It's not all peaches and cream for Seven

Mediocre, moreover a disappointing result for Seven’s much hyped Make Me A Supermodel last night only returning 936 000 viewers but what is more of a worry, is the once dominant Ugly Betty is in trouble only attracting 536 000 viewers last night in it’s new 9:30PM time slot.

It won’t be long before Betty is bumped to 10:30PM or pulled from the schedule. Another American series that has had a difficult year on Seven in 2008 along with Heroes, Prison Break and Lost plus the failure of new series, Lipstick Jungle, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money, none of which have had the same impact that returning series Grey’s Anatomy or Desperate Housewives have and continue to have.

Luckily Seven have invested money into their Australian dramas like the stunning debut of Packed to the Rafters this week and City Homicide continues to rate well, both near the 2 million viewer mark while All Saints consistently rates above one million viewers.

Last night more people found their remote controls which had been stuck on Seven since the Olympics also seeing the gap close between Home and Away and Two and A Half Men which were only separated by 20 000 viewers.

The news and current affair hour was again dominated by Seven with Seven News still capturing 400 000 viewers more than Nine News but the news is a little better for A Current Affair which trails Today Tonight by 300 000 viewers.

Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos was the biggest shock of the night winning the 8:30PM slot and being rewarded as the evenings highest rating show and Nine’s largest audience share last night. Kerry Packer may have axed the show mid-screening in 1992 but in 2008 almost 1.4 million people tuned in to see what was so bad about it.

Could Nine now turn this into a regular series?

Let’s hope not but the one-off special helped Nine win their first night this week and their first night since August 6 and the Olympics. Getaway also had more than 1.3 million viewers while The Footy Show ticked over the million mark to give Nine 30.4% of the audience share compared with Seven’s 25% and Ten’s 23.6%.

Despite Seven losing they will win the week and you would expect executives will not be too concerned that Thursday’s are a weak night but Nine are launching their new Australian drama, The Strip at 8:30 next Thursday which now has the opportunity to do big numbers. Next week will be more competitive – stay tuned.