The point is for many years it's commercial success allowed C4 to spend more money on the PSB programmes it's biggest critics enjoy so much - and without tax payer support.

Fair enough.

BB isn't coming back though.

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**Shakes fist**

BARROWMANNNNNNN!

this isnt going to get annonying, like the Picard Face Palm, its becoming used a little to much these days.

The BBC news special will be Snow Day II - subtitled - Snow Hits London Again - ( Why are there still no snow ploughs in the capital)

Should get a great rating though - we should have a sweep for overnights I say 8.5million

Eastenders building up momentum tonight - can see it breaching the 11 million overnight figure

hardly tonights episode could have killed all the momentum the show had built up.

Yeah and you know whose fault it is don't you..............

I completely agree!!

im sure tonight will rate well, but im not so sure about Thursdays or Fridays.

I don't know why ITV don't consider Big Brother.

Imagine the money ITV could save/make running it even for 8 weeks across the Summer. If they get the rights cheap, which they should, and the high 16-34 numbers they will make a killing.

Or just do Celebrity Big Brother. Promos during the Corrie lead-ins showing the funniest/unmissable moment from that night show, ITV promotion, GMTV/This Morning/Loose Women etc and the press. I just don't see how it cant make money.

The only downside is of course to reputation. However, I would argue that unless ITV can find higher rated, cheaper TV that appeals to large numbers of young people they wont be able to afford to make the "higher end" stuff which gives them that certain credibility in the future. And lets face it, its an improvement on Love Island.

I'd schedule it 9pm Monday to Friday, 10pm Saturdays, 10pm Sundays. Maybe try evictions on Wednesday nights? Wrap it around some new younger programming.

I'm not suggesting they will do this, because they wont, but just asking - why not? I highly doubt they have anything cheaper that would make more money.

The rights wouldn't be cheap though. I'd imagine Endemol would hope to give it a rest then hope Channel 4 will be interested again in 3-4 years time, rather than flog it to ITV cheaply now.

BB has brand issues at the moment anyway. There is a reason C4 didn't put it in it's top 20 shows of the noughties in that programme last week. BB isn't cool anymore.

I really like your idea of showing Jonathan Creek as a replacement - a good way for the BBC to have filled two hours. It would have helped build momentum towards the upcoming new Jonathan Creek special at Easter. It could have got 5m+ I reckon.

However, it could have dented Above Suspicion significantly if it was shown.

I think the problem with that is that it would take up too many 9pm slots for too long. An idea may be for them to adopt the US format and run it three times a week, but that could fall flat.

I dont know I could see ITV bidding for the rights to Celebrity Big Brother, if this series rates well, as for Endemol, I dont see why they would turn the cash down.

2 things however

1) I dont think ITV would be interested in the non celebrity Big Brother
2) ITV did say it was not going to pick up BigBrother when C4 first annouced its axing,

They'd sell it for enough to make a profit. Endemol are surely in no position to turn down ITV - if it works they can up the price later.

Yeh, they aren't interested, I know. I just think it makes good commercial sense.

It is a lot of 9pm slots, but ITV don't really have much to fill them with at the moment. Look what rubbish they had last summer. At least this way they could lose loads of the filler and push anything that is good before or after Big Brother.

I realise a summer series is very ambitious, maybe just picking up CBB for a couple of weeks to see the reaction/see if it rates well is a better idea.

As I said if Celebrity Big Brother continues to rate well, I think ITV might show an interest, but I dont think they will, does it really need another celebrity format? its not like they have lost Im a celeb... to another channel or to the axe.

I dunno. I think BB has had it's day. Unless they somehow found a way to avoid the fact the only people who'd want to go on Big Brother now are, by in large, hypocrites and idiots who don't care at all about the show, just desperate for their 15 minutes. And that isn't interesting to watch.

They could always use it as a bridge between Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor. Put that on for three weeks, Hell's Kitchen for three weeks and that's six weeks out of the 12 sorted already.

Seriously - can't see it happening, but I agree it'd make commercial sense. Especially if they, say, launch it on the night of the Britain's Got Talent final...

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Great ratings for the big two last night. I wonder how much the loss of audience for Above Suspicion across the hour will be seen tonight.

Certainly the show would have to change. You cant keep going down the freak show road. It would have to more like Celebrity Hijack, where they managed to get some intelligent people in the house and still made a very watchable series.

Big Brother is just not as popular anymore, end of.

Down to a number of factors, but people are embarrassed about watching it.

My Nan went from: "Wow, it's really funny and interesting" to "You don't watch that! God, it's evil!"

Maybe it'll happen in a mainstream way to X Factor. I spose it started to already happen until that final result. Everyone thought the demise of Jedward and the Rage Against The Machine had resulted in X Factor taking a turn for the worse.

I think people were embarrassed about watching it from the start. I agree that the mainstream, older, audience came (S1-S3) and went (S5-6) but I think it can be changed and re-worked.

Anyway, doesn't matter, wont happen.

I think CBB on ITV1 probably wouldn't work for quite a few years and would probably have an adverse effect on their (many) other celeb-related shows, especially I'm a Celeb.

It is worth noting though that this very situation happened in France. Big Brother aired a for a few years on M6 (probably the closest channel to C4), was axed, and then returned five years later on TF1 (biggest commercial channel, a la ITV1) and was and still is extremely successful though the format of the show has been adjusted somewhat. The main difference is probably that the original M6 version wasn't as overused as it has been for C4.

OT but the first series saw its walls being broken through by "trash TV" protesters!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...io/1329587.stm

I remember reading in the UK Big Brother magazine way back when which said that when the protesters broke through, none of the contestants actually wanted to leave all saying they were having a good time to the dismay of those who had just hammered their way through brick!

This maybe a leap of faith but why don't Channel 4 put musical artists on CBB eviction nights like the X Factor.