl is white trash comedy, with redneck overtones, which has proven a surprise hit on Thursday nights for Seven. It is, if you think about it, a male US version of Kath and Kim . Now, Kath and Kim aren’t exactly white trailer trash, more brick veneer muffin tops with a dash of Fountaingate chic. It’s probably what the Wedge on Ten is trying to match (it’s back from this Sunday night at 9.30pm after Rove ), without venturing into a direct steal of storyline and plot from Kath and Kim . But the impact of Kath and Kim on Idol will be interesting to see. You might have thoughy Seven would have run the girls at 8.30pm to give them a real chance to dominate the opposition. By starting them at 7.30pm Seven is using the girls as a battering ram against Idol and 60 Minutes , which will probably cost them viewers. Not many 60 Minutes viewers will switch: it skews towards older age groups. Seven’s real target is Idol and its predominantly female viewers in the 16 to 39 and 18 to 49 age groups which the network captured with Ugly Betty . It could get ugly for Idol for a while.

Last night’s TV ratings
The Winners: Only 11 programs with a million or more viewers, and that wasn’t helped by the Ten Network showing repeats from 7pm to 10.30pm. no wonder its share dropped and its share in Sydney hit 16.7%, which was below its national share of 18.7%. That’s a crook thing to do with viewers. No wonder viewing levels are dropping. Sea Patrol was tops again with 1.575 million people. That might just cause a slight shiver at Nine. Getaway averaged 1.451 million. Seven News was 3rd with 1.386 million and Today Tonight was next with 1.329 million. Home And Away averaged 1.307 million; Nine News was 6th with 1.194 million, Temptation averaged 1.184 million at 7pm for Nine and A Current Affair was 8th with 1.158 million people. Seven’s That ’70s Show at 7.30pm averaged 1.059 million people and the 7pm ABC news averaged 1.054 million. The Footy Shows averaged 1.024 million boosted by the AFL show in Melbourne with 437, 000 viewers. That was more than the NRL had in Sydney, 234,000 and Brisbane, 89,000). It was turgid. Brat Camp ( 877,000) on the ABC at 8.30pm outrated Ten’s Law And Order (795,000) and came close to Seven’s Las Vegas (934,000). The cross over with Crossing Jordan at 9.30pm (822,000) didn’t work. Inspector Rex on SBS, a repeat, 448,000.

The Losers : Losers? Ten’s repeats. The 6pm repeat of The Simpsons out rated the back to back eps from 7.30pm to 8.30pm which were designed to advertise the new Simpsons movie. Ten didn’t have a program that attracted 900,000 or more viewers. The Ten News At Five was the most watched with 830,00 and it doesn’t count because it falls outside prime time. The Poo’s Age of Love is still on and averaged 420,000 at 10.30pm.

News & CA: Seven News again won nationally and in every market but Brisbane where it tied with Nine. Today Tonight won everywhere. Ten News At Five averaged 830,000, the Late News / Sports Tonight , 380,000. Nine’s Nightline at 11.30, just 157,000 viewers. The 7.30 Report , 872,000 people; Lateline , 293,000, Lateline Business , 160,000. World News Australia , 159,000 at 6.30pm,141,000 at 9.30pm. 7am Sunrise 361,000, 7am Today , 271,000 (and inside 100,000 viewers behind). Has Sunrise EP, Adam Boland been distracted by his tooing and frooing over a new contract at Seven? The 9am Morning Show on Seven, 161,000, KAK at 9am on Nine, 103,000, 9am With David & Kim , 89,000.

The Stats:  Nine won with a share of 33.7% (32.6%) from Seven with 26.6% (25.5%), Ten on 18.7%( 19.5%), the ABC with 15.7% (14.9%) and SBS on 5.3% (4.7%). Nine won all five metro markets and now leads the week, 26.7% to 26.5%. In regional areas Nine won through WIN/NBN with 33.0% from Prime/7Qld with 26.0%, Ten with Southern Cross with 20.7%, the ABC with 13.7% and SBS with 6.6%.

Glenn Dyer’s comments: Nine is ahead, Seven will move in front after tonight and Better Homes and the AFL, but then Nine could punch its way back tomorrow night because it has been doing much better than Seven on Saturday prime time evenings. Nine could very well do it with the Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice called Bride and Prejudice . If Seven loses it’s because someone programmed the clunker movie The Village at 8pm Wednesday night. It was a movie that Seven’s Midday movie fans would have avoided! Nine’s Sea Patrol has reached an interesting point in its schedule. It’s about halfway through the 13 eps and its audience last night was down 20% from the opening. That’s still OK (1.57 million people is a good number) but if there’s further leakage then series two may not be the open and shut success. The scripts and storylines are still the weakness. Too many red herrings, and I shouldn’t really be carping about the love interest stuff, but it’s all a bit McLeod’s Daughters / Home And Away / Neighbours to be credible with older viewers (people aged above 21!).