Ratings: Can of Worms Debut: Good, but not Great

Monday night's premiere episode of the Dicko hosted Can of Worms has not exactly set the world alight, but it hasn't bombed either.



It pulled 930,000 in the competitive timeslot of 8:30PM. This is less than what Offspring normally takes in the same timeslot, though that will not be of much concern.

It was, however, narrowly beaten by Seven's The Amazing Race Australia, at around 1m viewers, but Worms managed to edge out Nine's Rescue- not a difficult feat.

So while coming second in a time-slot may seem fine, Ten will still be holding its breath for week 2. Firstly, because you expect a heap more people to tune in for a show's premiere due to the large curiosity factor. Then you have to factor in the interest generated in the show by the promos/billboards which have now been running for weeks.

Safe to say that when you take away all that it will be expected to lose around 200k viewers.

But even then, who, at this stage will actually come back for a second helping? The vast majority of the public are notoriously fickle in their viewing habits, and tend to make snap judgements about shows based on their first episode.

And based on the mostly negative response on Twitter last night, it would be hard to imagine people would come back for more.

And there are the "turn-off" factors: things that create negative word-of-mouth. There's Dicko's awkward delivery, confusing format and the presence of people such as Jason Akermanis.

Also, the fact that there is a Twitter feed at the bottom of the screen... But doesn't show current tweets (the show is pre-recorded) that react to proceedings, is a huge, huge hindrance, and will be likely to rub many of the Tweeters up the wrong way- and that's hardly a sector of the audience they want to alienate.

Reviews are also coming out, and they also aren't that pretty- not a good sign for picking up new viewers (we won't see it rise above 1m, based on that fact).

So what hope does it have heading into week 2? It has to be smarter in its guest selection- if it were to nab a genuinely popular personality, one that was controversial but also funny, it would go a long way. It might even need a big-name, whether they're controversial or not- just to add some interest to the show.

And the show needs to iron out the kinks quickly, and make sure Dicko starts the show more confidently.

And is it a serious show with some laughs (see The Gruen Transfer) or a slightly harder edged Good News Week - a laff-fest, but with actual serious opinion expressed.