I noticed that last night. Methinks they moved the EastEnders Omnibus a few weeks too soon. Wouldn't have been any trouble finding BBC One or BBC Two daytime slots for it, up to and including the last weekend of April.

No one else has done those calculations because of how weak and inconclusive the findings are.

Your basically saying that if Sky attracts more than 4,600 new subscribers then it's made back what the rights cost, whilst ignoring all the costs of everything else Sky have paid for.

The fact your arguing that the show is covering its cost in the first place tells the main story.

I said i'd leave it there but I've been tempted back by Victim of Fate's helpful post (thanks you!)

I'm not going to go through it all again as I realise much of what I will say is likely to be misunderstood.

So I'm just going to make a short point.

Go back to basic economic theory. For Profit maximisation, Marginal revenue = Marginal cost.

You don't need to do calculations apportioning total costs over the whole subscriber base etc. Indeed that's the wrong way of looking at it when assessing an individual decision.

Decisions are taken at the margin.

For Profit maximisation, Marginal revenue = Marginal cost.

That's all I'm saying. Hopefully some people will get it.

I can't speak for all the programmes, but they're still making 96 Bargain Hunts a year (three series of 32 shows), and they're still making Homes Under the Hammer. Up until today, 55 new editions have been screened since September 2011, but it was completely on repeats for about three months before that, so you could say 55 since June last year.

Cash in the Attic has been scrapped, but I have no idea whether there are any new editions in the can, and there are a number of unseen editions of the scrapped To Buy or Not to Buy, which haven't been shown because one of the presenters died.

Exactly!!! That's exactly what I'm saying. All other cost decisions have already been taken and are unaffected.

We're looking at the marginal cost of Mad Men and the associated marginal revenue.

Sums it up perfectly. They do it because they can.

Many thanks for taking the trouble to answer my question - much appreciated!

...a bit like when BBC poached Heroes from the Sci Fi Channel eh?
http://www.heroestheseries.com/bbc-b...00-an-episode/

I'm a bit retentive about Bargain Hunt because I watch it, and about Homes Under the Hammer because I set up someone else's PVR for the new editions.

And my point is that, that is an incredibly misleading way to look at the numbers because in reality only a tiny percentage of those 4.6k subscription fees would be used to cover the cost of Mad Men and thus the rate of subscription needs to be considerably higher.


Only that's not the case.

Mad Men isn't the only new piece of content that Sky have brought and therefore its not the only piece of content that new subscription fees would have to help push into profit. Your 4.6k subscribers also have to push the likes of Touch, Smash, Awake, Ringer, Love Machine, Secret Circle and God knows what else into profit as well not mention the new original British content because those account for additional costs that weren't previously there (just like Mad Men). More over you also have to factor in the promotional cost of Mad Men which would push this years price tag at least well above the £2.5 million you were using.

Like I said the only way your system actually works is if you account for Mad Men as a percentage of the spend at Sky and subtract that from the subscriber base. So for Mad Men to actually pay for itself it would need to be responsible for more than 4.6k new subscribers because rather than 100% of the subscription fee covering Mad Men 2% (or some other arbitrary and hypothetical figure) of the subscription fee covers Mad Men.

So whilst it is perfectly fair to say that the fee for Mad Men amounts to the same as 4.6k new subscribers it isn't fair to say that 4.6k new subscribers a year means that Mad Men's costs are covered because there are any other number of additional expenses (both related and non-related to Mad Men) that you aren't taking into account.

Which all goes to show that you've completely misunderstood the point.

Never mind - I know I should have called it a day.

Victim of Fate understands it - if he/she is around maybe he/she will have another go with more success than me.

Given the fact the BBC were actually making the show available to everyone rather than limiting those who could watch it and bought the show because they thought it could do very well on their channel rather than a petty move to stop the competition having it, then I would say very different situations.


Probably for the best as you seem to be the one struggling to produce any conclusive data rather than guessing at how many subscribers joined because of one show.

Heroes was actually quite a hit for BBC Two though. Until the end when it flopped like a pancake being tossed into the deep abyss of Doom it's self.

Ken

Something going from a pay channel to a free channel is blatantly a service to the viewer, though, the only people it annoyed is the Sci Fi Channel management.

The problem with the purchase of Mad Men by Sky is that is has the potential to turn people off Sky because they come across as bullies. There's no way they can say the viewer is better off with Mad Men being on Sky Atlantic than on BBC4. Is it in a better slot? Well, 9pm compared to 10pm is of minimal difference and it's often opposite a big football match. Does it get more publicity? Well, no, because for the last BBC series they ran trailers on BBC1. Does it get to be in HD? Well, they could have done that on the BBC. Do they show it more often? Well, the Beeb repeated it in the same week on BBC4 and on BBC2. Is it on Anytime? Well, the Beeb put it on iPlayer. Can you record it? Well, PVRs work on the Beeb too.

The one benefit is that they show it quicker than the Beeb did but there's nothing to say the BBC couldn't have done that, and in addition it now has adverts in it too. It's not like sport when they can point to extended coverage and more matches, it's the same exact programme.

So people are looking at and saying "This is exactly the same Mad Men as before only now I've got to pay for it and it's got adverts", and instead of saying "I must get Sky", there's the potential they're saying "Screw Sky" instead. And you can work out how many subscribers have been lured across by Mad Men, but you then have to take into account the people who thanks to this have decided not to get Sky because they don't like the way they do business.

Potentially some very good news for ITV as FOX are doing a pilot of gameshow The Chase (from ITV Studios). Unsure if it's for daytime or primetime though.

Seems like one of those days where it is best just to skip over most posts here - so here is another for people to ignore...


And still pre-recorded. I know it's not the biggest awards show going but really don't get the point in airing an awards show five days after the event.


If it is down to contract they should put it as late as the contract allows (10am would give them an extra hour of Breakfast). If the cut off is 9am (I'm sure it's been later) put it on BBC2 and let Breakfast run on BBC1 in full, perhaps even through to 10am like on Saturday.

As for bumping Andrew Marr and everything an hour later - it's not about improving their ratings, it's about taking an hour of filler out of the schedule later in the afternoon - though to be honest IMO the BBC don't really need Andrew Marr and the Sunday Politics within a few hours of each other anyway.


No mention of the Olympics there - and a worrying acceptance that rights will have to be shared with Sky in the future. The BBC cutting their interactive services after the games and the deal with Sky for the 24 channels for London does lead me to think they'll turn to Sky to become a joint broadcaster with the BBC offering the traditional coverage plus a small number of extra channels (2-3) and Sky offering the full interactive service similar to arrangements with Foxtel, Sky Italia and Sky NZ.

I'd imagine it's primetime. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong but I don't think Fox do anything in daytime as the schedules are handled by their affiliates.

I think Cohen's speech was looking beyond the Olympics into 2013 as there is no mention of Euro 2012 in there either.

I mean the Olympics beyond 2012 - we know this year is sorted but still not deal for 2014/16.

Talking of which although it was all a bit hush hush kind of suggesting the deal was done long before it was confirmed (however inevitable it was) do we know if the BBC/ITV deal for the Euros covers 2016 too as most rights deals I've seen announced lately have been for the 2012 and 2016 tournament. A change in format too means they'll be an extra 20 games for them to cover in 2016, taking it up to 51, just 13 short of the World Cup.

I understand the point you're trying to make I just disagree with it. For your use of marginal revenue within profit maximisation to work you have to take into account the entirety of marginal cost and not one particular example of it. You want to assume that Sky's marginal cost has simply remained static since the purchase of Mad Men and it hasn't. My point is that the additional subscriptions sold since the purchase of Mad Men have not generated revenue purely to cover the cost of Mad Men and therefore to suggest that Sky can cover the cost of Mad Men by shifting 4.6k additional subscriptions is incorrect. In reality the rate of subscription has to be much greater than that because the revenue created has to cover an increased amount of output.

That 4.6k additional subscriptions are equal to the cost of Mad Men does not mean that 4.6k additional subscriptions pay for Mad Men. There are many other expenditures that must be deducted from those subscriptions and all of that will be factored into Sky's business model.


You're correct Fox don't do nationally programmed daytime. Its possible however that it isn't the Fox network that's ordering the pilot but the Fox production company and that they would then look to co-produce and sell into the daytime market. If it is being looked at for prime time then I'd imagine it'll be for summer.

However the report I just read suggests that they're flying a group of US contestants over to film a pilot in the UK studio with the UK crew including Bradley Walsh as host. That to me suggests that its being looked at as a daytime format and not a prime time one. I'd assume that if they wee looking at it as a possible prime time format they'd want a US host and would shoot a pilot in the US with US American 'chasers'.

Sorry AlexiR I promise you you haven't fully understood my point. If you had, you wouldn't have written what you have.

You think you have understood my point - I understand and appreciate that.

Now I promise that is my last word. I'll leave the final word to you if you want to say anything further.

I would like to understand the economics of the Mad Men situation so please do not feel as if you have to give up putting your point across.

What Id like you to clarify on in layman's terms is this: You said Mad Men costs sky £2.5m a year and you have said Sky need 4,600 new subscribers to cover these costs. Okay thats cool. But what about sky spending hundreds of thousands of pounds more, or even millions, on the marketing of Mad Men? They spent loads of money on doing features for newspapers, promos, adverts, billboards, all of that stuff. With that included, how many new subscribers would sky need to cover the costs? Is it still 4,600 or would it be much more that that? And how many new subscribers do sky need not to just cover costs but actually make the acquisition of Mad Men financially worth doing in the first place? Come on mlt, even if sky are covering their costs, youve got to admit overnight ratings of 40k for a much hyped drama is a bit rubbish.

If you insist (!)

1) Yes - you should add in all marketing costs relating specifically to Mad Men. But only those that are both discrete and entirely specific to Mad Men. I have no idea exactly what they are. If, hypothetically, they are £1m (per year) then the calculation becomes £3.5m/544 = 6,434 subscribers. (Technically you should also take account of any (obviously pretty small!) advertising revenue earned).

2) Yes I'd agree - ratings of 40k are "a bit rubbish". On the subject of ratings I think it would be fair to say that the comparison to performance when on BBC (in Sky homes only) needs to take account of the much greater promotion being done by Sky. It is also now in a much better EPG position which I don't think has been mentioned. But that is all a different matter from what I've been saying throughout the day.

Okay, so about 7000 new subscribers needed to cover costs. Now, in Media Guardians blog today it said that 142,000 viewers have seen this series of Mad Men, this is higher than 103,000 Sky viewers who saw series 4 of Mad Men when it was on BBC4. So there are 39,000 more Sky viewers watching this series? How many of those 39,000 viewers do you believe are new subscribers who bought Sky largely to watch Mad Men? Bear in mind some of those 39k wouldve already been Sky subscribers before anyway.

To summarise the Mad Men debate:

The ratings suck.

There's no way we can tell if it's been a worthwhile investment for Sky as we don't have the appropriate information at our disposal.