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Why was Britannia High not as successful as it should have been?
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Just watching the Behind the scenes of Britannia High and can't help wondering why it hasn't been as popular as it could have been.
So much talent and hard work seemed to have gone into it but for some reason it didn't capture the ratings I feel it deserved.
My whole family enjoyed the series and I was really impressed with the young cast especially in the final Live segments.
Would like to see a second series (doubtful though).
Prehaps so much time was spent on the songs and dance routines that the script was negleted a little.
Thoughts please.
So much talent and hard work seemed to have gone into it but for some reason it didn't capture the ratings I feel it deserved.
My whole family enjoyed the series and I was really impressed with the young cast especially in the final Live segments.
Would like to see a second series (doubtful though).
Prehaps so much time was spent on the songs and dance routines that the script was negleted a little.
Thoughts please.
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anything that arlene phillips is involved in is total turkey, it was utter rubbish, never wanted to seriously hurt so many amateur actors from one crappy show in my life,:eek::D
Got it in one.
A saturday night slot would have been better or even on citv.
Only advice i can offer itv is Repeat it at an earlier time throught the week on citv.
But RePromote First
i too would love to see a 2nd series, but have my doubts
The scheduling was wrong, pre-teens on a Sunday night are being dunked in the bath & talked into homework at that time, Saturday t-time would have given it better ratings I think, then us mums could have sat & enjoyed it too.
We loved the idea of the live show & I think that worked really well
I hope there is another one next year
Sorry... ..Nope.
I think by the time it was ready for broadcast, ITV knew it was rubbish. Poor script, poor acting (despite good actors like Mark Benton).
The episode I saw had a gun storyline. What were they thinking? Depressingly (and offensively) it involved the show's only black character.
Britannia High was quite simply a British High School Musical, and a very good one at that. Granted, most of the choreography was poor and dated by comparison to HSM, but the music, acting and scripts were mostly much better.
It was lots of fun, with likeable characters, and it didn't take itself too seriously. But 7pm on a Sunday??? Completely wrong! It is a Saturday tea-time show.
I also think that ITV over anticipated the size of the audience who would tune in for this, hence the blaze of publicity surrounding it. Whilst it lost audience across the run, that's not that unusual. But for this show, the audience weren't even there in the first place with only 3 million or so tuning in for episode 1.
My kids completely loved it though - and there's precious little on TV for them of this quality, so for us Britannia High was a breath of fresh air.
Tripe.
and it seemed to be missing a zac efron (who had alot to do with the success of HSM)
The whole thing was awful; the characters were all stereotypes, the actors clearly weren't cast on the strength of their acting ability, and the storylines would have seemed cliched on Byker Grove in the 90s. Irredeemably bad.
Which would have had even less viewers it should have been on at around 5-30 on Saturday evenings.
As people have mentioned, it wasn't a very good timeslot for the show. Although they did it with good intentions, having a show in a slot which is usually occupied by shows for older audiences, it was definitely a hinderance. Putting it between the X Factor would have gelled well with the music theme and would have attracted a huge audience just for being in between the X Factor. I don't see why the couldn't have moved their other shows to a Sunday like Family Fortunes as they already had an established audience who would have watched regardless of the time it was on.
The promotion of the show wasn't very good. They made it look like something aimed at a much younger audience than it was. It had storylines about multiple sclerosis and teacher/student relationships which is definitely more adult than anything in High School Musical.
The show had the potential to be very successful because is it just the type of show that is very 'now' but ITV messed up big time. It's a shame if Britannia High doesn't get recommissioned because I think these mistakes are easily corrected.
Two of the lead actors let the whole thing down, and the script was silly a lot of the time.
They also made the mistake of taking themselves far too seriously at times.
I also agree that it needed to find it's market properly. Mitch Hewer (one of the bad actors) said the show was 'edgier than High School Musical'.
Edgier?
BH failed because those making it seemed to want it to be a number of things combined. There was no clear direction and so instead of being complex, it just failed to connect to the audience.
But the main reason was probably advertising. With a show like Britannia High it is always going to lose a lot of its audience from the first episode so it needs to bring in a high audience for the first episode. It failed to bring in a high enough audience for the first episode presumably because of advertising so it was never going to do well
It was in a very bad timeslot. 7pm on a Sunday is traditionally where dramas/soaps are shown. It should have been shown between the two X Factor shows, as it would have inherited a huge audience.
I also don't think it was good at all.
The songs were awful, the plots were unrealistic and thin and the writing was dreadful.
I hate High School Musical, Fame, Grease and everything like it though, so perhaps I'm biased.