TV in 2013 – what will sink and what will make a splash?

Before TV shifts into gear this year we take a quick look at the offshore performane of a selection of the overseas shows and formats that are set to grace our screens.

Seven – Celebrity Splash

Seven, the home of Dancing with the Stars, will ask celebrities to take the plunge on its latest and much-hyped take on reality television, Celebrity Splash.

The program incited a social media backlash and prompted critics to unsheathe their claws after it made its debut in the UK on Saturday night.

Despite the backlash the show’s first episode has been described as a ratings winner after 5.5 million people tuned in. The program also achieved a peak audience of 6.3 million.

But the result did not stop the Daily Mail from asking if celebrity diving is TV’s “biggest belly-flop”. The same paper also said the show was “so bad it was good”.

Seven’s version is set to air later this year but the network has not yet announced who the celebrity contestants will be.

Nine – Parade’s End

Described as Nine’s answer to Seven’s Downton Abbey the show, which has been running in the UK since August, is in the opposite position to Celebrity Splash.

While reviews from critics were glowing, viewers quickly started to tune out of the drama.

The first outing of Parade’s End achieved a seven-year high for the BBC2 with a debut audience of 3.5 million.

The result helped the BBC2 double its normal share of all viewers to 15%, The Telegraph reported.

But more than one million people were turned off by the first episode with the drama’s second installment pulling in 2.2 million viewers.

The five part adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s novels continued to lose traction and it closed with a deflated audience of 1.8 million viewers.

Time will tell if “the thinking person’s Downton Abbey” will warm up Australian audiences with the program still marked as “coming soon” by Nine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHd4Ie-Q3ng

Ten – Elementary

The new modern day take on Sherlock Holmes performed well when it premiered with 13.3 million viewers in the US back in September.

America’s AdWeek labeled the result a “decisive ratings victory”. The crime drama, featuring Lucy Liu of Charlie’s Angels fame and Jonny Lee Miller, has continued its strong performance into the new year.

On January 3, episode 11 and the return of the first series pulled 11.4 million viewers.

Ten is yet to announce when the show will start locally but has started to promote the program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h1sH0UDL1Y

Ten – MasterChef: The Professionals 

Ten’s cooking franchise has been revamped for the New Year with MasterChef: The Professionals to be trotted out as the first MasterChef installment of 2013. The new-take on the program, which pits 18 seasoned chefs against one another, will be aired ahead of the show’s four-year old format which will come later in the year.

The UK version of the show wrapped up in December with an audience of 3.8 million viewers.

However viewers were left with a bad taste in their mouths after the judges made the controversial, and history-making, decision to award two winners of MasterChef.

Disgruntled fans took to Twitter to vent their frustration, according to the Daily Mail.

On Twitter one viewer said: “If I’d wanted to watch something for days on end that resulted in a draw, I would’ve watched cricket.”

Hopefully chef Marco Pierre White and fellow host Matt Preston will be more discerning.

Ten has been heavily promoting the new season and the fact it features White, “the chef who made Gordon Ramsay cry”.

Seven – Last Resort

Seven will not be able to prop up their scheduling for years to come with this import as reports from the US claim the ABC has cancelled the underperforming show.

The premiere of Last Resort had 9 million viewers but that figure has dropped to 4.94 million by its 10^th and most recent episode.

News of the ABC’s cancellation of the show surfaced in November but the network will allow all 13 episodes to run with the next scheduled for January 10. The program is due to conclude on January 24.

Nine – Arrow

Arrow has been described as a “break out hit” for American network The CW as the premiere of the superhero drama pulled in 4.14 million viewers.

The CW has since ordered a full – 22 episdoe strong – season of the show.

The most recent chapter of Arrow had 3.11 million US viewers.

Nine – The Great Australian Bake Off

Bake Off is another British franchise to be imported into Aus this year and will mark Nine’s break into the foodies war which has emerged between Seven’s My Kitchen Rules and Ten’s long-running MasterChef.

The baking program is a strong ratings contender if the UK ratings are anything to go by as the final episode of series three of Great British Bake Off averaged 6.5 million viewers in October.

Nine will also broadcast another food-friendly program with The Taste. The American show, featuring kitchen glamour puss Nigella Lawson, has been slated for a January 22 release in America. It is not clear if Nine will fast-track the upcoming reality bite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMu7uCCbsLg

Ten – Ripper Street

Ten’s answer to the period drama gap in its schedule is the BBC and BBC America’s Ripper Street.

The crime drama is set in London’s East End in 1889 and follows the infamous Jack The Ripper murders.

The drama is due to premiere in the US on January 19^th. In Britain the show kicked off with an audience of 7.89 million while its second and most recent episode pulled 5.4 million.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRDriJjr-l8

Which of these shows will you tune into? Let us know what looked good to you by leaving a comment in the form below.