New Zealand’s Got Talent

It’s amazing, isn’t it, that a show in its 8th season can draw its largest audience yet while our local version fails and gets canceled for a second time.

The opening show of the eighth season of Simon Cowell’s “Britain’s Got Talent” attracted a record launch audience of more than 11 million viewers on Saturday.

The talent show began with 11.1 million viewers, a 47.3% share of the audience, between 8 p.m. and 9.15 p.m., with a five-minute peak audience of 12.3 million. Continue reading »

Our local version has been dumped, again, but Simon Cowell’s Got Talent franchise has set a Guinness Record for the world’s most successful reality TV format.

The Got Talent franchise on Monday officially entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the globe’s most successful reality TV format.

Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment and FremantleMedia said the official record book keeper has verified the show’s number one ranking.

The format, created by Cowell, first launched as Britain’s Got Talent in 2007 and has subsequently been adapted for broadcast in 58 countries, the producers said. Continue reading »

New Zealand’s Got Talent and Mitre10 Dream Home have been dropped by TVNZ in favour of new multi-night format shows.  This news comes on the back of announcements from TVNZ that My Kitchen Rules is getting a New Zealand version which, if as the statement suggests, will be at least two nights per week, or more.

Australia has developed strong series like Masterchef Australia and My Kitchen Rules as multi-night formats which have delivered ratings boosts for their prospective broadcasters and the successes are finally starting to gain traction here.  With The Block working well for Mediaworks, it was only a matter of time before TVNZ jumped on the bandwagon and began producing more of their own multi-night shows. Continue reading »

via twitter: @ahmadnz

2013 wasn’t really too bad of a year for television.  If anything, free to air broadcasters have struggled the most with much of the new drama content, particularly out of the US, being substandard to the likes of what the cable channels and digital networks are providing.  In any case, here are ten things that didn’t do it for me in 2013.

# 3rd Degree
Where do I begin. Continue reading »

You would think that with the show over there would be nothing more to say about New Zealand’s Got Talent.  Unfortunately, there is not.  On Saturday I received an email from one of the contestants who was “deeply hurt and very upset” about the comments I’d made about their singing on the talent show.  What I wrote was:

Paula Bisphan is appalling.

That was it.  She was.  Like many of the unrealistic wannabes who present their vocals as talent to the world to be judged.  There was little context around her as far as I can recall and like many of the auditionees, I moved on fairly quickly in the search for something worth getting excited about.  However, it appears as though Bispahn is perhaps disappointed that she didn’t get to play her sympathy card like many of the others on NZGT who unfairly snuck through to the next round.

She writes:

I was deeply hurt and very upset about the comments you published Regan about my singing act on Nzs Got talent. It wasn’t my best day when I auditioned as tragically my precious son died the day before my audition from acute cardiac failure. and the nzs got talent staff only found out after I had ,my husband told them and they commended me on my bravery and sent me flowers from the judges and whole crew which I was amazed by their kindness. So please apologise to me and you should not write scathing comments about me when you don’t know the heartache and pain  that I was experiencing that day of my audition. Continue reading »

In 2012, New Zealand’s Got Talent was the highest rating show of the year and the biggest series in the last decade so 2013 was shaping up exactly to be as was promised by TVNZ, bigger and better.  The reality, though, has been rather different.

To begin with, the grand finale saw more than a quarter of a million viewers abandon the series compared to last year with the average audience down 27%.

Continue reading »

Last nights win by Renee Maurice on New Zealand’s Got Talent was a bit anticlimactic.  After failing to make the finals on TV3′s The X Factor New Zealand earlier in the year, for obvious reasons, Maurice then tried out for the show that was more suited to her.  She then went on to win the public vote and walk away with the $100,000 prize and car.

It’s not the first time a contestant has appeared on two shows.  Most recently has been Taylor Henderson in Australia who was the runner up on Australia’s Got Talent in 2010 and then this year, came runner up on The X Factor Australia.  The only difference is that Henderson didn’t enjoy $3.2 million in public funding for his exposure. Continue reading »

Tonight’s grand finale finale of New Zealand’s Got Talent was going to be a sponsor fueled celebration of product placement so rather than watch the show live, I started a bit later so I could fast forward through the ads.  It was a great idea until the end.

In Australia, the TV networks are pretty ruthless when it comes to programming and are renown for extending episodes and having them run over time to entice viewers to stick with the channel rather than flip over to watch something else somewhere else.  However, this has a side affect for anyone using a PVR to record the show and watch later.

PVR’s tend to record programs based on their schedules as per the EPG data.  When a show goes over, even with a bit of extended time, sometimes these extra minutes get cut off, as was the case tonight.  The announcement that Renee won made it but I never got to the part where she had the chance to respond to winning. Continue reading »

Finally. New Zealand’s Got Talent comes to an end tonight. Possibly for good unless TVNZ can prove it is actually commercially viable.

The final result announcement was unsurprising. I suspected Renee Maurice and Silhouette would be in the final three and Gore country singer, Jenny Mitchell, being there as well wasn’t surprising either.

There’s an hour of advertising tonight interspersed with a couple of performances before we find out who actually won. Continue reading »