Ratings: Hamish and Andy take a small hit in second week

Last night Hamish and Andy's second episode on air pulled 1.069 million.

Yes, it's a sizeable difference between its first week audience of 1.456 million, but it is to be expected that a show loses audience from a hyped premiere to a second ep... or if you prefer, a show's premiere figures are usually inflated due to curious channel surfers, etc.

And of course the drop is not ideal, but at least it is not "panic stations" yet.

However, if the pair bring another average episode like last night's to the table next week, it will drop even further.

And next week is shaping as one of the show's last chances to convince the audience it is, or at least can be a funny, snappy show. Here's why:

• If the episode is anything like last night's, ratings will drop below a million - time to panic?
• Though it had stung competition in The Renovators (1.056 million), the reality show will not have MasterChef as a strong lead-in
• There is very, very little resistance from the other networks; Seven's Law and Order: Los Angeles is a turkey (it pulled 633,000 last night) and the ABC's Crownies is not far behind (567,000).

Show Preview: Hamish and Andy's Gap Year

What do we know?

Hamish and Andy will host a show from a "desk" in a warehouse, where they will interview various celebrity guests, as well as cut to pre-filmed segments, out and about in New York. What the rest of the show will be made up of is unknown.


Who's in it?

Hamish Blake and Andy Lee will host.

Their radio show's "button pusher" Jack Post will feature as a "butler" of sorts, and has hinted that he will be wearing a suit t-shirt with white gloves.

Ryan Shelton will appear in an as-yet unknown capacity. Will he file individual comedy segments filmed in NY, or will he be another co-host?


What does Episode 1 hold in store? 

Taylor Swift will be a guest, as first alluded to by Hamish and Andy on last Friday's show, and also confirmed by Channel Nine today.
She is obviously great friends with the boys, especially after the gave her the "Australian" nickname "Swifty Taylor" a couple of years ago.


Will it Work?

Hamish and Andy will not try to reinvent the wheel with this one. They have a great brand and they know it. They also have hours of TV and Radio experience under their belts, so opening night jitters shouldn't be too much of a problem.

They also have hoardes of fans that will follow them wherever they go. The main thing that they need to work on is honing their focus and product. If the show seems too slap-dash with no structure, it will turn away people who aren't mad fans- there is little chance it will be too much the other way, with Nine stating beforehand that they would give the pair complete creative control... However, they still need to make sure they don't make the show too casual in its approach.

There is no doubt that it will work, as their specials on Ten have been successes- point a camera at the boys running amok somewhere and hilarity will follow.

The only question is whether the show will become a huge hit- and this can only be achieved if they can bring some of that live and edgy radio energy into a studio.

During their specials on Ten, they often had in-studio links between segments- these were the weakest parts of those shows. If these (which this time will be longer and likely feature guests and other hijinks) are less scripted and contrived in their Nine show, it will be the best thing they have ever done.


Ratings Predictor

Their large listener base will likely provide for a solid audience in Episode 1 (especially given they have been in New York broadcasting for a couple of months now, talking about the show). So think at least 1.2 million listeners will tune in.

Then add in the promotion-factor- Nine have put up billboard ads all across Australia. Add another 200 thousand.

Then consider that there will be very little competition from other networks- Seven has the cancelled Law and Order: LA premiere, while Ten has The Renovators, which doesnt look like it will put up much of a fight. ABC1 also has the very average Crownies. Add another 200,000 people curious channel-surfers.

Then add another 200,00 or so for the sheer fact that it's a new, expensive product, and a pure comedy show.

I put the premiere's ratings at 1.7-1.8 million.


When does it air?

Hamish and Andy's Gap Year airs on Thursday at 8:30PM.

Review: Ben Elton Live From Planet Earth

The Bounce, Let Loose Live, The White Room, You May be Right, The Nation, Hamish & Andy, Micallef Tonight, The Matty Johns Show, The Mick Molloy Show, Warnie.

I could go on.

All of these shows have cropped up on our screens over the past decade. And all are infamous for one reason; they were axed because a)Ratings were paltry or b)They were pitiful excuses for comedy.

Sometimes they were a combination of the two - actually, far too often they were.

They are also unique in the way that they were not axed because they petered out towards the end of their run.

No, they are all textbook definitions of "flops", axed after two or three episodes. Sometimes they were allowed to complete their run of 13 episodes of so (in the case of the Nation).

No, commercial networks haven't exactly had the most success in creating a successful comedy, light entertainment or quiz program.

Over the past decade, one could only point to Rove (and its various iterations), Spicks and Specks and Talkin' 'bout Your Generation as genuine success stories.

Not exactly a great hit-rate.

So why on earth would Nine take a risk with yet another live, or as-live comedy?

Well, maybe it was because Nine believed they had a hit on their hands.

Well do they?

There was quite a nice opening riff on the absurd classification system in Australia. Oh-Kay...

The monologue involved some fairly topical gags about Julia and the floods.

Yet jokes about spam and "knob"-size were fairly run-of-the-mill stand up comedy fare.

And calling Tony Abbott a "dickhead" will always be a crowd pleaser.



If one has an issue listening to Elton's English accent commenting on Australian issues, just think- one wouldn't have a problem with a person of Indian descent, or Italian descent commenting, so why should this be any different?

In case you have an issue with a "Pom" hosting an Australian show, it's actually more representative of  Australia than anything else on TV - maybe we can soon graduate to maybe someone of different ethnicity hosting something on commercial TV.

But that's a topic for another day.

Back to the real "comedy" of the show.

[caption id="attachment_107" align="alignnone" width="590" caption="The two Ja'mies- I mean schoolgirls. You see, it's not ripping off Lilley because THERE'S TWO OF THEM."][/caption]

I really enjoyed the schoolgirl and upper-class wine swillers... The first time they were done on Summer Heights High and Kath and Kim.



And fake Hollywood reporters... why do I feel like I've seen this before?

[caption id="attachment_108" align="alignnone" width="590" caption="I think it's got to the point where actual Hollywood reporters are funny than the people mocking them"][/caption]

And then came a "sight gag"... that lasted for far too long.



Sorry.

And OK, we get it, some female bodybuilders look masculine. If this show is cancelled, don't they know that will be shown on 20 to 1, Great Hits and Misses.

Or Today Tonight in two weeks time.

However, the one saving grace throughout all this was the surprising brevity of it. That will make it easier to chop segments such as the "fat chef".

Oh, and in case you didn't get the joke: THE CHEF WAS MEANT TO BE MATT PRESTON. YOU KNOW, FROM MASTERCHEF? HE'S FAT.

Oh, and in case you missed that visual gag, he was called THE. FAT. CHEF. Yep, that's what we're dealing with.

[caption id="attachment_105" align="alignnone" width="590" caption=""I was really glad I managed to make the Fat Chef fart." Cutting. Edge. Comedy."][/caption]

You know when you've been beaten to a joke- and a one dimensional one at that- by Sam Newman that it's time to push the panic button.

However, before anyone had the chance to turn off, along came one Genevieve Morris, a manificent character actor probably best known for her rendition of Barbara from Bankworld.



Her character, interviewer Elaine Front was an absolute winner and threatened to steal the show from Elton himself.



And while I had hoped the live sitcom would introduce some new characters- some that weren't so over the top and caricaturistic. All the acting was top-shelf though, with Veronica Milsom reprising her role as Lady Gaga from Hungry Beast (maybe it'll lead to a gig on Saturday Night Live in the US?).

And The Mick Molloy Urinating on Set Award goes to the actor who played Amy Winehouse.

"I'll just run a comb through me minge."

Yes, "contemporary" comedy is apparently making as many crude jokes as possible, without the actual humour of actual pioneers in this area such as Judd Apatow and his range of adult comedies.

But once again the criticism isn't that it wasn't unfunny or cringeworthy, it's just that the most obvious joke was used in every case.

Then followed an insensitive "public school teacher". That's about all that you need to know.

[caption id="attachment_104" align="alignnone" width="590" caption="Asian students were called things like "Ain't-shit". Oh, I think I forgot to mention that this sketch was RACIST. Silly me."][/caption]

But by the end Elton had almost won me over with his brand of stand-up- quick, outrageous rapid-fire comedy. It's about time we got a grumpy
old man, of sorts, Let Loose on TV. We have had a cheeky Rove for ten years after all. I could get used to it.

At the end of the day. It's an Australian production employing talented Aussie actors and comedians. It's also live and very slick- usually a hallmark of Nine productions.

The show's not achingly funny, but who expected it to be on the first night? And how many shows are, anyway.

Hopefully they have got all the fart jokes and other easy jokes out of the way in the first show, so that we can see some genuinely new material.

Though not live, The Wedge's main weak point was its inability to come up with new characters. Its initial range of characters was funny, yet they were done to death.

If Planet Earth begins introducing new characters and utilising the full range of its talented cast, it could take off. If it remains exactly the same as this week's show, then don't bother. After all, we've seen all these characters again and again (and now again), we know all the jokes.

And the Australian audience deserves better.