Time to check some TV ratings

The "workforce" a former city-based woman has taken on as profiled on this Sunday's Country Calendar.

It is the first day of March ... the first day of the autumn.

That's one-sixth of the year of 2017 gone already.

In another 31 we'll have used up a quarter of the year.

What a most perplexing thing this thing called time is, for when one is a child it just crawls and dawdles along to the point where a school term feels like seven years and the last three days before Christmas Day seem to just freeze up.

But as one gets older the clocks seem to get faster and the opposite effect comes into play.

As a child you want time to speed up but as an adult venturing into slightly more well-aged years you want it to slow down.

The only bloke who's got it sorted is Dr Who ... the time lord.

And maybe Sir Cliff Richard, although that demon time is beginning to (finally) make his presence felt on that otherwise boyish face.

Right then, that's off my chest, I just wanted to bring this odd phenomenon up while I still had the time.

While I had some time on my hands I checked out the ratings - those figures which production houses and television channels I daresay use to lever up advertising revenue.

If a show is hot then that's the spot ... to sell something.

In terms of local productions the news for the last week has been very good with the top five shows all being Kiwi-built jobs.

It is not until places six, seven, eight and nine that imports emerge - in the forms of Border Security International, Amazing Spaces, Outback Pilots and The Force.

But until then it's all ours with 1 News at 6pm leading the way from Fair Go, Country Calendar, Mind Over Money and Seven Sharp.

Which is all fine and dandy but I find it a tad concerning that a truly well scripted, directed, acted and produced show like Te Radar's Chequered Past can't edge out an imported imaginative vacuum like Love It Or List It UK which comes in at 14th in the top 15.

But at least The Block Australia and Married at First Sight Australia are nowhere to be seen.

Strange things ratings, because when they get broken down into age groups everything changes and everyone can smile ... especially the crew of TV3's new evening news/entertainment/surprise guest show The Project which, in the younger age section, slipped past Seven Sharp during its opening stint.

Overall however, with all ages taken into consideration, the Mike Hosking and Toni Street show triumphs.

Apart from the news the one show which has consistently staked a place in the top five year after year has been Country Calendar, which to a degree is remarkable because the urban populace far outweighs the rural one ... yet country tales, real tales about real people across the heartlands, stirs up a great army of viewers.

Which is great, because it is one of the better offerings ... on offer.

No exception this Sunday where it focuses on a country girl who moved to the city to start her career but then returns to run the family's high country sheep station.

A challenging career change and worth taking the time to watch.

Time huh?

Soon be Christmas.

ON THE BOX

● Ross Kemp: Extreme World, Prime at 9.30 tonight: He's been around has old hard-faced Kempy, although of course his travels are far from the pleasant endeavours of chaps like Rick Stein and Stephen Fry whose destinations are a lot more, shall we say, agreeable.

Ross heads for places where the vibes are dodgy. Where danger is always afoot. Where bad people loiter and where an idle threat is pretty much the way people in these places greet each other.

So here he is in Ukraine, which is not exactly on the "must see" tourism agenda given the fragility of its politics.

Mind you, some of the great buildings and artworks of Kiev are breathtaking, not that Mr Putin would care to embrace them.

Apart from being eye-openers, the great appeal of docos like this are that they make you glad to be living here.

● Police Ten 7, TV2 at 7.30pm Thursday: Here's another eye-opener in terms of what there is "out there".

But this in on our doorstep - for this is the world of the police officer on the beat, so to speak.

There is no political fragility here ... it is instead human fragility.

They have to deal with the sort of things we of the non-sworn world would prefer not to deal with.

Things that go on every day and every night. Every hour, pretty well every minute somewhere.

In this outing with the crews who earn every last cent you'll come across a bloke who has had so much to drink he's not quite sure how he ended up about 80km from home.

And the ugly side of social media rears its head.

● The Project, weeknights at 7 on that silly newly-branded "three" channel: The Project (a strange name) is basically an Aussie product with Kiwis staging it.

A lighter-than-average news, entertainment and current affairs show of that name has been running for quite a while across the Tasman, and for those not in the know that was why Rove McManus starred in its first outing here ... he's part of the production crew who run it.

Well, it's interesting and has a spark, and I think it could do okay.

The early ratings indicate that, although much of that early audience will have been "the curious".

Time will tell, but thus far it appears to have the competitive goods. Just needs to slow down a bit ...