After another poor Tuesday night performance, Nine has taken the axe to its Tuesday line-up, dropping CSI New York and Neighbours At War and shifting (shafting?) Mick Molloy’s struggling chat program, The Nation, to the almost dead timeslot of 10.30pm Wednesdays.

It might have one, possibly two, more outings. CSI New York is gone from the schedule completely (it averaged just 786,000 viewers this week), which is a costly blow to Nine as it is the most expensive of the CSI programs.

This is the third revamp of Nine’s Tuesday night line-up this year but that won’t change the fact that it’s still a dud, even when It Takes Two finishes next week. Next Tuesday Nine doubles up the less than impressive Crime and Justice (AKA The Code) in a one-hour “Season Final”, runs a repeat of CSI Miami at 8.30pm and then slots in a repeat of Muriel’s Wedding at 9.40pm.

The following Tuesday, Nine has gone to Bert Newton for a new 20 to 1 at 7.30pm — Things To Do Before You Die — and the repeats of CSI Miami continue at 8.30pm.  Nine has a To Be Advised (TBA) in its schedule for 9.30pm on Tuesday, July 17.

Seven has a TBA in its schedule for the same night (It Takes Two finishes next Tuesday night) because Seven is playing games and knows it will have six to eight weeks of relative weakness on Tuesday nights until Dancing With The Stars returns. Seven still has observational reality programs, The Force and Medical Emergency to return.

And these latest changes make the recent comments from Nine’s executive in charge, Jeff Brown, and the network’s programming director, Michael Healy, look rather silly.

Brown has said Seven’s decision to run US programs Heroes and Prison Break close to their US air dates in coming months represents an admission that the network has a weak second half while Mr Healy said: “Seven’s glory run is about to end. Its big American programs are ending for the year over the next month or so and David Leckie and others are getting nervous about their prospects across the rest of the year.” Oops.