A new home for Home and Away?
Australia’s The Daily Telegraph reports that Seven is contemplating bringing current affairs Today Tonight back to the east coast as part of a revamp of its 6:30pm – 7:30pm timeslot.
Craig McPherson, the former Executive Producer of Today Tonight, has been coaxed back to Seven from rival network Nine, and is believed to be ‘weighing up the merits’ of bringing back the show, which still airs in Adelaide and Perth but was axed from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane schedules back in January 2014.
7TWO is Network Seven’s second channel, and launched in 2009
If true, the new show would bump Home and Away from its coveted 7pm slot, leaving it in search of a new home. Although unconfirmed, The Daily Telegraph’s sources state that Seven may be considering moving the show to one of Seven’s secondary channels, possibly 7TWO.
The newspaper reports that Seven insiders have stressed that Home and Away is “important to the network and still delivered 1.2 million to 1.3 million viewers in combined metropolitan and regional markets each night”, as well as being seen by hundreds of thousands more viewings once recordings and live streaming is taken into account. However, the insiders have not yet discounted the rumours of a move to a different channel.
Neighbours suffered a similar fate in 2011. After almost 26 years on primary Network Ten, the rival soap moved to Eleven after a drop in viewing figures.
What do you think of the proposed schedule change? H&A to move to 7TWO?.