news articles 23 july

[Inside Australian Idol]

Idling days for hosts
From Sydney Confidential
July 23, 2004


THE Australian Idol boys haven't been having much luck with their new convertibles.



Car woes ... James Mathison and Andrew G.


Andrew G and James Mathison have both been given a red convertible Mazda MX5 to drive around for the duration of the second series.

On Wednesday night, Andrew was out having dinner with friends, including publicist Richard Squire at Hugo's in Kings Cross, when he noticed a car parked in front of his convertible had reversed and hit his bumper.

Quick as a flash, he was out of his seat and sharing his thoughts with the offending driver. One onlooker said she and her friends hopped out of their seats to watch the "free entertainment", she described as "much better then any episode of Australian Idol".

It must have been good.

As it turned out, there was no real damage to the car.

We also hear his fellow host Mathison has had his own share of bad luck with the car.

It got broken into a little while ago.

Meanwhile celebrity chef Geoff Jansz is in a bit of hot water after being charged with drink-driving and unlicensed driving.

The alleged offences happened earlier this year but the matter was back yesterday before Moss Vale Local Court.

Jansz allegedly had a blood alcohol level of 0.095 and his licence was out of date when police pulled him over on the Old Hume Highway at Braemar in the Southern Highlands on February 28.

He was charged with driving with a mid-range prescribed concentration of alcohol and unlicensed driving.

Jansz, who hosts the Channel Nine program Fresh has not yet had to enter a plea in the case and did not appear in court yesterday.

"I am very keen to have this unfortunate matter resolved as quickly as possible," he said through a Nine spokesman.

The Daily Telegraph


entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,10219514%255E10431%255E%255Enbv,00.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

TV reality check
By Marcus Casey
23jul04

IT was barney night on Tuesday's episode of The Block as four couples badly blued - while it was much more subdued on Big Brother with four finalists waiting for the inevitable.

They are ironically apt endings to the first half of 2004's reality TV onslaught.

The year opened with a glut of reality programs. But viewers rejected some and only warmed slowly to others, while proven hits stumbled and US dramas soared.

The biggest duds were Ten's The Resort - yanked while still being filmed - and The Hot House, an elongated disaster Ten could not afford to take off air.

On Sunday and Monday the two behemoths of the genre - Ten's Big Brother and Nine's The Block - will loudly conclude their first-half seasons after quiet starts.

"The shows at the beginning of the year were first worked on in early 2003," said Ten's network production and development director Tim Clucas.

"The biggest difficulty is, you put the wheels of a new show in motion 12 months ahead without knowing what your competitors are up to.

"Suddenly we had a really crowded market."

In 2003 The Block was Australia's most watched series in history and 2.05 million tuned in to its first episode.

That dropped to 1.57 million for this year's opener, and overall it has had 780,000 fewer viewers this year on Sundays than last year.

Within a month Nine moved it from one to two episodes per week, done to appease paid-up advertisers promised two million viewers a week, according to an industry insider.

Big Brother's fourth series opened with 1.72 million viewers compared with 2003's 2.22 million. Overall its audience is down 6 per cent on Sundays and 8 per cent Monday to Friday - but should boom in its final episodes on Sunday and Monday.

Seven's My Restaurant Rules had a boom finish, but that was tempered by an agonisingly slow start - while its revival of Popstars flopped badly.

The Block co-executive producer Julian Cress defended this year's below-expectations performance - particularly in Sydney - and said dynamics had changed.

"We certainly didn't expect to do as well this year as last," he said.

Mr Clucas claimed "reality" was an overused term, saying The Resort was actually a "doc-soap" and others were "observational documentaries".

Whatever, the next show featuring real people in prime time will be Ten's new series of Australian Idol on Tuesday.

Its four audition specials in the past fortnight attracted more than 1.7 million people a night, well up on last year.

"We've had a fantastic start, but we're not silly enough to say we'll do as well as last year," he said.


www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,10221219%255E10431,00.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

Millsy's still having fun

23jul04

MAKING a music video Matrix-style in front of a green screen, with a dog, is a world away from cavorting with a bevy of beauty queens on Ms Vanity.


Living it up: Millsy filming his clip.

But Robert "Millsy" Mills is taking it all in his stride.
"I enjoy everything, I love this lifestyle," the Australian Idol star said.

The Melbourne boy was in Brisbane this week to shoot the video for new single Every Single Day.

The day-long shoot featured a pooch called Jasper and Millsy's touring band, to create a clip that the singer says is about "rock, pop and fun".

"We're going for some fun stuff, but the words to the song are pretty serious," he said.

"I wrote about how I was feeling at the time . . . earlier in the year, about not sort of knowing where I'm going in life but having opportunities present themselves and it was up to me to take them on."

The single is out August 16.


www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,10215989%255E28957,00.html

[Inside Australian Idol]

Guy shapes up
From Sydney Confidential
July 23, 2004


MEET fit fro.


Guy works out in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Nathan Edwards

He's the guy whose biceps are now challenging his hair for the big title.

GS was spotted with his PT yesterday morning, cutting a fine figure in a park in Clovelly, the beachside suburb the Adelaide boy now calls home.

It's a rare glimpse of Australia's inaugural Idol who is now in "lockdown" as he knuckles down to the business of his second album which has been recorded in LA.

Sebastian flies back to his American buddies on Saturday to finish up the album but will be back in Sydney on August 3 for the Aria No.1 Chart Awards.

The first new track will be released in late September.

He will announce the album's title and release date at the awards to be held at Luna Park's Crystal Ballroom.

Fans will see more than just the occasional glimpse of the star when he settles down in Sydney in August, spending the first two weeks shooting a film clip for the first track.

The Daily Telegraph

entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,10219611%255E7484%255E%255Enbv,00.html

[Sunny]

Oh my my my!!!! Does he look the bees knees or WHAT?

And he's got a PT! He looks so tall!


(Sunny's feeling just a little bit woozy after seeing this wonderful pic and new news - quick - a drink of water. Phew, that's better.)

[Inside Australian Idol]

Channel Ten's big Week Out!

By Terry Television
Crikey's 2-7-9-10 expert

Next week the Ten Television network could very snatch a rare ratings win, as Terry Television explains.

23 July 2004

Eviction, audition and crime could very well power the Ten Network to a ratings win nationally and in the key Sydney market next week.
Certainly victory in Sydney looks assured because of the sheer quantity of high-rating product that Ten will be broadcasting. Florid American writers would call this a "Perfect Storm" type situation. Me, I'd just rather call it Perfect Match revisited.

Certainly Ten's successes next week will hurt the still struggling Seven network, and the industry leader, Kerry Packer's Nine Network, looks like having to be content with second place. So what's the basis for this big call?

Big Brother times Two. Australian Idol times Two, Law and Order times Two. These will outweigh Nine's final episode of The Block, the return of Renovation Rescue and CSI and Without a Trace.

So Sunday night sees the final episode of the Block for an hour and a half, but also the penultimate episode of Big Brother also over an hour and a half, followed by new episodes of Law and Order Criminal Intent, and NCIS, both very good performers on Sunday night.

The performance of Seven's The World Around Us part two of a special on Greece and the performance of the ABC will be watched.
But with The Block not above two million people this year in any episode, recording a week-winning share as the final did last year with more than three million viewers, is highly unlikely. Nine counters with 60 Minutes and the repeat of the Wedding Planner. No go Willoughby!

Monday will see Big brother the Eviction over 90 minutes, followed by Queer Eye and then a Law and Order repeat.Ten again.
Tuesday and Wednesday will see the audition episodes of Australian Idol doing well, but Nine will fight back with CSI in double episode on Tuesday, McLeod's Daughters and CSI Miami.

Nine could win, But Seven's revamped Blue Heelers and All Saints on Tuesday and Wednesday will bear watching, especially Heelers which zoomed in its first national broadcast of a revamped look this week.

Thursday could very well be another Ten win with the Double episodes of Law and Order Special Victims Unit. That's what happened last Thursday night. Friday night could be Nine's because of the football, but Ten could also do well enough because of its AFL broadcasts and the fact that the ABC and Seven do well on Saturday nights.

The Bill attracts good numbers.But on the last day of July, Australia plays the Springboks in Perth, with the Seven telecast starting at 7.30 pm. That should help Seven and the ABC fight it out, denying the night to both Ten and Nine.

And, of course the Seven News and Today Tonight will continue to harry Nine nationally, and beat them in Sydney most nights, as they have done this week, pushing the share of the ratings leader down that little bit more and allowing Ten to inch a little further ahead.
It could very well be the first time Ten has won the outright ratings nationally for sometime.Some have told Terry that it could be the first time since the halcyon days of the late 80's when perfect Match ruled and the Ten news rated extra well.

What Ten will do however, is to continue to win its key targeted demographics. The 16-34 and the 25-54 groups.The former is the demographic group of greatest interest to Ten and its advertisers, hence the style of programming like Big Brother and Australian Idol.

But its likely next week could see the release of the half year report from KPMG on the size and share of the TV advertising market.Nine will win with its market share up to around 40%. Ten is thought to have moved past Seven to around 31% and Seven will be stuck around under 30%.

Certainly Ten boss John McAlpine made no secret that's what he expected in an interview in last Monday's Australian Financial Review.
For Seven, which will be buffeted in the week, the Olympics lie ahead and a hoped for boost, as well as the launch of a range of new programs, and the moving of its Sydney news and current affairs operations to the CBD site in Martin Place.

In terms of the year next week will not matter all that much. Nine has won the year. But as this week has shown, its crown is slightly askew nationally and has reached a worrying angle in Sydney.

It's holding on because of the strong performances in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide. That's keeping Nine in the game, especially Brisbane and Melbourne, where the Seven News and Today Tonight are struggling to repeat their Sydney successes.

The irony is that both cities are considered the boonies by Nine people in Sydney. This year they should be thankful.


www.crikey.com.au/media/2004/07/23-0007.html