Excess Baggage's Ajay Rochester takes to Twitter to get a load off her mind

Excess Baggage contestant Ajay Rochester. Picture: Supplied

The Herald Sun reports

Excess Baggage contestant Ajay Rochester has blasted Channel 9 for relegating the weight loss reality show to its digital channel GO! after dismal ratings.

In a rant on her blog entitled "Channel 9 have some balls", Rochester implored Nine to reconsider.

"I am currently stuck on the bum's f--- end of Australia, Kangaroo Island, when the ratings/channel say that we should move channel," the former Biggest Loser host wrote.

"I know that I risk not ever being employed by channel nine again, but I also did that with channel 10. Don't flick US (our show) off onto another channel in the first week without standing behind the product you sell. SHAME ON YOU."

Singer Christine Anu and paparazzi king Darryn Lyons did not comment directly, but tweeted messages from angry fans pleading with Nine to change its mind.

Excess Baggage was canned from its prime-time slot after drawing less than 500,000 viewers on Tuesday night compared with rival Loser's 697,000.

In Melbourne on Tuesday, Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges said her show had "runs on the board".

Excess Baggage is ... the biggest loser

Go ... the latest move for Channel Nine's Excess Baggage. Photo: Channel Nine

Michael Idato, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports

The ratings year has not even officially begun and it has claimed its first scalp.

The Nine Network's heavily promoted Excess Baggage has lived up to its title. The network will shed the show from its schedule, relegating it to the digital channel Go from next Monday.

"We have decided to move Excess Baggage," Nine's head of programming and production Andrew Backwell said. "The show has performed below expectations, so it is a move we believe will provide the best possible audience for the show."

Nine launched the show with huge fanfare, and a production and marketing price tag of over $20 million, confident it would topple Ten's The Biggest Loser and cement Nine's control of the 7pm timeslot.

Nine has been agitating to control the slot following two big hits there last year, the property renovation series The Block and the local version of the US reality format The Celebrity Apprentice.

What Nine did not bank on was reality/weight loss genre fatigue and splitting the audience by putting two similar shows up against each other.

It also failed to accurately measure the popularity of Home & Away, which also airs in the slot, and whose audience loyalty, after 24 years, is flexible but ultimately unbreakable. That show is winning the slot with over one million viewers and, on most nights, a commanding margin.

Excess Baggage, which follows a group of celebrities and non-celebrities, on a weight-loss boot camp, made a softer-than-expected debut with only 880,000 viewers.

Ten had rushed its own show, The Biggest Loser, into the slot a week earlier in the hope that capturing an audience early would give it an edge. That move, costly in the first week with weaker-than-expected numbers, has proved to be a winning one.

Ten, with a lower audience base and lower audience volume expectations for the show, is far more easily able to weather weak numbers in the slot than Nine which would, off the back of The Block and Celebrity Apprentice, charged advertisers a premium for access to the show.

The Biggest Loser is now drawing around 800,000 viewers a night, while Excess Baggage languishes around the 600,000 mark. When Excess Baggage departs the slot, Ten could realistically build The Biggest Loser to the million-viewer threshhold.

Speculation has dogged Excess Baggage since its launch that Nine would pull it. Of the three commercial networks, Nine has overtaken Seven in recent years as the fastest to hit the eject button on underperforming new shows.

Last year's Ben Elton's Live from Planet Earth was pulled after only three broadcasts. Another show, The Joy of Sets, was pushed out of its prime-time slot after four weeks. Clever (2006) and Our Place (2005) were pulled after five weeks.

Nine also holds the record for fastest cancellation in history - 1992's Doug Mulray's Naughtiest Home Videos was axed while it was still on air, only 35 minutes into its hour, and on the command of the network's then-owner Kerry Packer.

Seven's record was almost equally impressive: Let Loose Live (2005; two weeks), The Comedy Sale (1993; three weeks), The Hamish & Andy Show (2004; six weeks) and The Big News (1999; seven weeks).

Although Excess Baggage has delivered low numbers for Nine, they will not hurt the network's overall performance until the 2012 ratings year officially begins this Sunday.

The short-term replacement will be repeats of The Big Bang Theory, but Nine has leaned very heavily on that show in the past to plug gaps in its schedule.

Since January 1 this year Nine has screened 77 episodes of the show. Three more will screen tonight, two on Nine and one on Go.

Could Celebrity Apprentice Australia Season Two take over 7pm weeknights on Nine?

Throng reports

Here's a possible spanner in the works.

Further to Friday's rumours of Excess Baggage being dumped or moved from 7pm weeknights, could Nine be planning to bring forward series two of Celebrity Apprentice Australia?

After all, filming did commence January 16 - so in theory, Nine could have potentially enough of the show in the can to take over the 7pm weeknight time slot from Monday February 13, the first Monday of ratings for 2012.

During the Twenty/20 cricket on Friday night, an ad appeared for Celebrity Apprentice in between the Australian and Indian innings (Nine Sydney, around 9pm).

As for the idea of The Block 2012 starting earlier instead, it would appear that promos for The Block have all but disappeared, especially once Excess Baggage went to air. That would suggest The Block will probably not air soon - Nine will wait until after Easter and use The Block to take on Ten's Masterchef, as was the case for the latter part of Masterchef's season in 2011.

The move to bring Celebrity Apprentice forward may not be such a bad idea, seeing there is a lot of publicity at the moment while the various challenges are filmed in and around Sydney.

Suggest there were some very lengthy meetings at Nine on Friday to figure out exactly what they will do.

Stay tuned.

Experts warn against quick blitz on kilos

The Biggest Loser versus Excess Baggage. Source: Supplied

Marianne Betts, The Herald Sun, reports

WHILE popular television weight-loss shows inspire viewers to shed excess kilos, experts are cautioning against sudden, extreme regimens.

The verdict appears to be that Excess Baggage may have the edge over The Biggest Loser in showcasing a more rounded approach.

The AMA warns engaging in extreme physical activity unsupervised may increase the risk of heart attacks and falls.

AMA president Dr Steve Hambleton said the shows did inspire people to lose weight, showing it was possible via changes to diet and exercise.

However, people should make slow, steady and sustainable changes, aiming to lose up to 2-3kg a month, Dr Hambleton said.

"The unusual way these programs go about weight loss is not suitable for the general public, not without risks," he said.

"The average overweight person ... may have diabetes, coronary artery disease or osteoarthritis and may not be suitable for an intense program."

Nutrition and fitness expert Donna Aston said Excess Baggage had a bigger focus on both nutrition and the psychology of weight loss.

"It's hard to sustain weight loss without changing our mindset," she said.

Excess Baggage contestants also had their body composition measured to indicate whether muscle, water or fat had been lost, rather than just total weight loss, Ms Aston said.

Those to lose weight quickly often shed muscle, which slowed the metabolism and made it more difficult to keep the kilos off long-term, she claimed.

Dietitian Jemma O'Hanlon said Excess Baggage took a more realistic approach to weight loss by not counting kilojoules or dictating diets.

"It's a much more educational process, teaching them to make lifestyle changes," Ms O'Hanlon said.

Obesity Policy Coalition senior adviser Jane Martin said shows tended to remove people from a real-life environment.

"It's like weight-loss rehab, but people are then coming out into an obesogenic environment, which is going to undermine them," Ms Martin said.

------------

THE TRUTH

DO
* Take heart that there is a potential solution to being overweight
* Make changes by exercising more
* Improve your dietary habits


DON'T
* Embark on a really intense exercise program without first having a medical check-up
* Expect rapid results - slow steady weight loss is more sustainable, aim for up to two to three kilos a month
* Adopt a fad diet, instead eat a healthy balanced one

Kevin Federline released from hospital after collapse on Excess Baggage

Kevin Federline after suffering a racing pulse and chest pains. Source: Supplied

Kate McMahon, The Herald Sun, reports

BRITNEY Spears' ex-husband Kevin Federline is recovering at home after collapsing during a challenge for Nine's new reality weight-loss show Excess Baggage.

The 33-year-old former dancer was doing a challenge with AFL's new Greater Western Sydney team yesterday when he displayed symptoms of minor cardiac arrest.

He was taken by ambulance to Mt Druitt Hospital, where an ECG later revealed he didn't suffer a heart attack.

A spokesman for production company Fremantle Media said Federline was released from hospital late last night after having further tests.

"Excess Baggage contestant Kevin Federline has been given the all-clear after spending the day in medical care,'' the spokesman said.

"Kevin and producers became concerned with his extreme pulse rate and abnormal heart beat during a week six challenge of the program. The program medic took the action of calling an ambulance so that a hospital could assess his well-being. After more tests, he was released late last night."

The spokesman said while Federline is recovering at home, he would undergo more tests before returning to the show later this week.

"Kevin is now at home with his family and will undergo further investigation with a cardiologist today,'' he said.

"He is expected to be back on set Friday.''

Earlier a spokesman for Nine said the challenge was not considered dangerous and was a running and catching warm-up drill used by AFL players.

Host Kate Ceberano said Federline had recently tried to quit booze in his battle against the bulge and hinted his body may have simply become unable to cope with the strain of change.

"I'm very concerned about his current condition," she said yesterday.

"There are things in all the contestants that they want to conquer.

"I know (he) has been giving up drinking and doing a variety of different things to help his nutrition and his health and sometimes when you change things too suddenly it can happen."

Ceberano described Federline as the "underdog" of the competition.

"He's very quiet, very gentle," she said.

"He's a really lo-fi guy."

It is the second time in this series the US star has been taken to hospital. He was treated for "heat stress" during a challenge in West Australia's Kimberley region.

Federline, who shares custody of two boys with Spears, weighed into the competition nine weeks ago at 105kg and said he wanted to "become fit, healthy and buff once more".

- With AAP

Channels look to weight loss war to beef up ratings

Colin Vickery, The Herald Sun, reports

EXCESS Baggage contestants are more likely to achieve long-term weight loss than those on The Biggest Loser.

Channel Nine's Baggage is to go gut-to-gut with Ten's The Biggest Loser in a 7pm TV weight loss war, starting this month.

Loser, hosted by Hayley Lewis, returns on Monday while Baggage, presented by Kate Ceberano, will start in the same time slot on January 29.

The shows have different formats. Loser's 16 contestants are split into teams of four led through gruelling challenges by their trainers Michelle Bridges, Shannon Ponton, Tiffiny Hall, and Steve Willis.

Baggage pairs eight ordinary Aussies with eight celebrities, including football legend Robert "Dipper" DiPierdomenico, Beaconsfield miner Brant Webb, and the former host of Loser, Ajay Rochester.

Baggage concentrates on the contestants' emotional as well as physical baggage, with a health team that includes a psychologist, Dr Tim Sharp.

Contestants are guaranteed to lose weight on both shows. Keeping it off is the biggest challenge.

That is where Baggage might have the edge, say the experts.

"A psychologist can clear (emotional) blocks from the past (so) it is much more likely that the weight they lose will stay off," psychologist Dr Janet Hall said.

VicHealth nutrition manager Julie Woods agreed.

"It is a really good step to deal with those underlying issues," she said. "Scientific studies have shown that if you take a multi-pronged approach - diet, exercise and psychology - it results in greater weight loss."

Baggage contestant Lana Pilakis, who is teamed with DiPierdomenico, is a Loser fan but decided to compete on Nine's show because "the solutions would be more long term".

Pilakis has admitted that, at 31, she has never been kissed and "I don't want to end up alone".

She praises Dipper for giving her the confidence to turn her life around.

Loser contestant Michelle Cortesao admits she was bullied in high school because of her weight and has never had a boyfriend.

"I don't feel like I love myself yet," Cortesao said.