Articles | Headland | Home

Headland: articles

Seven breaks off Headland

LESS than two weeks after the axing of the award-winning Blue Heelers, the Seven Network is halting filming of its new drama Headland for this year.

Shooting of the drama had been due to resume in a few weeks but is now in hiatus.

Seven will, however, complete the post-production of 26 episodes of Headland already in the pipeline for a second series, to be screened some time later this year, a network spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said the network would make a decision on its future when the second series went to air.

While the hour-long program, based around life at a university and the aftermath of a car accident which takes the lives of three people, had drawn audiences in Sydney and Brisbane, it had not done well in Melbourne and Perth.

Headland has been a costly investment for Seven. In development and production for a year, its debut in November drew a disappointing audience of only 830,000 people and slumped to the mid to high 600,000s - well below the one million viewers said to be critical to survival.

In an attempt to build the audience, it has gone to air four days a week over the summer non-ratings period, Monday to Thursday, at 7pm after Today Tonight. Last week it was switched to the Saturday 6.30pm timeslot.

Seven, which teamed up with the Ten Network to nab the AFL broadcast rights from Nine, is expected to be locked in the toughest ratings battle for years in 2006.

By Sheena MacLean
January 24, 2006
The Australian