Cooking shunts Coro St off prime time
TVNZ has announced it is moving the long-running and high-rating Coronation Street from its 7.30pm timeslot to two hours earlier to make way for MasterChef Australia.
It’s enough to curdle your milk stout.
TVNZ has announced it is moving the long-running and high-rating Coronation Street from its 7.30pm timeslot to two hours earlier to make way for the final episodes of colonial cooking show MasterChef Australia.
And there’s no guarantee the show will reclaim the later time.
The move has angered Waikato’s loyal Coro watchers, with one asking who would really remember the winner of a cooking show in 50 years?
Commenting on the Waikato Times Facebook site, Lily said Coro was a “well written, character driven drama – not yet another hyped-up cooking show.”
For three weeks from October 17 TV One will move the show to 5.30pm, five nights a week, in half-hour instalments – a change from its current 7.30pm timeslot, two nights a week, which run for an hour.
Jeff Latch, Head of TV One and TV2, said it was not about moving Coronation Street, but about making Masterchef available in prime time.
While Coronation Street’s audience has halved since 2002, it is still the most watched show on Tuesday night between 7.30pm and 11pm, typically drawing more than 500,000 viewers.
Coronation Street audience numbers
Last year’s Masterchef final drew 1.1million viewers and the show had an overall average viewership of 563,500 per show.
TVNZ spokeswoman Georgie Hills said the new time should be accessible for most of the show’s viewers.
“Our research shows that the typical Coronation Street audience profile is the same at 7.30pm as it is at 5.30pm.”
Ms Hills said though TVNZ admired the passion of Coronation Street fans, there were people out there who would appreciate something different.
The addition of a weekend omnibus would also give fans the chance to catch up on any episodes they missed during the week.
After the three weeks, the change would be reviewed and a decision made on whether it would go back to its previous slot.
Hamilton resident John Easto, president of Citizens and Ratepayers Association, said it was a bad move on TVNZ’s part.
“MasterChef’s just another Aussie reality show. I don’t know why they are doing it.
“At that time of the day most people are out going about their business.”
The associate professor of screen and media studies at Waikato University, Geoff Lealand, said TVNZ appeared to be saying that Coronation Street’s audience was unemployed, retired or of advanced years.
Fans of Coronation Street expressed their anger online, saying they are “sick to death” of reality cooking shows.
On the Times Facebook page Wintec student Rebecca Smith said that though Coronation Street might attract an older audience there were younger people who loved it.
“You can get cooking shows on any other channel and most people I know think cooking shows are more frustrating than Coro.”
Commenter Liz said the show was too raunchy for a 5.30pm timeslot so it inevitably would have to be edited down.
But Hamilton resident Ria Biel said an earlier timeslot probably would not affect its fans, who were likely to be “old and retired or the hordes of unemployed soap fans”, whereas “MasterChef is dominating television with legions of devoted fans ranging from teens to elderly.”
