Perhaps Downton is suffering the same fate as Brideshead - people forget ITV did it and think it was on BBC1?

Love Life is the latest in a long line of Cold Feet type dramas, the only one of which to be a success is Cold Feet and IIRC that wasn't a huge hit to begin with and, as with TV Burp, ITV had to be goaded by the critics into putting quality of programme ahead of quantity of viewers before ratings took off later. Although, we don't yet know that Love Life has flopped. It might be the next Call The Midwife.

Once upon a time we used to have loads and loads of middle-class sitcoms all hated by the critics and most flopping badly. Now we have the middle-class contemporary dramas that rarely engage with the viewers. It all those these middle-class writers working in their oak-panelled studies well away from normal people.

I assumed Mr Selfridge might be a one off or a two parter, so good to see ITV are risking a series - that is a pretty big gamble for a first series.

They already do - it's called Upstairs Downstairs.

Is it true Katherine Kelly from Coronation Street is going to be in this show? She has a big appeal to the ITV Corrie faithful so might be a hit.

I agree it's a massive commission for them. I'm glad they've taken the risk, will be interesting to see how it goes for them.

Is this so? I know she tweeted about a new TV role but she said she wasn't allowed to say yet.

I completely agree - I know there's bastions for each channel but Dancc seems to take it all pretty seriously. All the propaganda can be a bit wearing, too.

Its a massive gamble, yes. What if it flops from day one? Having American characters in the lead role of British drama never works, look at Demons and The Prisoner most recently. BARB dont even have The Prisoners ratings in the Top 30, it was that bad. 10 episodes is too much for Selfridges, 6 would be better, then if its a hit make it 10 for series 2.

I can't see why not.


What does underlying passion mean exactly? And whilst we're on the subject perhaps you can identify the passion and inspiration in Five's schedule which on Tuesday night had four hours of CSI back-to-back and on Wednesday night three hours of US crime drama back-to-back. Tonight following the football they've had XXX and then one of their numerous awful Steven Seagal films and tomorrow night we get another three hours of US crime drama back-to-back. And just to round off the week apparently Five is airing yet more US crime drama on Saturday from 6:30PM through to midnight.


It would clear up an hour on the schedule if they were to run just one cycle of Survivor and The Amazing Race a year and stick them in the same timeslot – Survivor could probably hold down Sunday 8PM nicely.


Without doubt.

Aside from being one of the most overrated pieces of television in recent times Lost became almost incomprehensible to casual audiences and even not so casual audiences. Desperate Housewives was at least a show you didn't have to watch religiously to enjoy and when we're talking about the sums of money that C4 was having to pay that's what matters. Housewives is also more valuable across the whole platform – I struggle to envision Lost repeats on E4 at an alarmingly high rate for example.

A 10 part period drama, eh?

Oh-oh! That's worrying news for Wild At Heart, the 10 part Sunday night partnered-with-DOI, slippin-in-the-ratings, beaten-by-Call-The-Midwife drama series.

Although,has others have suggested, 8pm on a Wednesday with a Corrie lead-in could be a good slot for WAH if it continues, with Mr S taking over the Sunday night slot.

And what if it doesn't? The last thing ITV should be is risk-averse, otherwise we'll just have even more police procedural dramas.

And Demons and The Prisoner flopped because they were absolutely dreadful. The latter also flopped and was critically derided in America so it had nothing to do with the nationality of the lead.

It wouldn't surprise me. The show is clearly being aimed at the Corrie audience with Kim Crowther as the executive producer (along with someone who worked on All Creatures Great and Small) and it looking likely to air in the Wednesday 8pm slot when Corrie moves back to the 7:30pm slot. Katherine Kelly in a major role would add to that even further.

Agree with the positive comments about Mr Selfridge too, it's a massive commitment but I'm glad they've taken the risk and wish them well with it.

I'm free to have opinions on here, this is a personal account. Unfortunately your bias shines through on the DS ratings reports - more's the pity for your readers, a few of the more astute ones have picked up on it and commented as such.

That sounds very much like Soldier Soldier which put as much emphasism on the wives and girlfriends as the soldiers (because it was created by a woman - Lucy Gannon) and as a result became a huge ratings smash.

Whats wrong with police procedural dramas? CBS has become the most watched network in America by making lots of police procedurals.


Nationality does come into it a little bit. Look at the ratings for American TV shows here and compare them to similar British shows, theyre always much lower. There are still some people out there who wont watch a tv show because it has non British characters in it. Its true, if you go to a nursing home and see what people there prefer to watch- CSI or The Body Farm? Theyll choose The Body Farm cos its got English characters in it even though its 10 times worse lol.

The whole production seems to be geared up toward limiting the domestic risk with international sales. A 10 episode series and an American lead will only make it easier to sell to an American network as will their willingness to trade off of the Downton name despite the fact that's not actually an ITV Studios production. That the American lead is apparently set to be Jeremy Piven. He's won Emmys and a Golden Globe and has a profile both in US and international television. Plus he's pretty good which helps.

I'd also suggest that Demons and The Prisoner bombed less because of an American lead (or in the case of Demons a dodgy US accent) and more because they were both terrible pieces of television. Demons in particular was horrific.

I don't think Mr Selfridge should be risked against CTM. The DOI sandwich could have worked had CTM not taken off but it would be silly to risk it there now. I think Mr Selfridge is more likely to take a 9pm slot (Monday probably). I still think WAH could do well in that Wednesday slot, with something like All Star Family Fortunes put on Sundays against CTM, which would appeal to a different enough audience to get 4-6m in the DOI sandwich slot without running an expensive drama against CTM.

ITV have enough of them already. There's a place for them, sure, but more often than not they're safe and lazy commissions because they know there will usually always be an audience who will watch. I don't really think that's the sort of broadcaster ITV should be, and I think you limit your commercial success if that's all you want to be.


This isn't an American show though, it's a British drama with a predominantly British cast, set and filmed in Britain.

It sounds almost identical to Lifetime's Army Wives to me.


That's not entirely true. Survivor played a much larger role than anyone likes to admit in making CBS the powerhouse its become and their sitcoms have played a vital role in keeping them there. The crime dramas are certainly their back bone though. Although CSI and now that's faded NCIS are really the only big hitters they've produced. Everything else has basically been and is basically middle of the road.

I forgot about Downton and Doc Martin to be honest. But I still think it shouldn't be axed without thought - even if they want to refresh Sunday's it could still air on another night.

I wouldn't axe it either, not yet anyway.

8pm Wednesday would surely be a nicer slot for Mr. Selfrdge to launch from as BBC One tends to be weaker on Wednesday's compared to Sunday's?

Some here may be interested to know that TNT have announced that Dallas will debut in the US Wednesday June 13. The question now is does Five follow suit with a summer roll out or wait until the Autumn? In other news TNT have also dated new series Perception for July 9. I bring this up because its a show Five should look at buying. I think it would do well for them.

The only issue is the cost...Wild At Heart can't be cheap to film considering it's filmed in the middle of Africa. It presume it must make money for the broadcaster, though, as it would've been axed by now.