Cowell doesn't determine the scheduling, though, does he? I'm not sure he can just say to ITV 'move it'. And move it where?

If anything, the Sunday episode this week should have been re-edited so the Saturday episode and the week after were 90 minutes (or something) with Corrie moved to 8pm and The Chase at 7pm.

The point is BBC1 and ITV1 used to have lots of popular sitcoms in primetime but numbers of sitcoms are down on BBC1 while almost non existent on ITV.

And of those comedies only Bad Education is worth anybody's time.

I don't know that I would have put it on Sunday opposite Downton. To be honest I think it could have held its own quite nicely as an interesting alternative during the week. I suppose Channel 5's fear is that its a little slow and scheduling could have proved to be difficult given that I assume they'll stick with the three 2 hour episodes it had in the US and not make it six 1 hours episodes. It would have been nice to see them take the gamble on it on the main channel though and it certainly would have stood out from their usual offerings. And just about everything else on the main channels in general.

Although in general I struggle to work out how Channel 5 decide what to put where. I suppose part of the problem is that their digital channels lack a bit of public identity. So with E4 for example you get what the audience profile is and with one or two exceptions its easy to work out the logic behind where shows are landing with the Channel 5 family of channels I'm still not sure what they're going for.


I believe Sky Living has Mount Pleasant and The Gates as well at the moment doesn't it? Although I have no idea when.


That's not good.

Although in fairness whilst you can see that they've clearly spent quite a bit of money on it, its not particularly good. I applaud them for at least trying something of this scope and ambition though and hopefully this doesn't put them off trying again.

You're not the only one who is impartial - it's just it gets rather tiresome in here when a certain BBC spokesperson makes an issue of "flop" ITV dramas, casually forgetting how his own beloved BBC performed. I don't give two hoots who broadcasts what - but :yawn: to the continual pro BBC propaganda.









I wasn't referring to posters on here bumming it up - I was referring to the fanfare BBC and the media were giving it prior to launch - the move to Scotland etc...

Who said it was a shock - not me, and If you had read back the posts it was your friend who first made reference to the ITV "flops" last night - so if someone seems fit to make that "noteworthy" to make an initial comment then this is a forum for a response

BTW I am neither pro BBC, pro ITV or pro any channel - but continual pro channels being spouted on here is tiresome - but it will get a response from me .

The British is on Sky Anytime, so it will timeshift well (to coin a phrase).

I think it was pretty predictable that The British would struggle, although it should top 100k. My biggest concern with Atlantic at the moment is that it seems they are struggling to launch shows. Perhaps people who feel burned by sub par shows in the past aren't willing to give the other new programs a chance but, unlike with Sky1, promotional campaigns for individual shows on Atlantic don't seem to be having an impact.

Despite that, I still refute suggestions that the HBO deal was a mistake. At the end of the day Sky got a whole new channel out of it and crucially Atlantic remains a key factor in encouraging people to join the Sky platform (1 in 4 new subscribers according to Stuart Murphy). It's also still relatively early days for the channel as well, so I look forward to seeing how they evolve it - I think its clear that its still finding its identity.

Also just a brief caveat, Julia Davis' Hunderby is very good indeed and had a live audience of over 100k for its premiere (so should time shift over 200k). It's definitely the sort of direction they should be heading in for original programming, rather than The British. I would still like to see more original drama, rather than comedy, across Atlantic and Sky 1 but I believe there may be a significant announcement in that regard in the next couple of months.

I wasn't querying the scheduling of The X Factor - sorry if it looked like that.

The production team have just let the show drift this year. Part of me wonders if it's a guinea pig for the US version as it appears to be going to air without a presenter; certainly Dermot has been absent for large spells of the show. But either way the panel generally has all the appeal of asbestos; the atmosphere is flatter than roadkill and the talent is really lacking. A decent edit could cover this up (it certainly managed it last year at this stage) but they're not even bothering to attempt that.

I saw in one of the links that Simon is 'personally' overseeing the edit of the next show; my only surprised is this story didn't come out sooner.

I had noticed that they'd slowly started repeating some of the Atlantic content across the Sky brands. Smash popped up on Sky Living the other day I think. It makes sense to give some of these shows a wider platform to attract Sky and non-Sky homes attention to Atlantic. And I still think they need to consider some simulcasts across the Sky channels.

The first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones simulcast on Sky1 and Atlantic will grab some press and probably more eyeballs and then you run a trailer after the Sky1 showing telling the audience they have to have Sky Atlantic if they want to watch the rest of the series. There's no point having this exclusive to Sky homes channel if you aren't going to more overtly leverage it.


And this brings me back to not really knowing what the point of 5USA is. Or in fact 5* although 5* is at least clearer than USA. I'm sure it can be an incredibly valuable asset for them but it seems to me that if its going to be one it probably needs a much clearer identity and purpose than it currently has.

Miranda has a very similar audience profile to Dallas, so that's another less than complementary clash.

Multichannel will probably see the biggest gains in light of the main channels catering for too few tastes.

In Tv Fantasy Land I would close 5* & 5USA, and replace them with Film 5 and Film 5 +1.

A Film 5 channel might not perform as well as Film 4, but having such a title would be a cheeky challenge to Film 4 and could air films that could attract what - up to 250k?

The main Channel 5 could be beefed up with content from 5USA and it would allow them to concentrate on 2 strong brands.

Tv fantasy land of course - lalala

5* should be 24/7 to give E4 a run for its money

A decades old soap? It's bloody Emmerdale! And this summer ITV was thrashed by a hundred year old sporting event.


I doubt this, it's forever amazing how people watch any old England game, like when they complained the other year when that Ukraine game was only on the internet when it was a dead rubber, and when because of a tube strike "only" 70,000 people went to Wembley to watch England vs Andorra, despite the fact they were playing Andorra.

Time now for my regular feature, Things I've Read In Broadcast...
* Surprise Surprise is going to be a series now, not just a one-off, and the format's been flogged to NBC as well
* ITV have commissioned Benidorm Bastards (except it's not going to be called that) which is a hidden camera show with old people which was piloted by the Beeb and turned down
* Richard Curtis is adapting Esio Trot by Roald Dahl as a ninety minute film for BBC1 which was planned for this Christmas but it won't be ready so it'll be next Christmas (That's not a Royle-esque thing, by the way, it wasn't like it was scheduled, it's just been in development hell for a bit)
* Although Psychoville isn't coming back BBC2 have commissioned two new series from Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, part of a new thing they're doing with talent (the same thing they've done with Stewart Lee). The first series is a series of six individual sitcoms called Happy Endings and the second might be another series of that or something else
* As mentioned, Food and Drink is coming back to BBC2 with Michel Roux
* Live At The Electric on BBC3's been recommissioned for two series

Hasn't it had that problem (pretty much) since day one? I know Boardwalk Empire launched fairly big but that's because it was part of the big fanfare of the first night – did it sustain that kind of momentum? Game of Thrones seems to be the only that's actually broken through for them in any way and that has to be a major concern because they've thrown quite a few shows at the wall and nothing has stuck.


Its difficult to judge.

I think the deal for the archive was great but my concern remains that the deal for new shows hasn't really been worth it. When you look at what they've actually gotten out of that deal you have to ask the question how many of those shows would they have actually brought independent of the HBO deal? The HBO deal seems to have tied their hands a little with Atlantic and put them in a position to air shows that either weren't very good or were never really going to appeal to a particularly impressive audience. Equally it also seems to have stopped them from buying other shows that might have been a better fit on the channel in general. As has been said before that they seemingly let Homeland go to Channel 4 is a weird call.

Also the fact that this HBO deal seemingly didn't include the rights to True Blood is mind blowing to me.


1 in 4 might be citing it as a reason for joining Sky but has it actually lead to a pick-up in their new subscriber rates? Also you have to wonder how many of those 1 in 4 actually end up watching Atlantic content. It would be interesting to know what kind of percentage of Sky subscribers actually watch Atlantic.

On the subject of finding an identity my question is why did not have a clear identity when it launched? And in fact didn't it have a quite clearly stated remit when it launched? A channel of high quality adult drama. Isn't that what the point of those annoying launch ads was? I thought the general purpose was supposed to be that Sky1 would become a more general broad entertainment channel, Sky Living would remain a female centric brand and Atlantic would be the home of high quality intelligent content. Admittedly that's a rather broad remit but that's not strictly speaking a bad thing.

This quest for an identity has evolved because Sky didn't have the content to launch the channel they advertised (and how nobody at Sky realised that problem sooner remains a mystery to me) so they've had to chop and change it which has resulted in viewers losing interest in it.

Now then, Mr Volkswagen, it's actually like the old days when three terrestrial channels showing sport. I can remember when BBC1 would have golf, ITV would have athletics and Channel 4 would have racing, all at the same time. I think we're going to see some interesting ratings tonight. It will be interesting to see if the post olympics anti-fitba feeling will feed into the ratings for the match,

Viewers are engaging well with the brand as the channel's viewing share is continuing to increase. It is to US drama what Dave is to panel shows, allowing the main channel to explore a broader range of programming whilst at the same time fully exploiting the rights to its most lucrative of acquisitions, in turn increasing their overall share.

5USA Channel Shares
January 2007: 0.4%
July 2007: 0.7%
January 2008: 0.6%
July 2008: 0.7%
January 2009: 0.8%
July 2009: 0.9%
January 2010: 0.8%
July 2010: 0.9%
January 2011: 0.9%
July 2011: 1.0%
January 2012: 1.0%
July 2012: 1.1%
BARB.

In comparison, E4 had 2.3% in January 2007 and as of July 2012 it has 2.1%.

There's a reason the Beeb turned it down. Another flop for ITV on the horizon then...

ITV have put up a press pack for Monroe, suggesting a Monday launch versus New Tricks. Homefront looks set for Thursday nights after The Bletchley Circle has finished.

Last Tango in Halifax has disappeared from BBC's Media Centre.

Provisionals for week beginning 22nd September, thanks to Doc12 on GB, although I suspect that one side will be changing their Saturday schedule, the question is which side...

Saturday 22nd September
BBC One
18:05 - A Question of Sport
18:35 - Total Wipeout
19:35 - Doctor Who
20:20 - Lottery: Secret Fortune
21:10 - Casualty

ITV1
18:00 - You've Been Framed
18:30 - Fool Britannia
19:00 - Red or Black?
19:45 - The X Factor
21:15 - Red or Black?
22:00 - The Jonathan Ross Show

Sunday 23rd September
BBC One
19:00 - Fake or Fortune?
20:00 - Countryfile
21:00 - TBA

ITV1
19:30 - The X Factor
21:00 - Downton Abbey

I think everyone was just viewing the one-off as a pilot for a full return anyway so this isn't hugely surprising. Maybe they should have waited to see how the one-off did first though...

Also, ah so the NBC series is an official version of Surprise, Surprise and not just a terrible rip-off of the format as I first thought. For anyone wondering they've got Jenny McCarthy of all people presenting it.


That should be good. I was just wondering the other day why we haven't really seen any of Dahl's books made as TV specials over Christmas.


That is the single worst description of a television channel I have ever heard in my life.

Gee, thanks. No attempt to address the more substantive point I was making, nor engage in a mature debate, just that. Brilliant. It's why you're one of my favourite posters on here, you're just full of love and cheer.

I notice Channel 5 are repeating episode 1 of Dallas at 20:00-anyone know why it is 60mins as opposed to the 75min length on Wed? Is it just a case of more adverts on the first showing?

Edit: It's been cut. At least one scene (a slightly risque one at the beginning) was removed.

Not necessarily. It's been a hit in several territories and did alright for NBC in a tough slot earlier this year so we'll see. The UK version will be called Off Their Rockers (the same name as the US version). The BBC apparently passed on it because they said they wouldn't allow any swearing, sex jokes or drug references and the producers said the show would be watered down. ITV have said the show will be 'funny, not rude' though (more info here). The BBC have ordered their own hidden camera show with Richard Hammond called Secret Service though which sounds like a complete rip-off.


Yeah it was said a while back they'd ordered a full series. It's filming soon so it'll probably go on Sundays at 7pm once The Chase is done. I'd have thought it'll at least start well but no idea if it'll be a long term hit. It's being done by ITV Studios so selling it to NBC is great for them but Jenny McCarthy seems the wrong host (not that I know much about her though). Seems like something they'll shove on Fridays in midseason anyway.


You'd think there'd be more as there are plenty that would work for TV. Even a few that have already been made as movies could still work (some of them would probably be better than the movies!).

If your substantive point had been more than simply 'look at the share' I might have commented on it.

Or perhaps you wanted comment on the illogical response that by making it a hub of endless CSI and NCIS repeats it somehow frees up the main channel to explore a wider range of content. Illogical because for that argument to work you'd have to be suggesting that if 5USA were to shut down tomorrow said endless loop of repeats would transfer to the main channel and you'd also have to be suggesting that the main channel has started exploring a wider range of content.

Moreover your substantive point doesn't actually answer what the purpose or identity of the channel is supposed to be or go any distance to explaining why Justified for example airs on 5USA and not the main channel. Or why Hatfields & McCoys will air on 5USA rather than the main channel. If anything your substantive point is completely counter-intuitive as to why arguably both but at least one of those shows is airing on 5USA.

Are you capable of responding without being extremely condescending and nasty?

I think I'll pass on this debate at this time as it's unlikely to ever become constructive.

Isn't Esio Trot a bit short for a 90 minute film? I would have thought an hour would be more suitable, the more famous works of Roald Dahl have already been adapted or will be adapted. Think George's Marvellous Medicine would make a good special or The Magic Finger.