Network Ten has used tonight’s Upfronts to announce four of its Pilot Week shows will be making their way onto screens as full series in 2019. The four shows will be Taboo, Kinne Tonight, Trial By Kyle and Bring Back Saturday Night.
Network 10 chief content officer Beverley McGarvey said: “We had a great time bringing new programming ideas to our audiences and were very happy with the overall response through live audience numbers, 10 Play and social media.
“We listened to feedback and combined this with range of other measures from timeslot to demographic performance before deciding which programs we would commission to a full series.
“Taboo, Kinne Tonight, Trial By Kyle and Bring Back Saturday Night will air on 10 in 2019 as full series, representing a serious investment in unique and local production. These shows complement our fantastic slate of programming for 2019 and cement 10’s role as the innovator, and sometimes wild child, of Australian commercial TV.”
Network Ten brought the unique and innovative concept of Pilot Week to Australian television audiences in August this year. Pilot Week premiered eight original and provocative pilots of domestically-produced television programs, across a number of different genres, broadcast in prime time across one week.
McGarvey continued: “With Pilot Week, we opened up the later evening and Saturday night timeslots to new programming formats and were able to gauge how audiences engage with these formats at these times.
“Some of our hit shows like Have You Been Paying Attention? and Gogglebox prove that audiences are happy to continue watching premium, engaging content later in the evening. The new Pilot Week series will help us deliver consistent programming audiences across prime time, throughout the week.”
Pilot Week will be returning in 2019, with Ten now open for ideas.
