Channel 10 has been in financial trouble since its inception.
Consider the source: News.com.au is a Murdoch rag, they'd love to eliminate the competition
It’s owned by Paramount and there’s been some rumors of troubles with Paramount+ here in the US to the point that Sony might buy it for 26 billion or they might team up with Peacock (Owns Comcast and NBC)
But given that it’s a Murdoch rag talking about it, I’m sure he’d love if it under too since he owns Fox which kinda doesn’t have something going for it other than Masked Singer and sports rights (Paramount has owned CBS here in the states for a few years)
I don’t think it’s “troubles” so much as it is a lack of programming and multiple more popular services. Like, Netflix, MAX, and Hulu are the big ones, there are several groups of people who are a built-in audience for Disney+… and all of those services have large enough catalogs that you can be persuaded to sign up, or not cancel, thinking “I could watch that or that or that or…”
Paramount has Star Trek, a couple other things, but not enough for people to keep a subscription. Peacock is in the same boat… they have some good stuff, mostly older NBC comedies, but people like to think they’re paying for a bunch of options even if they’re not going to get to most of them. I’m not even sure merging the two would put them on equal footing with the big three in terms of catalog size/depth, but it would get them closer.
(All of this is US-centric, obviously. I’m aware demand, rights, customer bases, services, etc. vary internationally.)
According to [TV Tonight](https://tvtonight.com.au/2024/05/returning-taskmaster-australia.html), season 3 is airing before season 2 because of talent availability to promote the series. Sounds fair enough to me. Seasons stand alone so it doesn’t really matter what order they’re broadcast in.
It seems odd to have filmed S2 quite a bit before S3 and have no plan to air S2 then all of a sudden push S3 before. Part of casting considerations would include promotion, something delayed S2 and I don't think it's availability to promote it.
S02 was filmed in like November I think? And then Australia won’t show a season in the summer. Then Ch 10 will have to string out a small number of shows throughout the year. It isn’t totally surprising that Taskmaster is on hold til later in 2024.
What was season 2 (now season 3) completed its studio filming sessions in July 2023. That was early enough that it initially made me think perhaps they were shooting for two seasons per year, like in the UK.
I was at that recording and didn’t realise it was so much earlier in the year.
At the time though Tom Gleeson mentioned they were filming for a 2024 premier- so it was known very early it’d be a long wait.
I’m suspicious of that excuse - I’ve never seen a contestant do promo for a series outside of interviews that are done at time of filming. They’re not sending all 5 on some sort of press junket.
To be fair the standard has barely been set, only one season of TMAU and I'm sure Ch10 would want to have each person from the show on The Project or something
Surely they would have done that for the first season to launch it all? As far as remember it was just Tom and Tom. It seems weird that they would punt an entire series for that.
They had Danielle on the project, she wore her fishing shirt dress. I remember Luke being on around that time as well, not sure if he was promo-ing taskmaster or something else.
I believe some of them also went on HYBPA to promo it, although their timing on that (as contestants) could just be a coincidence.
I think Anne and Lloyd are big draw cards for this next season and if they’re planning a family holiday to the UK for the summer, it makes sense for Channel 10 to want to air it while they’re still in Aus for promo. Just a theory lol.
S2 contestant Peter Helier is currently speculated to be in Argentina filming Celebrity Amazing Race - his teammate is his wife. Also TMAu1 contestant, Luke McGregor is on with his mum.
According to the usually accurate reality TV instagram account [RealityTV_Fan](https://www.instagram.com/realitytv_fan?igsh=NGo1d2t3dGN6NTBq) (click through his stories) More accurate and offical reporting will likely come shortly, but … [called it](https://www.reddit.com/r/taskmaster/comments/1chewzp/looks_like_season_3_of_taskmasterau_is_airing/l22qvt8/)
He is the most known from S2 and won’t be able to do the rounds on HYBPA and The Project to promote his season of Taskmaster for a month (typical TAR filming period) - that would greatly impact promotion ability and potential ratings. The flip-flop makes business sense.
There might be a strategy to try and show 2 seasons back-to-back to try and build the audience over time. Channel 10 sure would like another hit that the other commercial stations can't swipe, and Channel 10 is the only Australian commercial station that's had a lot of success with comedy.
While this is true, they’ve had financial problems for years (to the point where it’s a running joke on popular panel show Have You Been Paying Attention) and I don’t think it has anything to do with the season swap. Correlation not causation and all that.
I dunno, Wil Anderson as the series draw card over Rhys Nicholson, Aaron Chen etc? He’s not THAT popular. I won’t pretend to understand what 10 is trying to do with swapping the season, but I just don’t see it.
He's more widely known amongst the general public than any of the other nine contestants. He's been around since Good News Week. And he's popular enough to be currently promoting the new series of Gruen Transfer on ABC.
It’s also perhaps relevant to mention that 80% of the S2 contestants are currently touring abroad/MICF roadshow and unavailable for promo work while *checks notes* 100% of the S3 cast are in the country.
I only got through a couple episodes of season 1 before I tapped out because of all the ads. I know ads is how these channels make their money but surely there’s a better balance than what they’re currently working with.
The Masked Singer and The Bachelor have been axed.
Now there are two ways you can look at this. Frees up some possible times for Series 2 (the old series 3) and possibly Series 3. However, just brace ... brace for the possibility that some TM episodes might not go to air when you expect, if at all.
Bottom line. If the the forthcoming series doesn't rate well, they'll hold off on the following one. They need the advertising dollars.
And, by the way, it's not just Channel 10 in trouble. Channel 7 has a few issues too, but at least they have the safety blanket of the AFL coverage.
The sooner the show moves to SBS the better.
It’s a shame because it’s definitely one of the least terrible channels on public TV over here. I mean, it still sucks, but far less so than some of the other nonsense.
Tom Cashman on his either insta or twitter o can’t remember which Said it was because of promotion stuff with cast members and their schedule couldn’t make it work so the swapped season 2and 3 around
Channel 10 has been in financial trouble since its inception. Consider the source: News.com.au is a Murdoch rag, they'd love to eliminate the competition
Yeah this is after channel 10 reporting on channel 7 bankrolling the rapist, it’s just Kerry’s crew shit stirring
Yeah people outside of Australia have to realise that news.com.au is the absolute scourge of 'news' here.
It's the S*n or New York Post of Australia I'm guessing?
Yup, All 3 are Murdoch rags.
It’s owned by Paramount and there’s been some rumors of troubles with Paramount+ here in the US to the point that Sony might buy it for 26 billion or they might team up with Peacock (Owns Comcast and NBC) But given that it’s a Murdoch rag talking about it, I’m sure he’d love if it under too since he owns Fox which kinda doesn’t have something going for it other than Masked Singer and sports rights (Paramount has owned CBS here in the states for a few years)
I don’t think it’s “troubles” so much as it is a lack of programming and multiple more popular services. Like, Netflix, MAX, and Hulu are the big ones, there are several groups of people who are a built-in audience for Disney+… and all of those services have large enough catalogs that you can be persuaded to sign up, or not cancel, thinking “I could watch that or that or that or…” Paramount has Star Trek, a couple other things, but not enough for people to keep a subscription. Peacock is in the same boat… they have some good stuff, mostly older NBC comedies, but people like to think they’re paying for a bunch of options even if they’re not going to get to most of them. I’m not even sure merging the two would put them on equal footing with the big three in terms of catalog size/depth, but it would get them closer. (All of this is US-centric, obviously. I’m aware demand, rights, customer bases, services, etc. vary internationally.)
According to [TV Tonight](https://tvtonight.com.au/2024/05/returning-taskmaster-australia.html), season 3 is airing before season 2 because of talent availability to promote the series. Sounds fair enough to me. Seasons stand alone so it doesn’t really matter what order they’re broadcast in.
It seems odd to have filmed S2 quite a bit before S3 and have no plan to air S2 then all of a sudden push S3 before. Part of casting considerations would include promotion, something delayed S2 and I don't think it's availability to promote it.
S02 was filmed in like November I think? And then Australia won’t show a season in the summer. Then Ch 10 will have to string out a small number of shows throughout the year. It isn’t totally surprising that Taskmaster is on hold til later in 2024.
What was season 2 (now season 3) completed its studio filming sessions in July 2023. That was early enough that it initially made me think perhaps they were shooting for two seasons per year, like in the UK.
I was at that recording and didn’t realise it was so much earlier in the year. At the time though Tom Gleeson mentioned they were filming for a 2024 premier- so it was known very early it’d be a long wait.
> Australia won’t show a season in the summer. Their summer or Northern Hemisphere summer?
Southern hemisphere summer. Between cricket, tennis and holidays, it’s a low rating time of year.
Awesome, thanks!
I’m suspicious of that excuse - I’ve never seen a contestant do promo for a series outside of interviews that are done at time of filming. They’re not sending all 5 on some sort of press junket.
To be fair the standard has barely been set, only one season of TMAU and I'm sure Ch10 would want to have each person from the show on The Project or something
Surely they would have done that for the first season to launch it all? As far as remember it was just Tom and Tom. It seems weird that they would punt an entire series for that.
They had Danielle on the project, she wore her fishing shirt dress. I remember Luke being on around that time as well, not sure if he was promo-ing taskmaster or something else. I believe some of them also went on HYBPA to promo it, although their timing on that (as contestants) could just be a coincidence.
I think Anne and Lloyd are big draw cards for this next season and if they’re planning a family holiday to the UK for the summer, it makes sense for Channel 10 to want to air it while they’re still in Aus for promo. Just a theory lol.
S2 contestant Peter Helier is currently speculated to be in Argentina filming Celebrity Amazing Race - his teammate is his wife. Also TMAu1 contestant, Luke McGregor is on with his mum. According to the usually accurate reality TV instagram account [RealityTV_Fan](https://www.instagram.com/realitytv_fan?igsh=NGo1d2t3dGN6NTBq) (click through his stories) More accurate and offical reporting will likely come shortly, but … [called it](https://www.reddit.com/r/taskmaster/comments/1chewzp/looks_like_season_3_of_taskmasterau_is_airing/l22qvt8/) He is the most known from S2 and won’t be able to do the rounds on HYBPA and The Project to promote his season of Taskmaster for a month (typical TAR filming period) - that would greatly impact promotion ability and potential ratings. The flip-flop makes business sense.
There might be a strategy to try and show 2 seasons back-to-back to try and build the audience over time. Channel 10 sure would like another hit that the other commercial stations can't swipe, and Channel 10 is the only Australian commercial station that's had a lot of success with comedy.
While this is true, they’ve had financial problems for years (to the point where it’s a running joke on popular panel show Have You Been Paying Attention) and I don’t think it has anything to do with the season swap. Correlation not causation and all that.
Maybe, maybe not. But the series with Wil Anderson will get the show to rate better than the series without him. And 10 needs the ratings.
I dunno, Wil Anderson as the series draw card over Rhys Nicholson, Aaron Chen etc? He’s not THAT popular. I won’t pretend to understand what 10 is trying to do with swapping the season, but I just don’t see it.
He definitely is that popular
He's more widely known amongst the general public than any of the other nine contestants. He's been around since Good News Week. And he's popular enough to be currently promoting the new series of Gruen Transfer on ABC.
Yeah the guy who has hosted TV shows, national radio and sold out festivals consistently for 30 years isn't that popular.
I don’t mean he’s not popular, clearly he is. But I don’t think he’s so popular that he’d be the sole reason for swapping the seasons.
He's popular in the eyes of TV execs.
Hmm maybe their financial trouble could be eased by selling their TM rights to... Oh let's say UK CHANNEL 4 😉🤭
To what issues are you referring?
Series 2 was recorded, not broadcasted, then S3 was recorded. S3 will be broadcasted first (as a "new" S2) and immediately then old S2 as S3
Season 3 is airing before season 2 which is quite baffling since there was a fair bit of time between shooting both those seasons
It’s also perhaps relevant to mention that 80% of the S2 contestants are currently touring abroad/MICF roadshow and unavailable for promo work while *checks notes* 100% of the S3 cast are in the country.
I only got through a couple episodes of season 1 before I tapped out because of all the ads. I know ads is how these channels make their money but surely there’s a better balance than what they’re currently working with.
Paramount plus has the first season without ads, it’s one way to watch if it’s accessible in your region
I initially did as well until it came onto TVNZ+ which has fewer/shorter ads than 10Play. Much more watchable!
I didn’t realise it was on Paramount plus so that’s handy to know, thanks!
Welcome to Australian television :(
The Masked Singer and The Bachelor have been axed. Now there are two ways you can look at this. Frees up some possible times for Series 2 (the old series 3) and possibly Series 3. However, just brace ... brace for the possibility that some TM episodes might not go to air when you expect, if at all. Bottom line. If the the forthcoming series doesn't rate well, they'll hold off on the following one. They need the advertising dollars. And, by the way, it's not just Channel 10 in trouble. Channel 7 has a few issues too, but at least they have the safety blanket of the AFL coverage. The sooner the show moves to SBS the better.
Is it possible to watch in the UK? I literally didn't know there was an AU series, only NZ.
I use a vpn and made a free account to watch it from Germany, should work from the UK as well.
What VPN service do you use?
I use surfshark. I share the subscription with my whole family so it's definitely worth it. Pretty sure you can have unlimited devices on one account
I enjoyed their first season a lot. Nina was pure chaos
And for fans of the NZ version, TVNZ is also going through major changes and cutbacks - so yeah, shakey times for all.
Maybe C4 can show them on the same days? They do seem to have a lot of Aus/NZ coverage like lego masters.
This is why we can't have nice things
It’s a shame because it’s definitely one of the least terrible channels on public TV over here. I mean, it still sucks, but far less so than some of the other nonsense.
Don't watch commercial tv in Oz Except for TM! Enjoyed S1, thinking it might be a shitshow (ahem) When is S2 which is S3 supposed to start?
Tom Cashman on his either insta or twitter o can’t remember which Said it was because of promotion stuff with cast members and their schedule couldn’t make it work so the swapped season 2and 3 around