TV audiences are being sucked in by networks as they drop heavily promoted shows after just a few episodes, leaving fans in the lurch as the TV bosses rake in ad revenue.
This year the three main free-to-air channels have been chopping and changing program line-ups faster than ever before, frustrating viewers as they turn on their TV to find the shows listed in the TV guide are suddenly MIA.
While Seven dropped big budget US shows Ugly Betty, Prison Break and Lost throughout the year, the latest victims of this trend have been new local produce.
Channel 10 bumped Australian programs Bondi Rescue: Bali and Kenny's World from the Wednesday night programme due to soft ratings.
Both documentary-style shows were flicked from the 7:30pm-8:30pm slot after just a few weeks airing averaged just 650,000 national viewers a week.
Jamie Oliver's latest venture Jamie's Ministry of Food took their place but pulled an audience of only 764,000, a negligible improvement.
Media analyst Steve Allen told News Ltd the high turnover rate of shows is driven by the $4 billion a year spent on TV advertising.
"It has been much worse this year than ever before."
"There has been a higher than normal failure of shows rate this year."
Channel Seven programmer Tim Worner said it was question of striking balance between viewers and advertisers, with Networks forced to drop poor performing shows or risk losing revenue.
"The aim of our game is to try to please most of the people most of the time and it's a very tricky equation."
Ten said its Australian shops were dumped because their poor performance was also having a negative effect on the following slot, the new series of House, which had lost more than half it's peak audience due to the flagging preceding programs.
