The 9pm timeslot is Morgan’s no more.
Sky News Australia has seemingly bumped Piers Morgan Uncensored for the local offering of The World According to Rowan Dean.
According to Foxtel’s TV Guide for tonight, Rowan Dean’s program will continue to air in the 9pm timeslot, while Piers Morgan’s global show moves later in the evening, to 10:30pm.
It was initially understood that Dean’s new show was serving as a temporary replacement in Morgan’s 9pm timeslot, while the former Good Morning Britain anchor was taking a few weeks’ long summer break.
But with Morgan back behind the desk as of tonight, Sky News hasn’t chosen to restore his show to its original timeslot.
Despite Jeremy Kyle filling-in for Morgan in other global markets, Sky News Australia made the quiet decision to introduce the new Rowan Dean show.
Speculation was rife online that Dean’s program would serve as a permanent replacement for Morgan, and that the debut of his show in the 9pm timeslot for a few weeks was considered a ‘trial run’.
If that’s the case, executives have clearly elected to give Dean the prime timeslot, perhaps because the ratings for The World According to Rowan Dean were considerably higher than Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Before his break, ratings for Morgan’s talk show reportedly averaged just 18,000 viewers in Australia.
In comparison, the latest episode of Dean’s program, which aired Wednesday, August 31st, achieved an overnight audience of 31,000 subscription viewers nationally.
That’s despite a multi-million dollar advertising campaign for Morgan’s global show, which only launched in late April.
For the premiere episode, a national audience (pay-tv and free-to-air) of 143,000 tuned in, and it ranked as the number one program for Foxtel on the night.
But the audience quickly dropped off.
Neither Morgan’s Uncensored nor Dean’s The World According to shows are advertised on Sky News Australia’s ‘Programs’ tab.
Instead, hosts Paul Murray, Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt, Rita Panahi, Erin Molan, Chris Kenny and more have their talk shows advertised.
When approached for comment, a Sky News Australia spokesperson confirmed that the channel’s Tuesday-Friday lineup would consist of The World According to Rowan Dean at 9pm, and Piers Morgan Uncensored at 10:30pm, in order to “further bolster” its “late-night line-up”.
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Rowan Dean is a much better show than poor ol’ Piers Morgan. I mean, Morgan is ok, but Dean does a much better job. The funny thing is “The World According to Rowan Dean” was obviously inspired by Morgan’s show, but it’s a much better version of Morgan’s idea.
Maybe the 10.30pm slot will be better for Piers’ ratings. I guess we’ll see. A shame Alan Jones had to be bumped to accommodate Morgs.