An interesting quote from NBC explaining the importance of London 2012


http://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/me...ked-questions/

But NBC loses a lot of money from showing the Olympics cos they paid ridiculously high for rights: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,6530534.story

It's all well and good getting "high gross household impressions" but at what cost?

As I said a few days ago, the Olympics should pretty much break even for them each time - usually they make a small profit (not more than 10% of what they paid), this time they will make a loss (around 10% of what they paid).

Obviously a loss is not so good, but its worth breaking even because they still get this halo effect and can launch into the fall schedule with it.

If you take Beijing as an example, NBC could go the bank in July, borrow $1bn and air the Olympics, then give the bank back $1.1bn in August and still have all the positive effect from having aired the games essentially without spending a penny from their programming budget.

That is a very simplistic view of what happens, and the money moves internally rather than externally, but it demonstrates how NBC don't usually pay anything for the games and don't usually make anything from them either.

They spent too much on Vancouver and London due to the economic crisis and so it didn't quite work out as well as it should have, or as well as they are convinced it will do in the next 8 years.

Federer is live on BBC2/HD now and ought rate very well, it is under the roof so no chance of a rain delay. It looks like he is going to lose the opening set - so hopefully a 4/5 set thriller is on the cards.

If Ofcom approve the proposals for UTV/STV to become affiliates, then they'll have no say I think?

That was me:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18150517

Im surprised ITV have never considered reviving Thunderbirds for Saturdays either as a fully CG or a mix of live action and CGI. The Avengers would be good but ITV don't actually own it, Studiocanal do plus there would confusion with the Marvel Avengers.

yes if it was an ITV viewer, I would be most confused by a new Avengers series.

I agree that a new Thunderbirds or Gerry Anderson show would be good.

Federer now 2-0 down, he needs to up his game to get back into this. This could be rating 2.5m+ easily, hopefully nearer 4m.

Could they potentially switch this to BBC1 should it go to 5 sets? Federer doesn't look like he can hold a candle to Benneteau, playing some stunning tennis.

I would rather they showed EastEmders.

The test card sounds preferable to both of those. When everyone has access to all the digital channels then they can shunt sport off onto those.

Points of View's mailbag will already be overflowing because BBC1 and BBC2 showed sport 'all night' last night, they'd have to extend the programme if EastEnders was moved

just for you then

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../240px-TCF.jpg

moving on, im not suggesting the tennis is taken off air, in favour of EastEnders, it can stay on BBC 2 all it wants.

Ah thanks. I think I'll have that as my new wallpaper.
Don't forget the BBC2 fans who will moan that their favourite shows are postponed or moved

but that is the published schedule, its not moving it to another channel to replace something else for the sake of it.

I speak as someone who was denied Mock the Week last night, and didn't complain too much.

Seriously what would me and dan_2008 do if EE was cancelled?

This...

When EastEnders moves to BBC2 for the Olympics i think that will be the most ever my Digi box says 102

I've changed that for you....I dunno...Maybe i will go out on a killing spree. I will have so much anger in me

Just a quick thought - re-watching some YouTube videos of major events. One of the things that struck me was how digital channels reacted to the death of Princess Diana. 'UK Living', a channel not affiliated with the BBC and owned solely by Flextech, showed a message telling viewers 'For a major announcement please turn to BBC News' - still several hours after the announcement was first made.

I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing. Would this happen today do you think? (Obviously not this specific channel, as it's now owned by BSkyB)

Looks like its staying on BBC Two, I imagine only Andy Murray matches will switch to BBC One but only if it's set to be a five set game.

Undoubtedly, these days they only do it on the CBBC Channel and from the snacthes I see of it they put a lot of imagination and effort into it. And they do have lots of new programmes on CBBC, and it's instructive to compare it with what we had at this time of year twenty or thirty years ago, when I was growing up CBBC between June and September would be virtually non-stop repeats, there might be one new programe and possibly a new import, and on holiday mornings they would wheel out ancient stuff like Gentle Ben and the old Superman serials, and CFF films in the autumn. I know CBBC repeat the likes of Total Wipeout but they're far more relevant and interesting to today's kids than that stuff was.

And also as well, kids are happier to watch repeats than most people, if you look at the children's chart in Broadcast it's always got at least one repeat of Tracy Beaker in it, often at number one (which is one other reason why the suggestions the Beeb are specifically running down kids shows on BBC1 by only showing repeats is bogus, because kids watch loads of repeats). But Chris Patten has said that kids TV is one of the areas that is being ring-fenced from the cuts because they have a duty to do it.

Kids get a way better service from the CBBC Channel than we ever got twenty or thirty (or more) years ago.


Yes, and the CITV Channel wasn't on Sky when it started, and they kept on closing it down early so ITV4 come come on early, eventually closing down at lunchtime at the weekends, because of course no kids are about then, are they? And they also made absolutely no new programmes for it either.

Of course, these days it's on twelve hours a day every day and they do make new stuff for it. As they should.

I got your name wrong, my apologises.

I wouldn't go on a killing spree if I were you, they probably dont let you watch EastEnders in jail, and given that its a spree you will only end up dead or in jail.

Why are we talking about Princess Diana again?

Someone asked about Mr Bean ratings. The first one got 18m iirc on New Years Day after Coro St. They repeated the same monday night scheduling combo for the second one and that also got 17-18m. I think subsequent ones settled around 14m, gradually edging downwards.

Unprecedented comedy ratings for ITV, only the Beeb big hitters got those sorts of numbers.

And also regarding CBBC, shows like Tracy Beaker Returns which are new seem to get the highest ever ratings for kids shows, with around 800,000, and it appeals to this time's target audience (if that even makes sense).

According to wiki, the highest rated episode of Mr Bean was 18.74m on 1st Jan 1992. Massive numbers, only a football match or Royal event would get this nowadays.