Prime Revamps Cricketers’ Tour

Prime is upending its schedule to maximise viewership of its new lifestyle show, This Could Go Anywhere, in which cricket legends Phil Tufnell and Brendan McCullum tour the country.

It was meant to have aired 8.30 Wednesdays from September 30 but now will air 9.30 Wednesdays, with a stronger lead-in: the movie Men in Black will replace Tough as Nails at 7.30.

This Could Go Anywhere also will have a same-week repeat: 8.30 Sundays. This will pre-empt White House Farm from October 4, which will now complete its run 9.30 Tuesdays, starting October 13.

Prime also is adding a same week repeat of Artefact: from this weekend, it will re-run 9.00 Saturdays, pushing back the re-run of Bull to 10.00 and of NXT to 11.00.

White House Farm started its six-week run on Sunday, when it averaged a shockingly low 0.2% of Prime’s 25-54 viewership, compared to 1.2% for lead-in Outback Truckers.

That was even lower than the previous week’s re-run of The 2000s (0.7%). Moreover, The 2000s had a 3.2% share of 25-54s whereas Farm’s was merely 1.0% (compared to 6.6% for Truckers).

Tough as Nails also has been rating poorly, with last week’s episode averaging fewer 25-54 viewers (0.7%) than lead-in The Crowd Goes Wild and lead-out Living with Tourette’s.

So with these scheduling upheavals, Prime hopes to turn Anywhere into a hit while relegating rating flops to later, less vulnerable slots (no word yet on when Tough as Nails or Weediquette, which has been airing 9.30 Wednesdays, will return).