With the Commonwealth Games. Whether you like the coverage or not, I think with London 2012, the BBC made a rod of their own back. Had they not had all this coverage, they're wouldve been people asking why not, just like they did during the Winter Olympics. And now they have given it all this coverage people are saying that the BBC are treating the Commonwealths like the Olympics
ITV have certainly had some bad summers over the last ten to fifteen years, but through the late 1980s and almost all the 1990s, they were very strong in summer with hardly any repeats. Most of the new programmes were not ITV's best silver, but they were still good and/or popular enough to wipe the ratings floor with almost everything on BBC1 in the summer.
Nowhere was it more apparent than on Saturday nights. ITV would have line up of new quizzes and other light entertainment from about 6pm to 9pm, sometimes with a drama afterwards, whereas BBC1 would have a few cartoons to start the evening, maybe some crappy American drama repeat (especially in the 1980s), then a ratty old Western or Carry On film, or a Columbo repeat, and, if you were really lucky, a single new entertainment programme of anywhere between 30 and 50 minutes, either before or after the film. Then news, then another crap film.
When Channel 5 and digital telly came along within eighteen months of each other, the wheels of the ITV wagon started to become loose pretty quickly. Now they seem to be in a position where two of the wheels have fallen off, and every time they tap one of the two back on, one flies off the other side.
That's true. If you take Summer 1990 as an example, the BBC did have few light entertainment shows scattered around. LWT's line up is much stronger though; no surprise people tuned in.
LWT
5.00 News
5.15 Zorro
5.45 Champion Blockbusters
6.35 Stars in Their Eyes
7.05 It's Beadle! (predecessor to Beadle's About?)
7.35 Close to Home
8.05 The Saint: The Big Bang
9.55 News
Ratings ruiner? Dr Who to be shown in cinemas August 23rd.
11am Friday for cinema tickets generally, 10am Friday for Leicester Square, followed by a Q & A with "the talent" (beamed to the other cinemas).
Ratings ruiner? Dr Who to be shown in cinemas August 23rd.
Didn't seem to do much damage on 23 November last. I think we established at the time that the number of tickets sold, however impressive, pales into insignificance against the TV rating, especially when you factor in subsequent PVR/on-demand viewings by cinema-goers on the small screen.
There isn't much news in the current format mossy so I doubt OFCOM would be overly concerned, there are plenty of other news options available at that time of day even if you exclude the BBC (and of course radio).
Are there? If you don't include radio, what have you got? Sky News, and then you're on the international news channels which aren't focused on the UK and appeal to about 0.0001% of the UK audience. There has to be a market for another breakfast show that isn't news heavy but is topical. Whether Good Morning Britain is that show is another question.
Ratings won't improve, but I can't see them throwing the towel for another year, two tops. If it were to be axed, just replace it with some ITN Newshour (one newsreader reporting the news from a desk) and kids programmes.
News and kids programmes, the two genres ITV have tried to get rid of more than probably any other in the past decade.
I really don't see the point, Good Morning Britain these days probably costs next to nothing apart from the presenters' wages, the infrastructure's there and the hosts are there and the newsgathering is there and there are loads of opportunities for sponsorship. Wouldn't be surprised if it was actually making money.
It's quite a delay. They delayed it until autumn one year and showed it at 9.30 on Friday nights but it didn't do too well. Looks as though they'll use it somewhere on Friday nights this autumn: 8.30, 9.30 or 10.35. Probably wouldn't disgrace itself at 8.30 or 10.35, but I think it would rate lower in the 9.30 slot.
Uusally WILTY is around the second half of the year, the last two years it's been in spring but that hadn't happened before and I wonder if the Beeb decided it was a bit awakward to have that and HIGNFY running at the same time. Of course, in 2009, when Rob took over, everyone thought it was going on Friday nights and then right at the last minute BBC1 decided to whack it out at 10.30 on Mondays instead. Then the following three series were on Fridays at 10.30, 9.30 and 8.30 respectively. I'm glad whenever it's on anyway, I think it's a great show.
ITV didn't poach him straight from Ground Force to do Love Your Garden.
He stopped doing Ground Force years ago, then later on started working for ITV doing a chat show and various documentaries, and then many years later, he started doing Love Your Garden.
Yes, that's exactly right and it's ridiculous to compare it with Ground Force because that was in its pomp fifteen years ago which was a totally different television environment. As you say, Titchmarsh was doing various things for ITV and presumably at some point someone decided that since they had Titchmarsh about they may as well do a gardening show with him. And I don't see the problem, it's not like BBC1 have a format like this anymore and it has a place in the schedules. Rather that than most of the rubbish factual they whack out.
You could say it's exactly the same as Graham Norton, when he joined the Beeb he did light entertainment and it was only a few years into his contract he did a chat show, it's hardly as if the Beeb poached him just to do the same show he'd done on C4.
That said, these ratings are a bit disappointing and I'm not accepting "it's Tuesday" as an excuse because the last few months have had virtually no typical Tuesdays. Presumably it's because the vast majority of the audience are busy loving their own gardens in this weather.
So maybe that's the reason for the two day gap between the programmes - the audience have to watch the programme at home, then do their baking to take to the filming of the spin-off. (whereas with You're Fired, the audience can be shown the main show in the studio just before they film the spin-off, meaning YF can be filmed the day before BBC1 screens The Apprentice and thus, You're Fired is ready to go as soon as TA finishes).
I said "maybe".
Yeah, maybe indeed, if they have the theme I don't think they need to watch the programme before they start baking. It says what the theme is in the Radio Times, you could do it now. But I'm OK with this scheduling because I never really see the point of these spin-offs coming straight after the show. Bit like Doctor Who Confidential, I never watched that because I never felt the need to go behind the scenes of a programme immediately after I'd watched it. The worst of them all are things like Springwatch when the spin-off's straight after on the same channel ("this show is carrying on now but clearly everything of any importance has already been on")
That's true. If you take Summer 1990 as an example, the BBC did have few light entertainment shows scattered around. LWT's line up is much stronger though; no surprise people tuned in.
LWT
5.00 News
5.15 Zorro
5.45 Champion Blockbusters
6.35 Stars in Their Eyes 7.05 It's Beadle! (predecessor to Beadle's About?)
7.35 Close to Home
8.05 The Saint: The Big Bang
9.55 News
No, Beadle's About started back in 1986, It's Beadle was another series which was a bit more like Game For A Laugh - http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/It's_Beadle - with games with the studio audience. In the summer of 1989 he did a virtually identical series called Beadle's Box Of Tricks. That was the first series of Stars in their Eyes of course, when it was heralded as the most bizarre format anyone had ever seen. The Saint was the second revival of the series (after Return of The Saint in the seventies, of course) and it was a disaster. In fact I think they showed two episodes in 1989 and they were so badly received this screening here in 1990 was them burning the others off.
Course, 'Allo 'Allo was a repeat, before that it was The Les Dennis Laughter Show and I remember that, That's Showbusiness and Takeover Bid being booted around the schedules during the World Cup. The Beeb and ITV simulcast virtually everything so both Schedule A and B were rendered useless and I remember That's Showbusiness going out about 5pm one week just to cram everything in.
While we're talking about scheduling in summers past I thought I'd reference again the BBC1 schedule I posted here last year from the notorious summer of 1993 - specifically 31st July-6th August 1993, when Dad's Army was on the cover of the Radio Times and everyone thought they were taking the piss.
Saturday 31st July
5.15 Stay Tooned
5.55 Film: Dad's Army
7.30 Open All Hours (repeat)
8.00 Birds of a Feather (repeat)
8.30 The House of Elliott (repeat)
9.25 News
9.45 Spender (repeat)
Sunday 1st August
7.00 Last of the Summer Wine (repeat)
7.30 As Time Goes By (repeat)
8.00 Strathblair
8.50 News
9.05 Resnick (repeat)
Monday 2nd August
7.00 Hunters in the Wild
7.30 Young Driver of the Year
8.00 So Haunt Me (repeat)
8.30 Waiting for God (repeat)
9.00 News
9.30 Panorama
10.10 Blott on the Landscape (repeat)
Tuesday 3rd August
7.00 Bobby Davro: Rock With Laughter
7.30 EastEnders
8.00 The Good Life (repeat)
8.30 May To December (repeat)
9.00 News
9.30 Ruby's Hit and Run (repeat)
10.00 French and Saunders (repeat)
Wednesday 4th August
7.00 Every Second Counts
7.30 Doc Martin's Casebook
8.00 Police Rescue
8.50 Clarkson's Star Cars
9.00 News
9.30 Canned Carrott (repeat)
10.00 Echoes In The Darknes (repeat)
Thursday 5th August
7.00 Top of the Pops
7.30 EastEnders
8.00 Keeping Up Appearances (repeat)
8.30 Crime Limited
9.00 News
9.30 Talking Heads (repeat)
10.00 Proms
Friday 6th August
7.00 Dad's Army (repeat)
7.30 Blooming Bellamy
8.00 Casualty (repeat)
8.50 Points of View
9.00 News
9.30 Film: Billy the Kid
But what did ITV have at the same time? Well, here's the answer...
Saturday 31st July
5.05 Baywatch (repeat)
6.00 What You Looking At - youth-skewing sitcom
6.30 Beadle's About (repeat)
7.00 The Best of Tommy Cooper (repeat)
7.30 The Upper Hand (repeat)
8.00 The Bill (during the brief period it was on Saturdays)
8.30 London's Burning (repeat)
9.30 News
9.50 Taggart (repeat)
Sunday 1st August
6.30 Odds and sods, including the Corrie omnibus on Granada, Father Dowling on Yorkshire and Murder She Wrote on Central
7.30 Second Thoughts (repeat)
8.00 Poirot (repeat)
10.00 News
10.20 Over The Rainbow - new but unsuccessful Clement and La Frenais sitcom
10.50 Kinnock: The Inside Story - his first major interview since leaving office
Monday 2nd August
7.00 Jimmy's
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Wheel of Fortune
8.30 World In Action
9.00 Frank Stubbs Promotes
Tuesday 3rd August
7.00 Emmerdale
7.30 Regionalia
8.00 The Bill
8.30 Film: Turk 182
Plus First Tuesday after News at Ten
Wednesday 4th August
7.00 Fantastic Facts - Jonathan Ross-fronted show of funny adverts and that, think it had been on the shelf for a while
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Pot of Gold - Des O'Connor-fronted talent show
9.00 Athletics (in previous weeks there had been films in this slot)
Thursday 5th August
7.00 Emmerdale
7.30 Voyager - Documentary series by National Geographic
8.00 The Bill
8.30 Michael Ball
9.00 Soldier Soldier (repeat)
Friday 6th August
7.00 Through The Keyhole
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Dr Quinn - Medicine Woman
9.00 Stay Lucky
So the weekend is probably just as poor as the Beeb, although you would have to say that Poirot is a bit more worthy of a repeat than most of the stuff BBC1 was showing. During the week there are some repeats but there aren't evenings made up entirely of them, there's more new drama than the Beeb (the first Wycliffe was the following Saturday), plus there's lots of entertainment which is virtually non-existent on BBC1. Plus of course you had Emmerdale, Corrie and The Bill which meant there was at least one big hitter every night, so overall ITV are by far the better option.
Autumn Friday nights on BBC1 in 1990 were huge ratings winners! That was a rarity in those days!
8.00pm Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game
9.00 Nine O'Clock News
9.25 Casualty
I seem to remember the 1990 series of Casualty being the run that ended on a cliffhanger as Charlie Fairhead was shot at the very end of the last episode. Or was that a dream?
Memories!
Casualty started in September 1986 on Saturdays and flopped, then the second series went on Saturdays in September 1987 and didn't do much better. I felt like so was the only person that watched it! Then the most amazing thing happened. The second series was repeated on Saturday nights in Summer 1988 and people watched in huge numbers. It became a hit. So when series 3 started on Friday nights in September the same year ratings shot up. When it moved back to Saturday nights in 1992 it became a ratings beast!
The Generation Game returned in 1990 and got great ratings on Fridays, so naturally BBC1 thought it could return to Saturdays in 1991 to take on Blind Date, GG never won. It was another programme that starred in November 1991 that would do for BBC1 in the nineties what The Generation Game did for BBC1 in the seventies. Noel's House Party.
So reach for the main channel is down 1.8% weekly and about 1% monthly. Although looking at the raw numbers (link below), it seems the TV universe has grown so monthly reach is down only 0.1m.
Overall, weekly TV reach is down 1% (94.5% to 93.5%), monthly reach is down 0.5% (98.7% to 98.2%) and quarterly reach is down 0.1% from 99.5% to 99.4%. Although again, it seems the universe has increased so the raw numbers are up across all measures.
It's hard to be precise across the 3 itv channels but it certainly doesn't scream "weekly reach crisis". In the long run, a sustained drop in reach could have an impact. But itv still seems very much able to pull in audiences for big shows, the problem is just that they've had less of them this year.
As for the CL and FA Cup money, they'll never be able to replace that ad revenue so any programming investment will be in accordance with that income. Hence the interest in commissioning male driven series. And not everything is measured in "hours of drama", especially as that drama would likely be appealing to the same audiences well catered to anyway (and thus already being sold to advertisers).
So the weekend is probably just as poor as the Beeb, although you would have to say that Poirot is a bit more worthy of a repeat than most of the stuff BBC1 was showing. During the week there are some repeats but there aren't evenings made up entirely of them, there's more new drama than the Beeb (the first Wycliffe was the following Saturday), plus there's lots of entertainment which is virtually non-existent on BBC1. Plus of course you had Emmerdale, Corrie and The Bill which meant there was at least one big hitter every night, so overall ITV are by far the better option.
That shows what a wasteland Summer was for new TV and it was like that for decades. By the late nineties/early noughties BBC1 and ITV started to introduce more new shows. Things have improved I'd say.
That shows what a wasteland Summer was for new TV and it was like that for decades. By the late nineties/early noughties BBC1 and ITV started to introduce more new shows. Things have improved I'd say.
Or could perhaps the TV audience may be more discerning. I am quite shocked by the 1993 schedule I have to say. I really am unclear as to whether BBC one would get away with a schedule like it any longer? I don't know. But there was at one point a limit to the repeats they could screen. The licence fee must have been tiny the way its scheduled in 1993. Shocking for its audience. I do not think viewers would take that so easily these days, there are too many x box ggames, channels for BBC one to simply do that to it poor viewers as it did then.
Or could perhaps the TV audience may be more discerning. I am quite shocked by the 1993 schedule I have to say. I really am unclear as to whether BBC one would get away with a schedule like it any longer? I don't know. But there was at one point a limit to the repeats they could screen. The licence fee must have been tiny the way its scheduled in 1993. Shocking for its audience. I do not think viewers would take that so easily these days, there are too many x box ggames, channels for BBC one to simply do that to it poor viewers as it did then.
Alan Yentob was BBC1 controller then, and he obviously didn't like airing so many repeats that summer (after there'd been an accounting cock up), so he adopted a different strategy for summer 1994 by commissioning lots of new programmes, but unfortunately that meant spreading the money thinly, and a lot of them were cheap and nasty, and only really there to reduce the number of repeats. There was a lifeless revival of Pop Quiz, the horrendous On the Road, a repackaging of Morecambe and Wise sketches which therefore avoided being listed as repeats, an awful programme with Caroline Righton where contestants learnt country crafts such as wool-spinning.
He also took a different strategy with repeats in 1994 by repeating '70s sitcoms rather than the usual strategy of repeating sitcoms from the previous autumn. For example, rather than repeating the 1993 series of Last of the Summer Wine in summer 1994, they repeated the 1976 series: "Some of these programmes are 15 years old, so they aren't really repeats."
I can see why they were keen to add the extra "EastEnders" on a Friday!! What a shocking way to treat their viewers and its great that they have new drama and factual mostly every week now. I'd happily pay a bigger fee if it meant more spend on the programmes. I wonder if they would be flooded with complaints these days of Twitter.
That shows what a wasteland Summer was for new TV and it was like that for decades. By the late nineties/early noughties BBC1 and ITV started to introduce more new shows. Things have improved I'd say.
A few interesting pieces of scheduling from BBC Summer pasts.
Steptoe & Son, series 1: 14th June - 12th July 1962
Dad's Army, series 1: 31st July - 11th September 1968
Men Behaving Badly
Series 3: 1st July - 5th August 1994 (First series on BBC1 after the show was axed by ITV)
Series 4: 25th May - 13th July 1995
Series 5: 20th June - 1st Aug 1996
IIRC series 4 was when the programme first attracted big ratings so I was a bit surprised to see series 5 still in a Summer slot. Series 6 in 1997 was moved to November/December and was followed by a Christmas Day special.
Or could perhaps the TV audience may be more discerning. I am quite shocked by the 1993 schedule I have to say. I really am unclear as to whether BBC one would get away with a schedule like it any longer? I don't know. But there was at one point a limit to the repeats they could screen. The licence fee must have been tiny the way its scheduled in 1993. Shocking for its audience. I do not think viewers would take that so easily these days, there are too many x box ggames, channels for BBC one to simply do that to it poor viewers as it did then.
There wasn't much to be discerning about then. I think Doctor Who, New Tricks and Britain's Got Talent have helped turn Summer viewing around. Led to more programmes being tried in that period and shows big ratings are still possible there.
Alan Yentob was BBC1 controller then, and he obviously didn't like airing so many repeats that summer (after there'd been an accounting cock up), so he adopted a different strategy for summer 1994 by commissioning lots of new programmes, but unfortunately that meant spreading the money thinly, and a lot of them were cheap and nasty, and only really there to reduce the number of repeats. There was a lifeless revival of Pop Quiz, the horrendous On the Road, a repackaging of Morecambe and Wise sketches which therefore avoided being listed as repeats, an awful programme with Caroline Righton where contestants learnt country crafts such as wool-spinning.
He also took a different strategy with repeats in 1994 by repeating '70s sitcoms rather than the usual strategy of repeating sitcoms from the previous autumn. For example, rather than repeating the 1993 series of Last of the Summer Wine in summer 1994, they repeated the 1976 series: "Some of these programmes are 15 years old, so they aren't really repeats."
BIB That would be a great motto for Gold.:D
It would be nice if BBC1 adopted that strategy today, digging into the comedy archive instead of repeating Mrs Brown's Boys, Miranda and Outnumbered on a continuous loop.
There wasn't much to be discerning about then. I think Doctor Who, New Tricks and Britain's Got Talent have helped turn Summer viewing around. Led to more programmes being tried in that period and shows big ratings are still possible there.
Its good to see that the audience will just spit out rubbish rather than the executives dictating what repeats to watch. ITV has had under two million on many occasions as there are so many other channels the audience can now go to if they do want TV at that point. Its incredible BBC one was allowed to get away with so much repeated rubbish during 93. This must have been post"Eldorado" and they were skint
It would be nice if BBC1 adopted that strategy today, digging into the comedy archive instead of repeating Mrs Brown's Boys, Miranda and Outnumbered on a continuous loop.
With the Commonwealth Games. Whether you like the coverage or not, I think with London 2012, the BBC made a rod of their own back. Had they not had all this coverage, they're wouldve been people asking why not, just like they did during the Winter Olympics. And now they have given it all this coverage people are saying that the BBC are treating the Commonwealths like the Olympics
I've been off sick all week and the CG is the only thing that has got me through it, glued to the gymnastics particularly! So I for one am glad for the wall to wall coverage. Personally I've always preferred athletics and 'the games' ilk to the more popular sports, I don't see the harm in it getting the limelight for a few weeks once in a blue moon. Although Manchester 2002 ruined my last sports day in primary school by it being 'non competitive' in celebration of it!>:(:confused:
It's not garnering sensational ratings but imo enough in contrast to everything else to justify its place.
A few interesting pieces of scheduling from BBC Summer pasts.
Steptoe & Son, series 1: 14th June - 12th July 1962
Dad's Army, series 1: 31st July - 11th September 1968
Men Behaving Badly
Series 3: 1st July - 5th August 1994 (First series on BBC1 after the show was axed by ITV)
Series 4: 25th May - 13th July 1995
Series 5: 20th June - 1st Aug 1996
IIRC series 4 was when the programme first attracted big ratings so I was a bit surprised to see series 5 still in a Summer slot. Series 6 in 1997 was moved to November/December and was followed by a Christmas Day special.
Ratings for the first series of Dad's Army
July 31, 1968 The Man and the Hour 7.2 million
August 7,1968 Museum Piece 6.8 million
August 14, 1968 Command Decision 8.6 million
August 28,1968 The Enemy Within the Gates 8.1 million
September 4,1968 The Showing Up of Corporal Jones 8.8 million
September 11, 1968 Shooting Pains 9.7 million
Series made in black and white
In series 2 (March-May 1969) audiences reached 13.9 million
Casualty started in September 1986 on Saturdays and flopped, then the second series went on Saturdays in September 1987 and didn't do much better. I felt like so was the only person that watched it! Then the most amazing thing happened. The second series was repeated on Saturday nights in Summer 1988 and people watched in huge numbers. It became a hit. So when series 3 started on Friday nights in September the same year ratings shot up. When it moved back to Saturday nights in 1992 it became a ratings beast!
Tying in with the other posts re. the summer of repeats in 1993, 1992 was of course the first year Casualty did a supersized run of 24 episodes lasting from September through to February '93.
The initial plan was to rerun the entire 24-part series on Friday nights in Spring and Summer '93 (see my link below), running up to the start of the next series in Autumn '93. This would have meant Casualty would have been barely off our screens in '93, but the rather contentious nature of some of the episodes meant that many were pulled and the envisaged repeat run was cut down to 17. The start of the repeat run was therefore pushed back with All Creatures Great and Small in its place for a while.
Fast forward to Summer '94 and I don't think Casualty was repeated at all that year, in an effort to avoid accusations of lazy repeats (they went back to repeating a small number of selected episodes in Summer '95).
Comments
BBC1 ALL - 7.72m (38.9%)
BBC1 Scotland - 1.47m (68.7%)
BBC1 Wales - 430k (40.7%)
BBC1
5.20 Stay Tooned!
5.45 The Flying Doctors
6.35 'Allo 'Allo!
7.00 That's Showbusiness
7.30 Takeover Bid
8.00 Miss Marple
9.50 News
LWT
5.00 News
5.15 Zorro
5.45 Champion Blockbusters
6.35 Stars in Their Eyes
7.05 It's Beadle! (predecessor to Beadle's About?)
7.35 Close to Home
8.05 The Saint: The Big Bang
9.55 News
11am Friday for cinema tickets generally, 10am Friday for Leicester Square, followed by a Q & A with "the talent" (beamed to the other cinemas).
http://www.doctorwho.tv/watch/cinema
http://www.odeon.co.uk/films/Doctor_Who_Series_8_Episode_1_Deep_Breath_Live_Talent_Q_amp_A/100736/
Didn't seem to do much damage on 23 November last. I think we established at the time that the number of tickets sold, however impressive, pales into insignificance against the TV rating, especially when you factor in subsequent PVR/on-demand viewings by cinema-goers on the small screen.
Are there? If you don't include radio, what have you got? Sky News, and then you're on the international news channels which aren't focused on the UK and appeal to about 0.0001% of the UK audience. There has to be a market for another breakfast show that isn't news heavy but is topical. Whether Good Morning Britain is that show is another question.
News and kids programmes, the two genres ITV have tried to get rid of more than probably any other in the past decade.
I really don't see the point, Good Morning Britain these days probably costs next to nothing apart from the presenters' wages, the infrastructure's there and the hosts are there and the newsgathering is there and there are loads of opportunities for sponsorship. Wouldn't be surprised if it was actually making money.
Uusally WILTY is around the second half of the year, the last two years it's been in spring but that hadn't happened before and I wonder if the Beeb decided it was a bit awakward to have that and HIGNFY running at the same time. Of course, in 2009, when Rob took over, everyone thought it was going on Friday nights and then right at the last minute BBC1 decided to whack it out at 10.30 on Mondays instead. Then the following three series were on Fridays at 10.30, 9.30 and 8.30 respectively. I'm glad whenever it's on anyway, I think it's a great show.
Yes, that's exactly right and it's ridiculous to compare it with Ground Force because that was in its pomp fifteen years ago which was a totally different television environment. As you say, Titchmarsh was doing various things for ITV and presumably at some point someone decided that since they had Titchmarsh about they may as well do a gardening show with him. And I don't see the problem, it's not like BBC1 have a format like this anymore and it has a place in the schedules. Rather that than most of the rubbish factual they whack out.
You could say it's exactly the same as Graham Norton, when he joined the Beeb he did light entertainment and it was only a few years into his contract he did a chat show, it's hardly as if the Beeb poached him just to do the same show he'd done on C4.
That said, these ratings are a bit disappointing and I'm not accepting "it's Tuesday" as an excuse because the last few months have had virtually no typical Tuesdays. Presumably it's because the vast majority of the audience are busy loving their own gardens in this weather.
Yeah, maybe indeed, if they have the theme I don't think they need to watch the programme before they start baking. It says what the theme is in the Radio Times, you could do it now. But I'm OK with this scheduling because I never really see the point of these spin-offs coming straight after the show. Bit like Doctor Who Confidential, I never watched that because I never felt the need to go behind the scenes of a programme immediately after I'd watched it. The worst of them all are things like Springwatch when the spin-off's straight after on the same channel ("this show is carrying on now but clearly everything of any importance has already been on")
No, Beadle's About started back in 1986, It's Beadle was another series which was a bit more like Game For A Laugh - http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/It's_Beadle - with games with the studio audience. In the summer of 1989 he did a virtually identical series called Beadle's Box Of Tricks. That was the first series of Stars in their Eyes of course, when it was heralded as the most bizarre format anyone had ever seen. The Saint was the second revival of the series (after Return of The Saint in the seventies, of course) and it was a disaster. In fact I think they showed two episodes in 1989 and they were so badly received this screening here in 1990 was them burning the others off.
Course, 'Allo 'Allo was a repeat, before that it was The Les Dennis Laughter Show and I remember that, That's Showbusiness and Takeover Bid being booted around the schedules during the World Cup. The Beeb and ITV simulcast virtually everything so both Schedule A and B were rendered useless and I remember That's Showbusiness going out about 5pm one week just to cram everything in.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=66494462&postcount=4680
5.15 Stay Tooned
5.55 Film: Dad's Army
7.30 Open All Hours (repeat)
8.00 Birds of a Feather (repeat)
8.30 The House of Elliott (repeat)
9.25 News
9.45 Spender (repeat)
Sunday 1st August
7.00 Last of the Summer Wine (repeat)
7.30 As Time Goes By (repeat)
8.00 Strathblair
8.50 News
9.05 Resnick (repeat)
Monday 2nd August
7.00 Hunters in the Wild
7.30 Young Driver of the Year
8.00 So Haunt Me (repeat)
8.30 Waiting for God (repeat)
9.00 News
9.30 Panorama
10.10 Blott on the Landscape (repeat)
Tuesday 3rd August
7.00 Bobby Davro: Rock With Laughter
7.30 EastEnders
8.00 The Good Life (repeat)
8.30 May To December (repeat)
9.00 News
9.30 Ruby's Hit and Run (repeat)
10.00 French and Saunders (repeat)
Wednesday 4th August
7.00 Every Second Counts
7.30 Doc Martin's Casebook
8.00 Police Rescue
8.50 Clarkson's Star Cars
9.00 News
9.30 Canned Carrott (repeat)
10.00 Echoes In The Darknes (repeat)
Thursday 5th August
7.00 Top of the Pops
7.30 EastEnders
8.00 Keeping Up Appearances (repeat)
8.30 Crime Limited
9.00 News
9.30 Talking Heads (repeat)
10.00 Proms
Friday 6th August
7.00 Dad's Army (repeat)
7.30 Blooming Bellamy
8.00 Casualty (repeat)
8.50 Points of View
9.00 News
9.30 Film: Billy the Kid
But what did ITV have at the same time? Well, here's the answer...
Saturday 31st July
5.05 Baywatch (repeat)
6.00 What You Looking At - youth-skewing sitcom
6.30 Beadle's About (repeat)
7.00 The Best of Tommy Cooper (repeat)
7.30 The Upper Hand (repeat)
8.00 The Bill (during the brief period it was on Saturdays)
8.30 London's Burning (repeat)
9.30 News
9.50 Taggart (repeat)
Sunday 1st August
6.30 Odds and sods, including the Corrie omnibus on Granada, Father Dowling on Yorkshire and Murder She Wrote on Central
7.30 Second Thoughts (repeat)
8.00 Poirot (repeat)
10.00 News
10.20 Over The Rainbow - new but unsuccessful Clement and La Frenais sitcom
10.50 Kinnock: The Inside Story - his first major interview since leaving office
Monday 2nd August
7.00 Jimmy's
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Wheel of Fortune
8.30 World In Action
9.00 Frank Stubbs Promotes
Tuesday 3rd August
7.00 Emmerdale
7.30 Regionalia
8.00 The Bill
8.30 Film: Turk 182
Plus First Tuesday after News at Ten
Wednesday 4th August
7.00 Fantastic Facts - Jonathan Ross-fronted show of funny adverts and that, think it had been on the shelf for a while
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Pot of Gold - Des O'Connor-fronted talent show
9.00 Athletics (in previous weeks there had been films in this slot)
Thursday 5th August
7.00 Emmerdale
7.30 Voyager - Documentary series by National Geographic
8.00 The Bill
8.30 Michael Ball
9.00 Soldier Soldier (repeat)
Friday 6th August
7.00 Through The Keyhole
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Dr Quinn - Medicine Woman
9.00 Stay Lucky
So the weekend is probably just as poor as the Beeb, although you would have to say that Poirot is a bit more worthy of a repeat than most of the stuff BBC1 was showing. During the week there are some repeats but there aren't evenings made up entirely of them, there's more new drama than the Beeb (the first Wycliffe was the following Saturday), plus there's lots of entertainment which is virtually non-existent on BBC1. Plus of course you had Emmerdale, Corrie and The Bill which meant there was at least one big hitter every night, so overall ITV are by far the better option.
Memories!
Casualty started in September 1986 on Saturdays and flopped, then the second series went on Saturdays in September 1987 and didn't do much better. I felt like so was the only person that watched it! Then the most amazing thing happened. The second series was repeated on Saturday nights in Summer 1988 and people watched in huge numbers. It became a hit. So when series 3 started on Friday nights in September the same year ratings shot up. When it moved back to Saturday nights in 1992 it became a ratings beast!
The Generation Game returned in 1990 and got great ratings on Fridays, so naturally BBC1 thought it could return to Saturdays in 1991 to take on Blind Date, GG never won. It was another programme that starred in November 1991 that would do for BBC1 in the nineties what The Generation Game did for BBC1 in the seventies. Noel's House Party.
Thanks for some proper figures and analysis.
That shows what a wasteland Summer was for new TV and it was like that for decades. By the late nineties/early noughties BBC1 and ITV started to introduce more new shows. Things have improved I'd say.
Or could perhaps the TV audience may be more discerning. I am quite shocked by the 1993 schedule I have to say. I really am unclear as to whether BBC one would get away with a schedule like it any longer? I don't know. But there was at one point a limit to the repeats they could screen. The licence fee must have been tiny the way its scheduled in 1993. Shocking for its audience. I do not think viewers would take that so easily these days, there are too many x box ggames, channels for BBC one to simply do that to it poor viewers as it did then.
He also took a different strategy with repeats in 1994 by repeating '70s sitcoms rather than the usual strategy of repeating sitcoms from the previous autumn. For example, rather than repeating the 1993 series of Last of the Summer Wine in summer 1994, they repeated the 1976 series: "Some of these programmes are 15 years old, so they aren't really repeats."
A few interesting pieces of scheduling from BBC Summer pasts.
Steptoe & Son, series 1: 14th June - 12th July 1962
Dad's Army, series 1: 31st July - 11th September 1968
Men Behaving Badly
Series 3: 1st July - 5th August 1994 (First series on BBC1 after the show was axed by ITV)
Series 4: 25th May - 13th July 1995
Series 5: 20th June - 1st Aug 1996
IIRC series 4 was when the programme first attracted big ratings so I was a bit surprised to see series 5 still in a Summer slot. Series 6 in 1997 was moved to November/December and was followed by a Christmas Day special.
There wasn't much to be discerning about then. I think Doctor Who, New Tricks and Britain's Got Talent have helped turn Summer viewing around. Led to more programmes being tried in that period and shows big ratings are still possible there.
BIB That would be a great motto for Gold.:D
It would be nice if BBC1 adopted that strategy today, digging into the comedy archive instead of repeating Mrs Brown's Boys, Miranda and Outnumbered on a continuous loop.
Its good to see that the audience will just spit out rubbish rather than the executives dictating what repeats to watch. ITV has had under two million on many occasions as there are so many other channels the audience can now go to if they do want TV at that point. Its incredible BBC one was allowed to get away with so much repeated rubbish during 93. This must have been post"Eldorado" and they were skint
I've been off sick all week and the CG is the only thing that has got me through it, glued to the gymnastics particularly! So I for one am glad for the wall to wall coverage. Personally I've always preferred athletics and 'the games' ilk to the more popular sports, I don't see the harm in it getting the limelight for a few weeks once in a blue moon. Although Manchester 2002 ruined my last sports day in primary school by it being 'non competitive' in celebration of it!>:(:confused:
It's not garnering sensational ratings but imo enough in contrast to everything else to justify its place.
Ratings for the first series of Dad's Army
July 31, 1968 The Man and the Hour 7.2 million
August 7,1968 Museum Piece 6.8 million
August 14, 1968 Command Decision 8.6 million
August 28,1968 The Enemy Within the Gates 8.1 million
September 4,1968 The Showing Up of Corporal Jones 8.8 million
September 11, 1968 Shooting Pains 9.7 million
Series made in black and white
In series 2 (March-May 1969) audiences reached 13.9 million
Tying in with the other posts re. the summer of repeats in 1993, 1992 was of course the first year Casualty did a supersized run of 24 episodes lasting from September through to February '93.
The initial plan was to rerun the entire 24-part series on Friday nights in Spring and Summer '93 (see my link below), running up to the start of the next series in Autumn '93. This would have meant Casualty would have been barely off our screens in '93, but the rather contentious nature of some of the episodes meant that many were pulled and the envisaged repeat run was cut down to 17. The start of the repeat run was therefore pushed back with All Creatures Great and Small in its place for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AyRIuSvjv8
Fast forward to Summer '94 and I don't think Casualty was repeated at all that year, in an effort to avoid accusations of lazy repeats (they went back to repeating a small number of selected episodes in Summer '95).