'Freak of the week' shows push Sugar Shack off the air

Sugar Shack's panellists are Noelle McCarthy, Kat Browne, Peter Vegas, David Fane and Ric Salizzo.

Sugar Shack - Ric Salizzo's non-sport successor to Sports Cafe - has been pulled off the air by TV3 because it was unable to attract viewers more interested in Nicky Watson's love life, sex addicts and Mongrel Mob sex slaves shown on TV2's 20/20.

Sugar Shack, a chat-style show from Mr Salizzo's Leftfield Productions, was pulled after seven weeks. The 8.30pm documentary has also been dropped from TV3's Thursday night line-up.

The channel will screen movies on Thursday nights instead.

In the 9.30pm slot last week, over 530,000 people watched Nicky Watson, the Naked Truth on 20/20, compared with 38,000 watching Sugar Shack and 164,000 watching the TV1 local drama Orange Roughies.

Mr Salizzo, who devised Sugar Shack after ending Sports Cafe's 10-year run, said it struggled against the shock documentaries on 20/20.

"We are up against 'Freak of the Week' and those shows are pretty tabloidy and rate through the roof. Sex addicts and Tourette's and stuff like that, they're just great ratings vehicles."

He hoped Sugar Shack would return in a different time slot.

"We are just a bit worried on Thursday nights, a lot of our audience is out on the piss. But it's important on New Zealand television we develop a range of programmes, because if you just focus on what will rate, then you will just do the 'I'm a sex addict' things. While there is a place for them, you just don't want 24 hours of it, do you?"

TV3 spokesman Roger Beaumont said the show had been pulled from prime time and TV3 and Mr Salizzo were yet to discuss its future in a different time slot.

"We were trying something a little bit different, but clearly the audience have voted with their remote, and we have responded to that message."

TV3's move is part of an all-round shake-up on Thursday nights in the battle for ratings.

Over the past seven weeks, Sugar Shack has gone from about 10 per cent of the audience to 5 per cent.

20/20 has regularly had about 45 per cent of the audience, and Orange Roughies fell from an opening night 26 per cent to 15 per cent last week.

Sugar Shack received mixed ratings from the critics, ranging from complete evisceration to hopes it could grow into itself over time.

Mr Salizzo said all shows needed time to build up an audience.

"We are pretty relaxed about where we are at the moment. It was just starting to find its rhythm and you can't decide if a show is good or bad by the numbers or the critics alone.

"If that was the case, we would have stopped Sports Cafe after six episodes. It was ripped apart by the critics, the same people who were saying how wonderful it was at the end."

A TVNZ spokeswoman said the drama Hustle would screen in place of Orange Roughies. The remaining 12 episodes of Orange Roughies are to be screened at a later date.

Mr Salizzo is also working on The Crowd Goes Wild, a daily sport and entertainment programme at 7pm on Prime.