Originally Posted by theonlyweeman:
“It was a gimmick, a promo tool and a way to screw over it's competitors by making sure some of the best shows on TV weren't available for the next 5 years. You really think they paid £50m for Mad Men, because they thought they could regain it? It was to piss off the BBC and gain a bit of promo... It worked.”
Did it work?
Obviously the BBC weren't over the moon about losing Mad Men but lets keep some context here it was a BBC4 show. Its not like Sky stole a massive hitting major flagship or anything. More over you have to question whether as a piece of promo it actually worked. Do we know if there's been any uptick in the rate of subscription to Sky since the invent of Atlantic and the launch of Mad Men? It seems to me that, that's the measure from which you have to measure if the whole process has been a success or not and not whether or not the press wrote about it.
Specifically on the subject of the HBO deal I'm not sure how well that's worked out for them. The access to HBO's archive is great but also limited because ultimately there's really only a handful of shows there and the rights for their new content, with the exception of Game of Thrones, has been a complete bust primarily because so much of it hasn't been very good. The question has to be asked would they have been better off making a deal for the archive and then individual deals for shows they actually wanted. And then the question has to be how many of the new crop of HBO shows would they have actually wanted.
Originally Posted by paltonz:
“Speaking of TXF vs The Voice, I think The Voice will dent TXF, but not win the slot. There are so much hype and publicity around the new judges that curiosity factor will win over...”
I'm not convinced this is true and I'm increasingly less convinced as American Idol lines up its judges and steals The X Factor's thunder slightly. The excitement levels for the show don't seem particularly increased on last years rather lukewarm response and lets not forget that Fox spent obscene sums on promoting the first season of The X Factor without it producing massive results. Obviously we'll know more when we see how The Voice starts on Monday and holds up on Tuesday but I think there's every chance it can beat The X Factor head-to-head and more worryingly for Fox help boost Talent to a victory over The X Factor as well. As much as The Voice dipped last year it was still stronger than The X Factor.
Originally Posted by cylon6:
“With The Paralympics 4.1m is good. The +1 audience for The Bletchley Circle was 422,000/2.4%. Bringing the total (including HD) figure to 4.5m/19.5%.”
Keep in mind that excluding +1 that's roughly the same figure that Good Cop launched with last week. It wasn't a particularly good debut for Good Cop then and its not a particularly good debut for Bletchley Circle now. Particularly not in light of A Mother's Son doing slightly better in what were (for ITV) tougher slots.
Originally Posted by theonlyweeman:
“Homeland has a new regular slot on Thursday nights for C4. What do you think? I'm gonna go 1.5-2m”
Not sure how I feel about changing the night of broadcast. The Sunday slot seemed like madness at the start of the year but worked for it and worked really well but obviously at the end of the year the competition is much bigger so it makes sense. This also helps them to deal with the giant problem that is weekday 10PM. I think, assuming there isn't a massive drop-off in quality for season two, it should be above 2 million. If I were Channel 4 I might also be looking at trying to get a stripped repeat run of season one in on More4 or something before the second season begins. Or even a late-night one on Channel 4. Give people who might have missed it first time around and either heard the word of mouth or seen the promos during the Paralympics a chance to catch up.
Originally Posted by mossy2103:
“Trouble is, some periodically complain that BBC one only shows cosy, cuddly or lightweight dramas. But when they do show something that is dark or requires a fair degree of concentration or thought, then it's too much...”
They need a balance and a stronger balance than the one they currently have. And I still think scheduling that resulted in Accused and Good Cop running in the same week was a mistake. The problem with BBC1 tends to be that they lurch from one extreme to the other.
Originally Posted by Dancc:
“I think back in January it will do about 2m a night again if the cast is on a par with the current lot and the launch show is widely promoted.”
Perhaps but is the major concern at this stage not that they're just massively overexposing an already old format?
Dunno what you people are on, but I wouldn't mind some of it. 
All of 600k in week 1
