Another, similar interview with Danny Cohen here http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/b...023489.article

He knows his stuff Cohen and very much in touch with the audience IMO. Exciting times for BBC One. Certainly a massive improvement on Jay Hunt.

Cowell apparently not leaving UK X Factor: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s103/...-x-factor.html

Papers seemingly just creating false headlines there, then.

Thanks for that. A new "big shiny floor show" thats a hit on BBC1 is the equivalent of hitting the bullseye blindfold. Best of luck on that one.

Larkrise will take some replacing too, but overall its a promising sounding response imo.

EDIT: Ant and Decs contract is up for renegotiation this year I think-that would certainly make a splash Danny!

NB-I do realise this is highly unlikely

Its a whole industry I think.

Mr Cohen seems to at least understand what the problems are. Unlike Jay Hunt who never had a clue.

I read somewhere - not The Times - that Cohen had said Vernon Kay was not in the running for Strictly if and when Brucie goes. Common sense at last

I hope that does not mean he is a fan of Barrowman, I think Vernon is more common sense than JB.

The reason they have it this way, is because that's the way it always has been since 1988. They didn't want too alienate the lunchtime Neighbours audience, who have always seen new Neighbours at that time on the BBC. I do agree that moving H&A back to 1pm may help that, and Neighbours at 1.30pm. However, it's at 1.45pm, so you can watch Neighbours after the BBC's regional news. 800k for Channel 5 with no lead is good surely?

I'd love to know what the programme before Neighbours gets on Channel 5?

I'll summarise the key points from the Broadcast interview, without repeating what Robbie has put in his summary of the Times interview:

- He again says he wants to make the channel 'the best in the world'.

- Every genre is being looked at with a view to an evolution and, in some cases, a more radical shift in direction.

-More factual at 9pm: "“Factual on BBC1 has to be either phenomenally bold in its scale or very entertaining, but I also want it to be more lithe, so the channel is aware of, and taking part in, the national conversations. There are opportunities in pre and post watershed for factual to be very of the moment. People don’t want to know just what facts are, they want to know what facts feel like.”

- More bold, risky drama: "You don’t do really special, ambitious programming unless you take big risks and are prepared to fail. Those kinds of programme have a percentage of failure built into them. Unless you are able to accept that you might end up with egg on your face, you will never do the most exciting pieces. We are up for that risk, because we believe you can be bold and creatively risky while also being intelligent – intelligence and populism can go hand in hand.”

- Pre-watershed: building comedy and possibly introducing more live tv. Wants to find the next Only Fools and Horses - a comedy with warmth and enduring appeal. Wants tv that represents everyone, "everyone pays the license fee".

- On scheduling: “I think people want consistency – they don’t want the same show moved around. But it’s about creatively scheduling new series, or event pieces like the royal wedding.”

- On potential budget cuts: There are things you can do around scheduling, focusing on the richness of key primetime hours and so on. I don’t know all the answers for BBC1, but those are the things we did on 3. You try to do everything you can to make sure the audience doesn’t notice."

- On 2012: Wants to make it "an absolutely outstanding year on BBC1."

Has also approached some 'national treasures' to work on the channel.

Very interesting interview with Danny Cohen. He sounds like he knows what he's doing and isn't afraid to take risks.

The BBC1 schedule has strong anchors in it (the 6pm, 10pm news, EastEnders' regularly spaced and established slots) and it looks to me he wants to further strengthen that. Loving his approach to comedy, bold drama and factual stuff.

It's the sort of thing Peter Fincham should be doing, but has neglected to do.

Great news for the BBC and I look forward to hearing more about the new commissions. The ones already announced sound very promising.

What would be the point in DTT viewers starting to watch those shows when they won't be able to watch the entire runs?

I expect a fair few of the people who watched last night were existing BSkyB subscribers who missed the original screenings. Preaching to the converted.

I can't say how refreshing these interviews with Danny Cohen are. He seems on top of all the problems, from pre-watershed variety to weekend entertainment.

I like his commitment to scale on the channel; its focussing on what BBC One should be doing: big drama, mass audience comedy, popular entertainment, landmark documentaries and authoritative factual. The scale of the programmes are what should set them apart from other BBC channels.

Compare that to Jay Hunt's schedule which had an increasingly daytime or BBC Two sort of feel - a tone she seemed extremely proud of. Was mooching around the BBC website the other day and came across this snippet from her which I thought exemplified the problem:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/sta...n/bbcone.shtml

Thats how she defined her own impact on the channel. Danny Cohen seems to have an altogether much better set of priorities.

Let's pray this happens with their light entertainment programmes.

A very stable rating for Hustle which has performed great in the Friday slot & the Friday schedule in general is very stable, but EE has definitely seen a noticeable dip for its episodes this week.

Another awful rating for CR and ITV will be glad when this and Taggart come to an end. Their new schedule hasn't been all bad though, because the Thursday dramas have performed strongly and the Wednesday shows have all done well. TBL seems to be very slightly building an audience too and the DOI revamp has at least made it stabilise and not decrease any further. Though the weak links are definitely Taggart, Comedy Rocks & Primeval.

Excellent night for Ch4 again. It will be interesting to see how the schedule holds up when stuff like MPD, BFGW and Mary Portas end. I doubt Friday Night Dinner & Heston will be as strong, but they should bring in a decent audience and it's really good news for Ch4 that they have found two brand new returning hits in BFGW and Mary Portas-they were desperately needing this after the axe of BB and almost every new show last Autumn flopping.

Solid night for Ch5 with every show at 1.2m, but I agree something needs to change about the Neighbours scheduling, because I would say Doctors is taking around 0.3-0.5m of Neighbours audience. I think the best answer is switching Neighbours & H&A. Starting Neighbours any earlier won't work imo because it clashes with the BBC1 news.

Is danny cohen just dreAming though
it's easy to say what he wants
this time next year nothing would have changed

I think ITV have scheduled the first part of the year badly though. Comedy Rocks would've been better suited post Take Me Out on a Saturday with Benidorm on Friday. Taggart would've stood a better chance on a Monday than the Tuesday slot, though that would've killed off The Biggest Loser I suppose. I think they've hurt some of their shows rather than boosted them TBH. And I think Benidorm would've been better suited to Thursday's rather than Friday's were many of the core audience is out.

As for last night - low for EastEnders though again the BBC3 repeat did pretty well. The soaps on ITV1 did reasonably well, as did Hustle which has really performed strongly on Friday's. Embarrassing Bodies benefited from weak opposition from the commercial channels.

Maybe, although the last series aired in the Friday slot and averaged around 6.5m

Yeah - that's another thing C5 did when they acquired Neighbours - moved the first look (on C5) back to the afternoon, when with Home and Away it had worked pretty well using the afternoon slot to repeat the previous evening's episode.


I can't see Panorama changing other than perhaps more one hour 9pm specials - but if it did change as suggested I'd guess the Thursday 8pm hour would be the obvious slot.


C4 so should have gone for him rather than the woman he's replacing!


Nothing new there then. Cowell has always said he'd be doing it - and I doubt even ITV aren't that stupid that they'd have signed a three year deal last year without checking he'd be on it first.

The same goes for the stories of the other judges remaining out of contract - that's always been the case with TXF and most years they're not confirmed until the auditions (with judges) begin around May.

Anyone know how The Weakest Link is doing?

Last I heard it was being beaten by bbc2 and C4.

Didn't it used to win the timeslot?

I'd like to see Doctors in this slot.

Pretty amazing figures for Silent Witness. For a show like that to have its best series for 10 years is quite staggering.


Great to hear this. Jay Hunt had no time for comedy and BBC comedy, especially sitcoms, so I hope Cohen goes ahead with his plans.

http://www.c21media.net/news/detail....&article=59442


do they mean the people of Essex, or the actual wildlife? is there an wildlife that is native to Essex?

I wonder who Danny Cohens national treasures are!

The next OFAH will be quite a challenge. Its certainly not an OFAH spin off it seems.

Luck will inevitably play a part.

So would i
Doctors is really pissing on all the other soaps (yes even EASTENDERS) and does deserve a better slot.

The 2,000th Hour-Long special this wednesday looks bloody brilliant and i hear there's quite an expensive stunt coming up (not sure if thats on weds though)

The Virus storyline looks different,dramatic and in true Doctors style well acted and written and it will be a nice change to have the whole cast together for an whole hour

anyway....


It's been said millions of times Doctors is like the EastEnders of the afternoon (The BBC's words) and they are happy with how it does in the 1:45pm slots
and if they were to move it to 5:30pm they would have to tone down the storyline and cut out the grittyness and sometimes bad language they have

I would like to see the BBC give Doctors a repeat slot maybe following EastEnders on a sunday(or even on BBC 2 after Enders)

a BBC 3 look behind the scenes and last but not least
some bloody promotion

Moving EastEnders from it's Monday 8:00pm?

I think not he best come up with a better idea 7:00pm-8:00pm sounds better to me and drop the one show and double up on Wednesdays or just add a 5th EastEnders

It was the interviewer who proposed that scheduling, he was just agreeing it seemed like an interesting idea.