BIB - Line Of Duty was nowhere near as dark (or explicit) as Silent Witness, Ripper Street or The Body Farm, all of which aired on BBC One.
I would agree that mainstream audiences are getting 'gored out' (the ratings for the above shows indicate that) - but, apart from a few glimpses of charred flesh (the likes of which are routinely seen in Casualty/Holby City), there was nothing anywhere near that territory in last night's episode.
Midsomer was heavily trailed and I'm not surprised it won the slot. Whether it was the better quality product is another matter, however ... ;-)
In my mind, "gritty & dark" does not mean gory, esplicit or lots of dead flesh.
I know this was discussed at the time of its axing, but does anyone still think it would be worth Channel 5 looking at resurrecting The Bill. I know Minder didn't do great all those years ago, but it launched strongly before tailing away, on a minority channel Name recognition is vital to pull in audiences. There is very little pre watershed drama other than soaps on tv, with the exception of Hobly and Waterloo Road (which can't be long left for this world). Particularly on a Wednesday at 8pm the Bill could work well there. Even when it was axed it was still pulling in around 3m on a Tuesday night at 9pm with no obvious lead in
For me suspects biggest problem was trying to sell a dark and gritty drama with 2 female and 1 male lead. More likely than not a police/detective drama goes for male leads, because that's what audiences expect. With the exception of Vera and Scott & Bailey are there any detective programmes with female leads?
Oh yes one horrendous dud should write off trying homegrown drama for another 10 years :D It was basically a primetime version of that Crime Stories rubbish that ITV commissioned for daytime.
Crime has taken over the 'terrestrial' schedules at the moment - DCI Banks on Monday; Death in Paradise and Law and Order: SVU on Tuesday; Midsomer Murders, Line of Duty, NCIS and Suspects on Wednesday; Inspector George Gently on Thursday; A New Tricks repeat on Friday and the American repeats on Channel 5 on Saturday. And that's not counting the Brooklyn Nine-Nine repeat at 10.50 on Friday. Is Hostages a crime drama too?
I know this was discussed at the time of its axing, but does anyone still think it would be worth Channel 5 looking at resurrecting The Bill. I know Minder didn't do great all those years ago, but it launched strongly before tailing away, on a minority channel Name recognition is vital to pull in audiences. There is very little pre watershed drama other than soaps on tv, with the exception of Hobly and Waterloo Road (which can't be long left for this world). Particularly on a Wednesday at 8pm the Bill could work well there. Even when it was axed it was still pulling in around 3m on a Tuesday night at 9pm with no obvious lead in
For me suspects biggest problem was trying to sell a dark and gritty drama with 2 female and 1 male lead. More likely than not a police/detective drama goes for male leads, because that's what audiences expect. With the exception of Vera and Scott & Bailey are there any detective programmes with female leads?
Prime Suspect was a very well-known crime drama with a female lead. As all three show they can work.
Please can someone explain why the Winter Olympics switches from BBC Two to BBC One for one hour? Why not just stick The Daily Politics on BBC One instead of the switching between channels?
Disappointing but not totally surprising for Line of Duty. Hopefully it will timeshift up to its previous level. One of those instances where the BBC schedulers effectively killed a great programme's chances in the overnights stone-dead by scheduling it at the same time as a much bigger show on its sister channel (Outnumbered)
That was my thought as well, People may have forgotten about it. I expect a similar issue with Silk on BBC1 when that returns in a couple of weeks after a long break.
Another thing, series 1 did have a "proper" ending, with Lennie James' character getting killed, it felt like that may have been a natural end for the show. Having not seen last nights episode yet, I do wonder where Series 2 is going.
I think Silk may suffer even more since there is much more continuation of character storylines. If people cant remember how the last series ended, I would have thought they are less likely to tune in.
Whereas, as you say, series 1 of LoD was quite a self-contained story. On that topic, can anyone remember what happened to the Gina McKee character in series 1?
I don't think that's the right approach. There wouldn't be any original British drama on television if the other four 'terrestrials' agreed with that point of view. Channel 5 took the risk and kudos for that - it didn't work so try again.
Fair enough, but I think they should focus spending elsewhere, at least for now anyway. Concentrate on improving on what is currently working well until they've got that as strong as they possibly can before thinking about branching into other areas. The BBC, ITV and C4 are better positioned currently to commission with confidence in that genre. I would hope any new owner of Five would look first at improving in areas such as acquisitions, sport, movies and entertainment, before tackling UK drama.
Fair enough, but I think they should focus spending elsewhere, at least for now anyway. Concentrate on improving on what is currently working well until they've got that as strong as they possibly can before thinking about branching into other areas. The BBC, ITV and C4 are better positioned currently to commission with confidence in that genre. I would hope any new owner of Five would look first at improving in areas such as acquisitions, sport, movies and entertainment, before tackling UK drama.
Arguably that's what happened after Minder - Channel 5 tried building their stock in other areas before giving drama a go. I don't think they can afford to have these kinds of breaks as it doesn't build a 'brand'; people need to get used Channel 5 airing British drama to give it a chance.
What I don't understand is why they didn't try and boost it using Celebrity Big Brother - if it was ready to air at the start of the year three or four episodes could have been offered that support. That would have been more beneficial to the channel then, say, Hens Behaving Badly being given that slot.
I only realised what Line Of Duty was when I read the review in the Metro this morning. I'd seen the whole of the first series and even saw the trailer for the second, but I didn't twig what it was. The first one was so long ago I had no memory of it at all. But maybe that's just me.
I think Silk may suffer even more since there is much more continuation of character storylines. If people cant remember how the last series ended, I would have thought they are less likely to tune in.
Whereas, as you say, series 1 of LoD was quite a self-contained story. On that topic, can anyone remember what happened to the Gina McKee character in series 1?
Her character was murdered and they hid the body in a freezer. You don't need to watch series 1 to enjoy series 2 of Line Of Duty.
Crime has taken over the 'terrestrial' schedules at the moment - DCI Banks on Monday; Death in Paradise and Law and Order: SVU on Tuesday; Midsomer Murders, Line of Duty, NCIS and Suspects on Wednesday; Inspector George Gently on Thursday; A New Tricks repeat on Friday and the American repeats on Channel 5 on Saturday. And that's not counting the Brooklyn Nine-Nine repeat at 10.50 on Friday. Is Hostages a crime drama too?
Hostages is more of a continuing political conspiracy thriller like 24 - it's certainly not a procedural.
At least the crime dramas come and go in short seasons, offering a bit more variety than the medical dramas - Casualty, Holby - which go on and on all the time, or the school drama - Waterloo Road - which seems to do the same.
There are of course three big budget high profile non-crime dramas at the heart of the terrestrial schedules, but they are all shown on Sunday night. It might benefit the ratings of two of them, and the sense of balance across the week, if they were spread out more and one of the weekday crime dramas (Death in Paradise, as has been suggested) took the Sunday 9 pm slot.
In regards to TBBT, I think CBS might take on the ABC Wednesday Comedy block as that seems to be getting weaker? I think its a better option then moving things around after the football.
They've already got Survivor and Criminal Minds holding down Wednesday night though and I don't imagine they'll want to delay and/or move one of those. Opening up another night of comedy also means either sticking with that night for the entire year or potentially moving two or more shows eight weeks into the season which seems less than ideal. Plus Monday nights really need the boost that Big Bang can bring at this point.
Timeshifting aside, it just demonstrates that quality, gritty and dark programming is not necessarily what audiences want.
Real shame.
As others have said it didn't seem to hurt the first series. The audience just haven't found it again this year because its been squeezed out by much stronger competition.
Suspects was an interesting experiment. Needless to say but I'll say it anyway, it hasn't worked. Five needs to get back to what it does best, screening the very best international dramas.
That seems like a fairly terrible attitude to take. More importantly though it doesn't seem like the most viable strategy. Their most recent crop of imports haven't played that well and the older shows are either starting to show their age or on the verge of ending their runs. Plus you need to factor in the massive increase in competition for imports that we've seen over the past few years with more and more digital channels looking to buy in original content. I'd also suggest that now they've set up their own production arm finding some successful scripted content should be a high priority for them because when you get it right its the kind of thing that can generate a lot of revenue.
That was my thought as well, People may have forgotten about it. I expect a similar issue with Silk on BBC1 when that returns in a couple of weeks after a long break.
Which makes you wonder why the BBC aren't making more use of their extensive platform to showcase some of these shows before they return. Perhaps a repeat run of Line of Duty on BBC4 before it returned. Or perhaps some kind of 'recap' show of Silk put up online via iPlayer to prepare viewers for its return.
Fair enough, but I think they should focus spending elsewhere, at least for now anyway. Concentrate on improving on what is currently working well until they've got that as strong as they possibly can before thinking about branching into other areas. The BBC, ITV and C4 are better positioned currently to commission with confidence in that genre. I would hope any new owner of Five would look first at improving in areas such as acquisitions, sport, movies and entertainment, before tackling UK drama.
Crime drama isn't a new area for Channel 5 though. If they can successfully launch a US crime drama there's really no reason why they shouldn't also be able to launch a UK crime drama.
Disappointing but not totally surprising for Line of Duty. Hopefully it will timeshift up to its previous level. One of those instances where the BBC schedulers effectively killed a great programme's chances in the overnights stone-dead by scheduling it at the same time as a much bigger show on its sister channel (Outnumbered)
That pre-supposes that both programmes (which are totally different in style and content) will attract the same audience.
That was my thought as well, People may have forgotten about it. I expect a similar issue with Silk on BBC1 when that returns in a couple of weeks after a long break.
I think Silk may suffer even more since there is much more continuation of character storylines. If people cant remember how the last series ended, I would have thought they are less likely to tune in.
I think Silk will suffer as it has been ages since the last series, it was a solid Summer performer rather than big hit, they don't repeat it so viewers catch up with it and it faces DCI Banks which has rated better.
In all serious I think Line Of Duty may have done better on a Tuesday night. Then a repeat on BBC4 on Wednesday night at 11pm.
If it was a less crowded Wednesday Line Of Duty would have done better. I think there is more crossover with Outnumbered than Midsomer. If BBC1 was showing a documentary Line Of Duty would be over 2m.
I doubt there is that much crossover between Line Of Duty and Midsomer viewers. I think demos are similar to Outnumbered.
I think there will have been a fairly substantial crossover with Midsomer actually, what with both being crime dramas. Especially last night as Midsomer was a crossover with The Killing and Borgen which may have appealed more to Line of Duty's audience.
Comments
For me suspects biggest problem was trying to sell a dark and gritty drama with 2 female and 1 male lead. More likely than not a police/detective drama goes for male leads, because that's what audiences expect. With the exception of Vera and Scott & Bailey are there any detective programmes with female leads?
I wonder how it will fare in the officials.
Does it have a soft interview room too
Prime Suspect was a very well-known crime drama with a female lead. As all three show they can work.
"@Sam_Hodges: #UKStorm saw 7.3m watch the regional news at 6.30pm on #BBC1 last night. A further 6.4m tuned in for the News at Ten."
I think Silk may suffer even more since there is much more continuation of character storylines. If people cant remember how the last series ended, I would have thought they are less likely to tune in.
Whereas, as you say, series 1 of LoD was quite a self-contained story. On that topic, can anyone remember what happened to the Gina McKee character in series 1?
Arguably that's what happened after Minder - Channel 5 tried building their stock in other areas before giving drama a go. I don't think they can afford to have these kinds of breaks as it doesn't build a 'brand'; people need to get used Channel 5 airing British drama to give it a chance.
What I don't understand is why they didn't try and boost it using Celebrity Big Brother - if it was ready to air at the start of the year three or four episodes could have been offered that support. That would have been more beneficial to the channel then, say, Hens Behaving Badly being given that slot.
Her character was murdered and they hid the body in a freezer. You don't need to watch series 1 to enjoy series 2 of Line Of Duty.
Hostages is more of a continuing political conspiracy thriller like 24 - it's certainly not a procedural.
At least the crime dramas come and go in short seasons, offering a bit more variety than the medical dramas - Casualty, Holby - which go on and on all the time, or the school drama - Waterloo Road - which seems to do the same.
There are of course three big budget high profile non-crime dramas at the heart of the terrestrial schedules, but they are all shown on Sunday night. It might benefit the ratings of two of them, and the sense of balance across the week, if they were spread out more and one of the weekday crime dramas (Death in Paradise, as has been suggested) took the Sunday 9 pm slot.
As others have said it didn't seem to hurt the first series. The audience just haven't found it again this year because its been squeezed out by much stronger competition.
That seems like a fairly terrible attitude to take. More importantly though it doesn't seem like the most viable strategy. Their most recent crop of imports haven't played that well and the older shows are either starting to show their age or on the verge of ending their runs. Plus you need to factor in the massive increase in competition for imports that we've seen over the past few years with more and more digital channels looking to buy in original content. I'd also suggest that now they've set up their own production arm finding some successful scripted content should be a high priority for them because when you get it right its the kind of thing that can generate a lot of revenue.
Which makes you wonder why the BBC aren't making more use of their extensive platform to showcase some of these shows before they return. Perhaps a repeat run of Line of Duty on BBC4 before it returned. Or perhaps some kind of 'recap' show of Silk put up online via iPlayer to prepare viewers for its return.
Crime drama isn't a new area for Channel 5 though. If they can successfully launch a US crime drama there's really no reason why they shouldn't also be able to launch a UK crime drama.
That pre-supposes that both programmes (which are totally different in style and content) will attract the same audience.
But I have been wrong before.
If it was a less crowded Wednesday Line Of Duty would have done better. I think there is more crossover with Outnumbered than Midsomer. If BBC1 was showing a documentary Line Of Duty would be over 2m.
Reinforcing the strength of BBC regional news contrary to what some people will tell you.
I doubt there is that much crossover between Line Of Duty and Midsomer viewers. I think demos are similar to Outnumbered.
I think there will have been a fairly substantial crossover with Midsomer actually, what with both being crime dramas. Especially last night as Midsomer was a crossover with The Killing and Borgen which may have appealed more to Line of Duty's audience.