We can’t blame the English for this disaster, the Nine Network has effectively surrendered the ratings battle by making the decision to ‘burn off’ the epic TV war drama Gallipoli.
From Monday night Nine will commence airing two episodes per week of the expensive war epic in an effort to quickly remove the underperformed series from the schedules.
Ratings for the program have been well below expectations with Mondays episode failed to enter the list of top 20 programs with just 527k viewers. The episode that aired on the 16th of February climbed to 706k from 575k in time-shifted ratings suggesting many viewers were preferring to record the series rather than endure late nights and lengthy ad-breaks.
Nine’s decision to make all episodes immediately available in HD and without commercial interruption on its new SVOD service Stan would also have effect ratings.
2015 has already proven to be a challenging year for Free to Air broadcaster’s. Apart from My Kitchen Rules the vast majority of prime-time programming has struggled to get anywhere near the crucial 1 million viewers mark. Gallipoli was a three year investment for Nine, the network had hoped to capitalise on viewer interest in the ANZAC centenary.
Foxtel will premiere it’s own locally produced series Deadline Gallipoli in April.
