The Shire: a thin line between love and hate

based on those sentiments I think Channel Ten are on a winner.

I hated/loved it and will tune in next week and the week after that. My attention span is pretty short, though, so I can’t make any promises after that.

This is the same fire that started whe TOWIE was aired in the UK, I sit back and see if the tides will turn.

Two years after TOWIE first aired, tourism to Essex has gone up by 300%. I wonder if the Shire can do that for Southern Sydney?

If this engagement continues over the next few weeks, then not only has Ten created a monster, but you the viewers are perpetuating it. And sadly, if engagement does continue at this level, then the real idiots are those watching and engaging, not the show or those on the show.

I weep for our society where The Hills, Being Lara Bingle and The Shire draw high audiences and high social engagement.

Absolutely loved the show. I thought the casting was spot on and actually better than The Hills or Essex.

The show was always going to polarize – but I definitely will be going back

Yep it did exactly what it was meant to do. Rated well and engaged an enraged viewers. This exact senario played out in the UK and the US.

lucky for me i dont’ suffer from FOMO…good luck to channel 10, but this is not a show that i will ever bother with…

James Warburton, is this the best Ten can do…..seriously?

You have to be kidding mate.

According to Vernesa and Sophie’s own Facebook page, the girls will be answering all questions on Channel Ten News today at 5pm. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vernesa-Sophie-Wifey-Love/462374510439338

I thought it was hilarious and will be watching it again.

Good on 10 for trying something new the networks are so boring and predictable

Vernessa and Sophie-I smell a spinoff……………seriously-they are hilarious and they are not even trying to be Bwahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

It would be nice to see this kind of investment and network support going into the kind of creative projects that Australian writers and directors are actually genuinely capable of…

I won’t bother getting into the ridiculous situation of every single new Australian show being another shitty incarnation of some poorly written crime/cop/hospital drama, because that’s an old story, and we are not on the topic of “scripted stories” anyway are we?… Or are we?… The Production value of The Shire was out of control, and from the dumfounded faces on the cast, you could actually picture the producers standing behind the camera yelling out to the cast “Now act a bit awkward! Make sure he knows you like him! Talk more about the botox! Look at him in the eyes now!”…

It’s just another example of the fact that the idiots running the Australian TV Networks will throw money at shit, and be more happy with a 90% negative conversation, than they will be to look at a great new idea, or take a risk with something that might be a ground breaking new Australian TV Show… We Australians are capable of writing and producing quality entertainment the likes of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Entourage, Mighty Boosh, The Sopranos, The Office, The Extras, Flight of the Conchords… it’s just that no muppet at a network would have ever given them a go on Australian TV… Why do you think all our talented creators and performers fuck off to America?

I thought it was fun – young, dumb and fun. Exactly what I thought it was going to be.

They did an interesting experiment in the states after five passes of Car Accidents people stopped looking. I don’t think the shire has five passes. I approached the wreck that is The Shire I took a detour to an Amazing Race!

Well… I expected pure crap and that’s exactly what I got! Loved it!!

I don’t understand all the outrage. We all knew what to expect and the show lived up to its genre (designed for jaw-dropping viewing with a bit of audience outrage). If you tuned in expecting anything different…then fool you. If you wanted something else, as people have said, Australian Story was on the ABC.

I’d say the reason ABC’s Australian Story beat out The Shite was because a lot of people wanted to see Warney (who did the intro) talk sensibly on camera for once.

I don’t understand how people that work in the media can be so subjective when looking at a program like this. It never professed to be deep or intellectual television but yet so many people are complaining that it’s trash. How is this trash different to the other trash that is produced and shown all over the world. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and the show has an audience who will watch.

How about we look at it objectively and congratulate the producers on its actual production merits and for gaining an audience that it did? Look at the attention that it’s created. When has a show on Australian television received so much attention by every single media outlet?!

I’m dubious about FOMO – I think people use that as an excuse because revealing the real reasons they watch these shows – schadenfreude, sneering at others – would portray them in a negative light. Much easier to pretend it’s for a more sociable reason.

OH NO I HAVE FOMO!

Come on Marcus, the media likes nothing better than talking about itself. So putting that aside, what exactly are the “actual production merits” of this show?

Umm, the hashtag for the show was #theshiretv

This is such a “Mumbrella” piece. Oh, the show lit Social Media up so it is therefore a success! Comments on Twitter and facebook do not equate to advertising revenue and brand traction in this case.
Is it possible that social media was aflame because people watched it, hated it, vented about it and will never watch it again? Highly likely.
A strange world we live in indeed where an organisation would court this kind of attention. Is it the first instance where a t.v network has deliberately tried to make a terrible show to court attention?
Facts are that it didnt rate that well despite all the hype in the world. It will rate worse next week and the week after that God knows because the carachters are shit and the stories are bland and people hate it.

why not provide analysis of both?

Tiki , perhaps the best point made so far. Its commercial TV, its been made to rate and ratings = revenue. Regardless of talkability ,Social media phenomenon etc etc its going to drop in ratings and its not going to help TEN fix their current diabolical situation. See SMI data!!

Can someone please tell me how the ‘success’ of a tv show is now measured? If this rubbish is deemed successful somehow purely by the number of posts on social networks, even if 90% of them are negative, then following that logic a 1 hour show of people being executed by various means could very well become the most successful tv show Australia has ever (not) seen?

The Shire serves as further proof that Australia is a good few years behind cultural trends overseas. Jersey Shore was first aired in the US in 2009 and The Only Way is Essex was first aired in the UK in 2010. Just as The Shire gets started, Jersey Shore is planning for season six while TOWIE is about to start screening season six. I can’t wait for the Aussie TV geniuses to come up with “Pawn Stars – Gold Coast”.

The saddest thing about all this is the gullibility of Australian television audiences. Is it any wonder that programs made here are so bad? People wonder why we’re downloading Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Newsroom and other quality shows from overseas. It’s pathetic that an idea like this can even be commissioned, let alone make it to air. And the more we label this type of programming “an unequivocal success”, the more we stifle creativity and ideas that could actually enrich us rather than enrage us. Those responsible for putting this on television are no less vacuous than the character within. Mark this as the day Australian television really fell behind the rest of the world … and I didn’t even watch the programme.

c’mon guys, yes hype around the show is great, but it was so goddamn boring. And poorly produced. No advertiser is going to go anywhere near it, and people will forget about it in two weeks and it will fade away into oblivion…

First Sylvania Waters and now The Shire. It is clear there is a real hatred of southern Sydney on the part of TV executives.

Notably they never make shows about the Northern Beaches.

Surely the headline to this article should have been – The Shire, a thin line between love and rate.

So close, mUmbrella, so close.

The new Big Brover BRO – excellent trashy trash !!!

I don’t think it’s a success at all. Rated under 1 million, for one thing. I’m in all three key demos, as are the vast majority of my Facebook friends, and all but one that actually tuned in last night has said they won’t be watching next week. Sometimes, negative feedback really *is* negative. I personally found it boring. No outrage, no fascination… just boredom, and I turned off after 10 minutes.

The idea that being number one on twitter meaning the show is a hit is just wrong. The revamped YTT did the same thing, overwhelmingly negative feedback just like with The Shire, and it limped away with it’s tail between it’s legs halfway through the season.

Shire’s, Shores, Hills, Essex now Valleys!

http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/the-.....-is-coming

There not going away!!

http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/the-.....-is-coming

insert valleys….

I knew it. I knew it! This wasn’t the real Shire. It was western suburbs by the sea. This was also confirmed by ACA.

I hope Warburton is happy with himself.

There’s a social responsibility issue here and this is sadly missed with the majority of commentary.

Forget the originality for a second, this is socially bad TV (or anything for that matter).

And these girls are someone’s daughters. Worse still, someone’s their mother and father. So sad and I hope they’re proud.

Shire-t

WTF – No, it’s Shite.