Primetime Loses its Voice, Soap Slips Into New Slot

TV2 is dumping The Voice from primetime and is soon to trial Home and Away in Shortland Street’s 7pm slot.

TV2 announced today that the Aussie serial would succeed Shortland Street from December 12, when the latter takes its summer break.

Home and Away also will be off over the Christmas/New Year period but TV2 will test its pulling power in a plum slot for a couple of weeks first.

The network was going to air an hour-long episode of The Voice at 7pm on December 12 before stripping repeats of The Big Bang Theory from the 15th.

But it’s been forced to relegate The Voice to off-peak after weeks of diminishing ratings.

Programmers made the decision this morning after seeing the weekend ratings: Friday’s show averaged 4.3% – 6.0% of the key demographics and Saturday’s a disastrous 1.5% – 2.5%.

If Home and Away performs well in its new slot in the short term, chances are it will shift to 6pm next year as a stronger alternative to the other networks’ news bulletins than looped repeats of Friends.

It may even take over Neighbours’ 6.30 slot, in which case the longer-running Aussie soap probably would assume the 6pm mantle.

Home and Away is typically more popular than its stablemates and could help to strengthen TV2’s early evening line-up, which has seen even warhorse Shortland Street slip of late in the ratings.

Meanwhile, re-runs of My Wife and Kids will air 5.30 weeknights and the start of the HD movie 2012 has been pushed forward to 7.30 on December 12, followed by House of Wax at 10.40.