And they’re off… but is there room for three?

The Strip, Australia’s newest drama by two days was launched last night with 1.45 million viewers tuning into the Gold Coast cop drama helping Nine to win the slot and win the night. This comes off the back of Ten’s new cop drama, Rush which debuted on Tuesday night and Seven’s Packed to the Rafters which was launched last week.

After seeing all three dramas, Rafters has appealed to the most number of people reflected with their two million plus viewers watching on Tuesday night while Rush claimed 1.1 million themselves.

Each drama is led by recognisable Australian actors and introduces a number of new and fresh faces but will each drama have a second season?

The early indication is that Rafters will get the green light for series two after growing their audience in the first two episodes with over two million viewers, Seven look to all ready look to be backing a winner here.

Rush’s debut was softer but also expected against All Saints and in a 9:30PM time slot, there are not as many people watching TV as there are at 8:30. It’s disappointing that Ten has not scheduled Rush at 8:30 on Wednesday or Thursday night although the latter might hurt The Strip.

The op_inion wrote on Wednesday that Rush is the dark horse of the bunch but after seeing The Strip last night, I wish to reiterate my comments that Rush is the darkhorse but The Strip may struggle.

Setting the drama in the Gold Coast has given The Strip some fabulous visuals and Aaron Jeffery plays a stone cold police detective opposite some obvious onscreen (and rumoured off screen) chemistry with Vanessa Gray but this drama was harder to get in to.

Possibly the scripting had something to do with it with some of the dialogue delivered by Bob Morley really made you think about changing the channel. Luckily, The Strip has next to no competition in its schedule because Seven never does well on Thursdays and Ten has Law & Order which should see The Strip complete its first season unless Seven or Ten become more competitive on Thursday nights or the stories improve, you wouldn’t be rushing to commission a second series.

And excuse the pun because Rush should get a boost next week and hopefully by the end of the year we see Ten, like Seven announce that there will be a second series for Rush and Rafters respectively.

I am not writing off The Strip just yet, I hope that I am proved wrong and the storylines pickup next week and The Strip also gets a second series otherwise viewers may choose with their remote control to go elsewhere.

Olympic momentum continues Seven's Gold medal haul

Not surprisingly Seven finished first again in Week 35 (Week 27 of the Official Television Ratings) with Gold Medals going to The Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony, Packed to the Rafters, City Homicide, Border Security, The Force, Home and Away, Find My Family, RSPCA: Animal Rescue, Medical Emergency, Criminal Minds, Crash Investigation Unit, All Saints, Today Tonight and Seven News.

There were some forgettable performances as well namely Alan Sugar: The Apprentice and Ugly Betty while Make Me A Supermodel picked up bronze.

Gold medals were few and far between for the Nine Network surprising everyone when Doug Mullray’s Naughtiest Home Videos won its race, Getaway and The Footy Show but the much hypes series Wipeout and Hole in the Wall fought off for silver.

Ten had no gold medals this week but Australian Idol put up a good performance and maintained a healthy silver, there best Gold medal chances are to come this week launching Taken Out and Rush.

Seven won the week which looked like this:

SEVEN: 32.1%
NINE: 24.5%
TEN: 21.7%
ABC: 16.7%
SBS: 5.0%

OzTam

Tonight’s results will be most interesting in the key battles:

6:30PM
Jamie Durie’s The Outodoor Room (Seven) V Scott Cam’s Domestic Blitz (Nine)

7:30PM
Dancing with the Stars (Seven) V 60 Minutes (Nine) V Australian Idol (Ten) V Doctor Who (ABC)

8:30PM – 10:30PM
Dancing with the Stars / Criminal Minds (Seven) V Scorched (Nine) V Australian Idol/Rove (Ten)

Such good Australian shows on one night is making a viewers choice very difficult. I think Nine will win the night with a very narrow margin because of their choice to have Lauren Huxley on Domestic Blitz and three very interesting stories on 60 Minutes plus an Australian tele-movie should win them the night unless the Dancing with the Stars juggernaut works on Sunday.

As for the rest of the week:

Seven News and Today Tonight will dominate the news war with Nine but the 7PM slot could get interesting with Ten attempting to challenge with new dating series, Taken Out. Viewers may be pulled away from Seven’s Home and Away and Nine’s Two and A Half Men making the 7PM slot very competitive.

Monday will go to Seven with Border Security, The Force and City Homicide edging between 1.6 – 2 million viewers

Tuesday will go to Seven with RSPCA Animal Rescue, Find My Family and Packed to the Rafters but expect Ten’s new drama Rush, which will air at 9:30PM to beat All Saints. Nine may pick up some later viewers with it’s raunchy new series, Secret Diaries of A Call Girl debuting in the 10:30PM slot.

Wednesday will again be won by Seven with Medical Emergency and Criminal Minds but the hour of Two and A Half Men from 7PM could beat Crash Investigation Unit and Hole in the Wall may challenge Medical Emergency. Don’t forget there is good TV on the ABC with Spicks and Specks and The Hollowmen from 8:30.

Thursday is Nine’s with Getaway and hopefully somewhere close to 2 million viewers for the debut of The Strip.

Friday should, as per usual go to Seven with Better Homes and Gardens plus the first round of the AFL Finals.

Saturday could go to Ten with their screening of the AFL Finals in primetime while Seven show the movies Freaky Friday and Pretty Woman and Nine screen Australia’s Funniest Home Videos followed by Zathura: A Space Adventure and Hellboy.

The week should be won by Seven but not by the same gap as last week, expect about a 2-3% gap between Seven and Nine. My picks of the week is Rush on Ten and The Strip on Nine and it will be interesting to see if Packed to the Rafters can retain it's huge audience, almost 2 million viewers tuned in last week, but will they be back?

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.

Three new drama’s on three different networks

Australia’s three commercial television networks have announced where each of their much anticipated new dramas will be scheduled.

Tuesday’s at 8:30 will be the home of Seven’s Packed to the Rafters and at 9:30 over on Ten, the brand new cop drama Rush will air.

Nine’s Gold Coast based cop drama, The Strip will screen at 8:30 on Thursday’s.

Rafters and The Strip have picked sensible and winnable slots and Rush has probably as well with NCIS as lead-in but it is disappointing to see Ten schedule a brand new Australian drama at 9:30.

Makes you think that Rush may in-fact embody its name, being rushed in production. Have Ten produced their own Canal Road?

Rush will also have to compete with Seven’s All Saints which has recently seen a deserved upward trend in the programs ratings, which is another reason why not to scheduele Rush at 9:30 because it is Australian drama against Australian drama. Commercial television is overloaded with foreign content, so to see two Aussie dramas competing against each other, in the same slot is poor scheduling and a slap in the face to the Australian audiences, making them choose which Australian drama they want to watch, not both, so one will get the axe.

Rafters starts next Tuesday with Rush and The Strip debuting the following week.

It’s great to see Aussie drama back and the networks investing money into producing new shows. Let’s hope each series has a successful season and they all are commissioned for a second series.