The View

The Age

Thursday November 13, 2008

debi enker

WHAT a sad sight the once aggressively dominant Nine Network has become. Owned by a faceless Asia-based finance company, and effectively disowned by the Packer family that has for generations been associated with it, Nine is a pale shadow of its former self. The decline isn't only evident in the behind-the-scenes cost-cutting and axings: it's been manifest on screen.

Apart from the odd winner - such as Underbelly, nationally if not locally - Nine has survived this year on the back of Gordon Ramsay's grandstanding, the lame US comedy Two and a Half Men, and an apparently bottomless pit of CSI episodes.

This suggests either a failure of imagination or insufficient resources to finance better options. The bean counters have been instituting a regime where cheap and nasty reigns. So the network has served up rubbish such as Wipeout, Moment of Truth, Power of 10 and Hole in the Wall.

Nine seems light-years away from the regular ratings winner with a stable of stars, a dominant news and current affairs line-up, and reliably popular programs that set standards in their genres.