It was lauded widely lauded as a groundbreaking, ambitious drama, and renewed for a second season before it even went to air. But the ratings for the ABC’s Cleverman have been lacklustre.
Last night’s episode had 370,000 national viewers (241,000 metro/129,000 regional viewers). That is close to half the audience for the opening episode of 643,000 national (452,000 metro/191.000 regional viewers). There are two more eps in the story to go.
Even though the ABC does not necessarily look for ratings, there is a limit to the forbearance. Tractor Monkeys and Randling, two panel comedy programs from recent times, were turkeys and were eventually put of out of their misery. Cleverman is different, being a co-production,with an Aboriginal storyline, which does make it hard to sell to mainstream Australian TV audiences, even for the ABC.
Rebecca Heap, the ABC’s head of TV audience and digital, says the ABC was “incredibly proud of Cleverman“.
“It’s an ambitious drama that stands out from the pack. For all of our programs we consider the consolidated performance (rather than overnights) including ABC iview, and the overall impact of the show on our national conversation — which as you know, has been very strong,” she said. “We consider Cleverman to have been been a great performer for us, and we’re looking forward to the remaining two episodes, and then the next season.”
Well we’re watching Cleverman and loving it.
Ep. 1 of Cleverman laid out some 6 narrative threads and did a good job of launching them in enough detail to offer a tantalising series.
Four eps later, some narrative have languished and no master narrative is yet to emerge. The demands of developing those diverse threads are proving too much for a 50 minute episode format. And at the end of ep. 4, there seemed to be a real failure of visual story-telling . Even in longer forms of drama narratives, series like Midsomer Murders or Lewis, there are rarely more than three narratives, and always there is a dominant thread. But at least the potential for allegorical preachiness has been held in check.
IMO it’s misleading for Crikey to continually report broadcast viewing figures only, especially for dramas which are the most time-shifted of TV shows. Wait a week and then tell us the viewing figures including iView and legal downloads. That would be something worth talking about.
By the by, there are no public figures on iView – I asked the ABC for them but didn’t get them.
One can get an impression on iviews through the “What’s popular” on the website. Cleverman doesn’t appear.
I think the fact that reviewers wanted this show to do well clouded their judgement.
I was very disappointed with this show – a kadaitcha man story done well would be truly unique. The messaging in the first episode was as subtle as a car crash. Whilst well produced, the script wouldn’t look out of place on ABC3 (sex and violence aside).