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Why Channel 9 axed McLeod's |
| Posted by LynKel (lynkel) on Dec 09 2007 |
CHANNEL 9 has finally broken its silence on why local drama McLeod's Daughters was axed, citing commercial realities and a wish for the show to "go out on a high".
Head of drama Jo Horsburgh said the network did not want to see the long-running show drizzle out.
"If the commercial realities were really compelling then you wouldn't (end it)," she said. "It was doing well, but in terms of how it would perhaps be sitting in the ratings long-term, what we wanted to do was preserve McLeod's so that the last series had some strength to it."
The network announced on November 20 that season eight, being filmed near Gawler, would be the last.
Ms Horsburgh said the decision to end the farm-based drama was made in the month leading up to the announcement, with an analytical process of meetings and discussions with producers Posie Graeme-Evans and Karl Zwicky.
"You take in the ratings performance and you take in production costs, where the storylines and characters can go from here to there; you go into a sense of how you want to control a finale," she said.
The network weighed up "the climate, the audience appetite, the competition, the whole context of where the program was sitting . . . and you come to a decision," she said. "There was no mystery in it."
Ms Horsburgh said because production on season eight started before the show was axed, script writers were now in the process of re-writing the ending.
"We're going back to the quintessential McLeod's and going back to that heartland . . . it feels like it's a fitting series to call the end," she said.
"What we're looking forward to is going out with a bang, and the last couple of episodes we're looking at a real piece of event TV to the extent we've got extra time to film them and everything."
Contrary to rumours, Ms Horsburgh said the success of its timeslot replacement at the end of season seven – The Farmer Wants a Wife – had nothing at all to do with its axing.
"The process and discussions to do with McLeod's were already well under way, if not already made," she said.
She said in no way was the axing of McLeod's Daughters a beginning of a decline in Australian drama, with Channel 9 remaining committed to its other dramas, Sea Patrol II, Canal Road, Underbelly, Scorched and a new crime drama coming out of development called The Strip. She said a remake of Young Doctors was also in development.
"The audience now has a stronger appetite for Australian drama, Australian voices and Australian stories across the board," she said. "But just not an appetite for the characters on Drover's Run.
"All shows have their day . . . that's natural and the way it should be."
The final McLeod's Daughters series will screen early next year.
source: Adelaide Now
Last changed: Dec 10 2007 at 7:43 AM
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