The Price Is Right returns: the Brisbane impact.

If you are reading this now, Seven is definitely looking to change the 5-6 lineup nationwide.


Seven is seriously looking at the Price Is Right to air in the 5pm slot to aid Deal or No Deal. Due to this move, Seven QLD will likely have Today Tonight at 4:30, in lieu of 4:30 news, and most critically, a big thumb in the nose to hopes for a fresh breath of air at 5:30 in the south-east corner of QLD. But we can stand up Queensland and make our intentions known. Viewers in Queensland are sick of Deal, and viewers in Brisbane are sick of Seven lying to us like they have done for over a decade, on local content outside weekends. Hell, even your promos are lying to us. Seven, you may like to claim that "Brisbane is our city", but the viewers of this city, of this state, want to see that statement backed up with action on increasing the amount of local content produced in this state. It has been nearly three long years since the Extra axing, and twelve long years since Local Edition's demise. I hope we all can stand up and tell Seven what we really think.

20 years of hell at half past five...

Rick Burnett, first host of Brisbane Extra.

"Hello, and welcome to Brisbane Extra. Each weekday at this time, we will be giving you a closer look at life in Brisbane, the things that annoy us, or make us smile."
Rick Burnett intro, on the very first edition of Brisbane Extra in February 1992.

From this small beginning in 1992, this is a tale of Seven's...

I wonder, how people will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Extra premiere this year. I'm choosing to mark it, with a post, looking at it from a angle one never thought of. The angle, I'm talking about, is from the problems rival channels have had in that slot since 1992: those people who sat stunned, as Extra outrated their news lead-ins (or in the case of one, their news, that had only just moved to 5pm), to the chagrin of interstate news bosses and programmers alike. It's also, a story of how Extra's success, led to the introduction of Gold Coast local news at 5:30 on Nine, and how it survived. It's a flashback, Seven won't bother running on a Sunday night, as it's full of too many bad memories... for this is a tale, of twenty years of Extra, from the other side of Mt Coot-tha, through the eyes of the network, who suffered the most.

The 2012 Vision: the explanation...

Happy new year, and welcome to our 4th birthday, at Kuttsywood's Couch. The gift? The return of a regular longform blogging series, for the first time in two years, starting in February, called: "The 2012 Vision". What is "The 2012 Vision", you may ask: read on, to see the upcoming highlights (our preview reel if you will) for the beginning of 2012...

What Seven needs at 5:30 and beyond...

Seven Brisbane has lost every week in ratings in 2010 at 5:30, along with losing the year in primary and network shares. Although they continue to lead at 6, the 5:30 slot has gone from a cashcow to poison in the eighteen months, since the Extra axing, with bucketloads of Brisbanites, treating Seven poorly, sending the once joint leader, down to third in the 5:30 slot, and repeating Local Edition's feat, of placing third out of the commercial networks in the 5-6 hour during the latter half of 2010. But there is one solution, that Seven are too silly to try, yet it is the easy way out. I can think of other things Seven can spend money on (and making advertisers shudder after recent runs of poor ratings, as well as losing 5:30 to Nine), other than propping up a national gameshow, that has been given up on by Brisbane viewers, and is being haunted by the bad memories of past local efforts.
I'm just about to show you a few of them.

Kuttsy's Pitch: Reviving 5:30 localism for 7.

Hard to believe, that Kuttsy's Pitch, has come back for a second post. Well, after the first post in October 2009, written in the middle of a rough patch for Deal in Brisbane, (which was eclipsed, earlier this year with a 68 day losing streak to start 2010 for Deal or No Deal in Brisbane, as well as losing 2010, with Hot Seat/GC News conquering 5:30, without a week lost to Deal so far this year) got some eyes, why not do another? I also have considered revisiting Local Edition once again (this time placing it in a 2010 marketplace, and not making mistakes that led to the original program's demise). And suddenly, it fused. Why not pitch the idea of a weekday 5:30 program (a theoretical one for 7, might I add) and focus on one idea from start to end: The idea being simply, Brisbane Afternoons.

Local Edition: Why Seven should keep their word.

2010, for many people is a momentous occasion, end of the noughties etc.

For some, recent events have tried to rewrite history, but only have been really a revisiting of the past...

Let us take a flashback, that I believe Seven Brisbane is afraid to run on Sunday night's news, a... Local Edition flashback.