The highly anticipated new drama focuses on the lives of Australian bushrangers in 1860s. It includes a number of well known Australia actors including former ‘Packed to the Rafters’ star Zoe Ventoura and former ‘City Homicide’ star and ‘Dancing with the Stars’ host Daniel MacPherson. It also stars Michael Dorman (The Secret Life of Us) and David Field (City Homicide).

Seven will be hoping that ‘Wild Boys’ can find similar success as other recently launched Aussie dramas ‘Winners and Losers’ and ‘Packed the Rafters’.

Production for ‘Wild Boys’ commenced in February this year. With the recent success of UK period drama ‘Downton Abbey’, Seven is waiting no longer to air the local period piece.

‘Wild Boys’ coming soon to the Seven Network.

‘Wild Boys’ premieres 7:30pm Sunday September 4th on Seven

The final ever ‘City Homicide’ airs Wednesday 9:30pm on the Seven Network.

Despite not officially being axed by Seven, the local drama looks to be over in just a couple of weeks.

‘City Homicide’ premiered in 2007 to strong figures before dropping in the ratings over the past year. Even though ratings dropped throughout the years, the drama still had a remarkable run of five seasons. Below is a clip of some of the earlier season highlights.

The final ‘City Homicide’ is expected to air 9:30pm Wednesday March 30^th on Seven. The following week (April 6^th) Seven will air a double new episode of ‘Criminal Minds’ from 8:30pm.

The Sunday Telegraph is reporting that a friend of Bourne recently said that the actor “recently signed on” for the gig.

Bourne (pictured) is best known for his presenting role in ‘Thank God You’re here’ and detective role in ‘City Homicide.’

Rove McManus, Adam Hills, Shaun Micallef, and Hamish and Andy were other potential presenters for the awards this year.

Bourne is no longer signed to the Seven Network.

The 2011 Logie Awards airs Sunday May 1st on the Nine Network.

Source: The Sunday Telegraph

Last night’s return at 9:30pm rated a disappointing 663,000 for the network. It was beaten by ‘RPA’ on Nine, however did beat ‘House’ on Ten and new Australian drama ‘Laid’ on ABC. This ‘Homicide’ figure was however lower than other 9:30pm shows on Seven this week such as ‘Castle’ on Sunday, ‘Brothers & Sisters’ on Monday and ‘Parenthood’ on Tuesday.

Due to these falling ratings, Network Seven will “rest” the series after the eight episodes of this year. There is no certainty at the moment on the shows future.

Original cast member Damien Richardson, who plays Detective Matt Ryan, said: “I would be very surprised if it came back.”

All New ‘City Homicide’ airs Wednesday 9:30pm after new ‘Criminal Minds’ on Seven.

Source: Herald Sun

Aaron chats to Tim Worner director of programming & production for the Seven Network. Topics include:

• Seven’s multichannel portfolio
• The ongoing success of ‘Packed to the Rafters’
• The overcrowded police drama genre
• The launch of ‘The X Factor’
• The upcoming Australian drama ‘Winners and Losers’
• Returning series ‘Beauty and the Geek Australia’
• Fast-tracking of US series
• Upcoming reality series ‘Iron Chef Australia’ and ‘Conviction Kitchen’

The highly anticipated mini-series 'The Pacific' premieres in 2010 on Seven. From Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, producers of 'Band of Brothers'.

Seven will announce their complete 2010 programming line-up later in the coming weeks.

New Local Drama

• The Pacific (Miniseries) - Co-production with HBO, Playtone, Dreamworks

New Local Series

• Damage Control
• The Marriage Ref
• My Kitchen Rules

New International Series

• 100 Questions
• Cougar Town
• Day One
• Happy Town
• Hung
• The Marriage Ref (US)
• Parenthood

Sporting Events

• Australian Open
• AFL Grand Final

Returning Local Series

• Better Homes and Gardens
• City Homicide
• Deal or No Deal
• Double Take
• Home and Away
• The Morning Show
• New Idea TV
• Packed to the Rafters
• Sunrise
• Saturday Disney
• Thank God You’re Here

Returning International Series

• Bones
• Brothers and Sisters
• Castle
• Criminal Minds
• Desperate Housewives
• Family Guy
• FlashForward
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Private Practice

*Incomplete/subject to change

Mitch Ryan

Australian actor Mitch Ryan is joining the cast if The CW’s ‘One Tree Hill’ in a recurring role.

Ryan, who guest appeared on Seven’s ‘City Homicide’, will play Alexander, a handsome pro surfer-turned-young mogul in the show’s seventh season, currently airing in the US.

Ryan next appearance will be in the HBO/Seven’s upcoming multimillion dollar miniseries ‘The Pacific’, from executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.

‘One Tree Hill’ airs 3pm Saturdays on Network Ten.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Daryl Somers and Ossie Ostrich

Last night the ‘Hey Hey’ Reunion rated beyond expectations. The first off special rated 2.169 million viewers while ‘MasterChef’ rated 1.357 million, ‘City Homicide’ 0.796 million, ‘Worlds Strictest Parents’ 0.912 million and the new ‘NCIS: LA’ .943 million.

Smashing its opposition on such a strong night is evident but these demographics are even more surprising for 9 throughout the night:

18-49 Commercial Share 6pm – 10.30pm

Seven – 21.2%
Nine – 50.9%
Ten – 28.0%

16-39 Commercial Share 6pm – 10.30pm

Seven – 20.5%
Nine – 48.5%
Ten – 31.0%

25-54 Commercial Share 6pm – 10.30pm

Seven – 21.5%
Nine – 51.6%
Ten – 26.9%

50+ Commercial Share 6pm – 10.30pm

Seven – 32.8%
Nine – 48.7%
Ten – 18.5%

Those numbers indicate that the show can perform extremely well demographically. Evenly rating highly in the important demo 18-49.

Daryl looks like you may have some further negotiating to do if the next special can rate just as highly.

'City Homicide' returns with a 2-hour season premiere Monday, August 10th on Seven.

Catch-up with City Homicide on Yahoo!7

Fans of Australia’s favourite police drama City Homicide can fire-up for the upcoming new season premiere with last season’s final four episodes online at Yahoo!7 TV.

The last four episodes which aired earlier this year, featuring phenomenal performances from Noni Hazlehurst Detective Superintendent Bernice Waverly, can now be streamed in full and free-of-charge courtesy of Yahoo!7’s catch-up TV.

After catching up with the average 1.65 million viewers who tuned into season two, visitors to Yahoo!7 TV will also find an exclusive preview of what to expect from City Homicide’s third outing.

Since launching catch-up TV earlier this month Yahoo!7 TV has streamed more than one million full episodes of some of Seven’s most popular shows, including Home & Away, Packed to the Rafters, All Saints, World’s Strictest Parents, Double Take, Surf Patrol and Airways.

For the final four episodes City Homicide season two and a preview of season three visit: yahoo7.com.au/cityhomicide

Channel Seven Publicity
(02) 8777 7250

Source: Seven Corporate

'7 is Heaven' will be the new name for daytime programming on digital channel '72'. While bizarre, not entirely unbelievable from the network with "Mr. TV Man" as their main mascot.

The Seven Network have finally put their money where their mouth is, and have announced their multi-channelling plans for the Freeview platform.

The network will launch with three distinct channels from November, including their current SD digital channel ’7′, a re-launched ’7 HD’ and an all new ’7 Extra’.

While speaking at the “Get ready for digital TV” forum in Sydney this morning, Seven’s CEO David Leckie said “the current economic crisis has put a lot of things into perspective. Our multi-channelling plans will address these issues.”

First up is the new HD channel. The network will continue using the ‘Seven HD’ moniker for channel ’70′, which will be dedicate to all Australian content.

It will screen new first run lifestyle programs, time-shifted news and re-runs of Australian drama including ‘City Homicide’, ‘Packed to the Rafters’, ‘All Saints’, ‘Home and Away’ and older series like ‘Last Man Standing’, “HeadLand” and ‘A Country Practice’.

The channel will also show a simulcast of Seven’s regular channel ’7′ in HD for select content, i.e., movies and other “must-see TV.”

Seven will re-launch ‘The Great Outdoors’, which has been MIA for some time now. Naomi Robson (‘Today Tonight’) and Charlie Delaney (‘Hi:5′, ‘Battle of the Choirs’) will be joining the travel show as globe trotting presenters.

‘Out of the Red’, is a new first run lifestyle program that will screen on the new 7HD. It will feature ‘Sunrise’ hosts, Mel and Kochie, as they help people bogged down by the current economic crisis. The new series will see the duo help families with their debts and give them tips for getting”out of the red”.

The network announced that they have several other new lifestyle programs in development which will be announced at a later date.

“Lifestyle programs are much more cost effective for us to produce in this current economic climate. The smaller budgets mean we can experiment with various concepts and ideas without breaking the bank” said Leckie. “We’ll offset our new lifestyle programming on the new 7HD with our large back-catalogue of great Aussie drama,” he added.

The network’s plans for their second standard definition channel, ’7 Extra’ (’72′), is a little more interesting.

In a bold move for the commercial broadcaster, the new channel will outsource its programming blocks to various content producers.

Deals have been struck with Walt Disney, Bloomberg Television, the Australian Christian Channel and various community television stations from around the country.

“By outsourcing the programming to different content providers, we’ll be able to create a diverse programming line up,” Leckie added. ”We’ve established a new shared advertising revenue scheme with the content producers, which will see lower up front costs for content.”

Each programming block will be themed depending on the content producer. The four banner names will be: ’7 is Finance’, ’7 is Heaven’, ’7 is Adventure’ and ’7 is Community’.

’7 is Finance’ will run during the morning programming block (6 am to 11 am) and will feature non-stop finance reports from Bloomberg Television.

“Keeping people up to date with the markets is just another way we’ll be helping people during these troubled times,” said Leckie.

’7 is Heaven’ will run during the daytime programming block (11 am to 5 pm) and will feature a schedule developed by the Australian Christian Channel. The ACC have several new programs in development including a new music program produced in conjunction with the Hillsong Church. It will be hosted by ‘Australian Idol’ winner and renowned Hillsong member Guy Sebastian.

Classic TV dramas including ‘Touched by an Angel’, ‘Joan of Arcadia’ and ’7th Heaven’ will run throughout the week, while Sunday’s will feature live sermons from around the country.

“All of our daytime programming will be aimed at spreading hope and optimism to our viewers,” said Leckie.

“But the ‘adventure’ really begins on ’7 Extra’ during prime-time,” he announced.

’7 is Adventure’ will run between 5 pm and 1 am. It’ll feature content from the network’s output deal with Disney/ABC Studios. It will screen all of Disney’s classic animations like ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Lion King’, as well as more mature content from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films. Titles will include film franchises ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’,'The Chronicles of Narnia’ and ‘Kill Bill’, as well as box office hits like ‘Pearl Harbour’ and ‘Gangs of New York’.

TV series from ABC Studios will join the ’7 is Adventure’ block, with ‘Desperate Housewives’, ‘Lost’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, ‘Brothers and Sister’, ‘Ugly Betty’, ’Scrubs’, ‘Commander in Chief’ and ‘Alias’ will all be getting a re-run on the new channel. ‘Night Stalker’, ‘Dirt’, ‘Kyle XY’ and ‘Greek’ will also make the move to free-to-air under the new ’7 is Adventure’ block.

Disney channel movies and TV series like ‘High School Musical’, ‘Camp Rock’ and ‘Hannah Montana’ will air Saturday nights under the new ‘adventure’ banner.

From 1 am to 6 am, ’7 is Community’ will screen, with original programming from Sydney’s TVS, Melbourne’s C31 and other community stations from around the country.

“We really want to embrace the community as a source of great entertainment,” said Leckie. “The new shared revenue scheme will really benefit independent content makers and allow them to create more ambitious programs.”

’7 Extra’ will be broadcast on digital channel ’72′.

“As the leaders in television, our mission is to bring viewers diverse and entertaining programs.”

“We believe that we’ve come up with a great strategy for our multi-channelling line up, which will provide both variety and quality,” Leckie concluded.

So after several long months, Seven’s digital TV plans have finally been unveiled and the all-Aussie channel and the outsourced programming channel are both pretty bold ideas for the network. It’s definitely the most comprehensive and unique plan we’ve seen from a free-to-air broadcaster so far.

Too bad we’ll have to wait until November.

Oh, and by the way…April fools!

Daniel MacPherson will move to Los Angeles in September, when his contract with the Seven Network expires.

The Melbourne-based actor will depart Seven’s police drama ‘City Homicide’, but says he wants to continue working on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ by flying back and forth from LA.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the 28 year old spoke of his wonderful relationship with Seven, “beyond September I’d like to think there’s more work between us.”

“One of my long-term goals has been to head to the States and my mantra has always been that I wouldn’t head over there until I’m 100 per cent ready,” MacPherson said.

Last year, MacPherson secured representation by Hollywood agency ICM, whilst visiting LA with manager Mark Morrissey.

MacPherson will join fellow Australian actors Chris Egan (‘Kings’, ‘Home and Away’), Chris Hemsworth (‘Star Trek’, ‘Home and Away’) and Jesse Spencer (‘House’, ‘Neighbours’), who’ve all found success while living in LA.

The re-occurring character was attractive to Walton, who’s been hesitant about signing on to something full-time since her role on fellow cop drama Blue Heelers.

“The beauty of Claudia Leigh is that she comes and goes,”  said Walton. ”After three years of Heelers I decided that I didn’t want to do a regular gig again.”

What the actor probably didn’t know at the time of signing on to Homicide, was that this would place her in direct opposition against her boyfriend, Rove McManus, in the Sunday night ratings.

“I don’t really keep my eye on that kind of stuff,” Walton said when informed of the unfortunate programming clash. Things are “wonderful”, she said. McManus was very happy for her new gig.

City Homicide, returns 8:30pm Sunday, February 7th on Seven.

Thank God You’re Here is coming back in 2009, but wait, what’s this? It’s going to be on Seven!

Press Release

The sensational comedy series Thank God You’re Here is poised to join Australian TV’s best prime time line-up on Channel Seven.

Thank God You’re Here, an award-winning creation from Working Dog Productions, will join Channel Seven’s 2009 schedule for its fourth season of unscripted mayhem.

Shane Bourne will remain the show’s host in addition to his role on the hit Channel Seven police drama City Homicide.

Judge and co-creator Tom Gleisner:

“Having taken a year off it felt right to try some new things with the show – including a different home. Moving will give us the opportunity to expose Thank God You’re Here to a whole new audience, while also allowing Shane to continue using his City Homicide parking space.”

Thank God You’re Here is a huge hit locally and overseas.

Channel Seven chief executive David Leckie is ecstatic to add another Aussie hit to the network’s stable:

“I have wanted to work with the Working Dog team for years and I’m happy that we waited long enough for it to be for the right show – Thank God You’re Here is a fabulous show and it will be even more fabulous on Seven.

“We see this as being the first of many shows in a long term relationship with Working Dog. They are the best in the business at what they do and that’s why they’ll fit in just perfectly at Seven.”

Those sneaky sneaky bastards at Seven. If anything was going to save Ten in 2009, was probably the off chance that Thank God was coming back. But I guess now that optimism for the network is squashed. Hey ABC, welcome to bronze!

Source: TV Tonight

The landscape of television isn’t what it was fifty years ago, so why hasn’t Australian television really evolved?

In case you weren’t aware, the internet has arrived! And yes, that means television content is no longer restricted to the tube. So why haven’t the networks here embraced the internet like many others have overseas? If you find out the answer, let me know.

In the US and UK not only can you stream all your favourite shows online the day after they air, even in HD for some networks. You can also buy them online for as little as $US1.99 or as a season pass for $US29.99 on iTunes. There are services like BBC’s iPlayer which utilises P2P technology to share video content among users. And NBC/FOX’s Hulu.com which hosts shows from multiple networks that can even be streamed straight to your television with devices like the Slingbox. Yet here in Australia, like most things, we’re left behind scratching our head wondering “what does the internet do?”

Sure some of the networks have dipped their toes in the “new-media” pond, but most of their attempts have been pretty half baked. So let’s take a look at the five free to air broadcasters and see how much or how little they’ve embraced the internet.

Starting off with the worst offender, the Seven Network. Sure they’re winning the ratings race, but their internet presence is almost negligible. The only two shows they offer free streaming episodes of are Heroes and Make Me a Supermodel, and the image quality is terrible. You’re restricted to a small video window on their website and navigating to other shows is poorly implemented. Also, where are the free streaming episodes of Packed to the Rafters, City Homicide and All Saints? You know, the Australian shows that people actually want to watch (sorry Supermodel fans)!

Seven Network online presence: 2/10

Next up is Network Ten. They were the first network to jump onto the internet tv bandwagon a few years ago, with free episodes of Supernatural on their Windows-only DRM supported video player. It was a good start, but had limited potential.

Today they’ve more or less gone all streaming video. Almost all their Australian shows are available for streaming, even a couple of US imports. Unfortunately episodes are only up for a limited time, around two weeks. It’s also let down by the poor image quality and the lack of a streamlined video infrastructure. Meaning video content is spread all over their site, rather than in one place. Launching catch-up TV for one show could be on one page in a certain video player, while another show is on a different page in a different player. It’s messy and not very user friendly. You’re also restricted to watching content on your computer.

Network Ten online presence: 4/10

The Nine Network could have been one of the best, but unfortunately at the same time are one of the worst offenders. There’s no streaming video, but they provide every single episode of their current Australian dramas for free on their website through ad supported downloads, which are even legally allowed to be shared via torrents and other P2P services (which gives them huge brownie points). The image quality is great and the inserted ads are so minimal that it’s hardly an inconvenience to sit through them.

But it’s their paid content let’s them down. They were the first and only Australian commercial broadcaster to jump onto the iTunes store with episodes of Sea Patrol, Canal Road and McLeod’s Daughters, but it’s been nearly five months since TV shows hit iTunes in Australia and still Nine have only put less than seven episodes of each of these shows on the store, leaving purchasers in the lurch for the remainder of each series. It’s almost like they’ve forgotten that they even have shows on iTunes. It’s a real shame because the iTunes buying experience is so good, its easy to use and just works. Plus you have access to all your shows on your computer, iPod and even TV with Apple TV.

Nine Network online presence: 6/10

Now we’re left with the two public broadcasters ABC and SBS. Both have made huge strides to embrace television content via the internet. They seem to be the only two broadcasters that really understand where television is heading, they both have well designed online video players and have been providing free podcasts and downloads of their shows for years. Meaning content was free to played back on iPods and other devices for viewing on your television or on the go.

The ABC iView streaming video player is probably the best internet television service in Australia. It has a well designed, streamline interface in which you have access to almost all of the ABC catalogue. No need to search around for links to other shows. It’s all there in the iView player. Plus iView is quota free if you’re with iiNet, so it wont chew through your internet bandwidth. The ABC also have a reasonable selection of shows on the iTunes store, including: Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes, The Chaser’s War On Everything and Enough Rope. Like is said before, iTunes is so easy to use and it just works. Buying shows for playback on your iPod or TV couldn’t be simpler.

SBS online presence: 8/10
ABC online presence: 9/10

There is no doubt that tradition television view-ship is falling, but with such popular (not necessarily legal) alternatives available, the networks really don’t have an excuse for playing the “no one is watching tv anymore” card. The answer is sitting there in front of them. They just need to start embracing it, because clearly the internet is the future.

What it comes down to really is having the options available. Providing legal alternatives that hopefully over time audiences will embrace equally. We need to be given the option to decided on the way we consume our content, we can’t be forced into watching shows at a certain time or in a certain place. It needs to be flexible so suit our timetables – to suit our lives. Television is only one in a number of sources of entertainment these days, so it has to adjust with the times.

We need to see more online video content that is built on well designed and easy to use infrastructure. We need to see more online video content available for purchase from places like iTunes, so that we can take our shows with us and watch tv shows on our televisions. It even wouldn’t hurt to see an online web presence which hosts content from multiple broadcasters like Hulu.com, so that people know the one place where they can easily find content.

There’s nothing worse than clearing your schedule so that you don’t miss an episode of your favourite show, only to find out that the network had bumped the show to another night. Or going online to the shows website to catch up on the episode you missed, only to discover that the episode you wanted to watch has been taken down.

When the network’s are so unreliable, not only on air, but with their “new-media” services also, it’s no wonder people just go back to their illegal downloads, at least it’s reliable and it’s not going anywhere.