I just think it's folly to suggest BT's sports channel is doomed just because a lot of their games are Saturday lunchtime kickoffs and these don't perform as well as they would in a late afternoon slot. BT would have known this when they picked up the rights.

Marketing will be key and like Sky, BT are experts at that. Plus they are already busy building an impressive lineup around the Premier league football.

Possibly because a lot of people are travelling to games at that time. However, audience figures for live football on Sky/ESPN can be misleading as there is always a large audience in pubs for them.

Good start for Dexter and Homeland on Showtime last night

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...t-ever/150930/

Elementary wasn't really a risky pickup given that CBS already has The Mentalist, Vegas was more risky in that while it was a procedural with serial elements and a great cast, it was a period piece set in the 60s and period dramas on other networks had bombed but it looks like it has paid off.

I wonder if a soapy drama like Revenge would work on CBS? Given the biggest hit on the network in the 80s was Dallas, maybe it would worth developing?


Showtime are on a roll this year, Homeland especially has momentum behind it, it has the potential to crack 2m this season and Dexter may break records too.

They were both bloody brilliant as well.

It has to be said Channel 4 played an absolute blinder when they managed to pick-up Homeland.

CBS just ordered a put pilot comedy from one of the "Happy Endings" creators. It's a single cam too...

Maybe it can be part of a small change of direction for the network it it all works out.

I think Channel 4 got Homeland as part of their deal with Fox, they got New Girl and Don't Trust the Bitch but I don't think they knew Homeland would be as big as it was

CBS have ordered many single camera comedies pilots, I think they be planning an hour long block for next season.

No doubt Homeland Season 3 will be appearing on sky Atlantic!

Worth mentioning that the original pitch for Blue Bloods was for it to become a family drama set against the backdrop of the NYPD. Over the first season the cases were supposed to fade into the background with the drama of the family and their lives becoming more prominent but that plan never took shape because CBS got cold feet about it. That's why the show had that random change of show runners toward the end of the first season. It was all very odd. This is all a round about way to say that I'm not sure CBS is all that interested in developing anything particularly out of the box. Even Vegas doesn't massively break the CBS mould and has the potential to just become a straight forward period procedural.

It should also be noted that The Good Wife is essentially a soap albeit one with a case of the week underpinning it and its never done especially well commercially. CBS' general strategy seems to don't fix what isn't broken and its hard to disagree with that sentiment. Unlike every other network they aren't desperately searching for sustainable new drama or comedy so its hard to see what motivation they have to really be too adventurous. Especially when there more adventurous moves don't really pay off that well.


I don't know why CBS keeps playing around with multi-cams or putting out this message that they really want them. Its just incredibly odd that a network that's so reticent to change their drama template is seemingly so determined to change their massively successful comedy formula. They're the only network that has any sort of success with mutli-cam comedy and they should just go ahead and embrace that rather than repeatedly trying to play the single cam game. They don't need a change of direction with comedy.

It's easier to acquire shows in bundles, they brought S2/3 of Homeland and S2 of New Girl in the same deal earlier this year. No info on Apartment 23, but it was one of my favorites from last year, I hope they pick up S2.

Well they could do a new series of Star Trek, since the bought the TV production part of Paramount.

That would be ace, but it won't happen because of the disaster that was Enterprise.

The question now is whether Idol and X Factor (and to a lesser extent The Voice, though it's a newer show) will stablise. Will they keep slipping like Big Brother until the original broadcasters cut their loses or will they find a decent level and maintain it?

X Factor is showing signs of a continual slip though year-on-year comparisons were always going to be tough to read after it's poor launch. I would say the lives should start gaining but if the BBC become more competitive with Strictly then it may find it hard to gain any momentum.

Indeed, and we have a 25-minute Strictly/XF clash on Saturday 13 October to savour, unless ITV blink first!

Its not as unlikely as you think. The successfully rebooted film franchise has certainly re-opened the door after Enterprise and there's a pretty impressive list of people that want to do it – Bryan Fuller wants to write one and Bryan Singer wants to direct a pilot. The hold up is the Abrams films. The general feeling is that no one wants to move on with that until after the second or third outing. Of course I'm not entirely sure how a Star Trek TV series would work given that Abrams is under an overall deal with Warner Bros. for television at least and Fuller is (I think) still under an overall deal with Universal where he has about 50 shows in lined up or committed to.


That is indeed the question. It'll be interesting to see where The X Factor ultimately ends up this year during the live shows and of course Fox have spent a lot of money on trying to reverse Idol's fortunes so that'll be equally interesting.

The other question of course is how low do these shows go before the networks pull the plug? How low does Fox let Idol go and just how low would ITV let X Factor go? We vaguely know what the line is for scripted content but this is pretty much uncharted water for unscripted shows.

The BBC have moved Strictly 30 minutes later in the provisional scheduled compared to last year. One flaw in the schedule is an hour and twenty minute news! If ITV blink they'll have to move The X Factor to 8.30 which means it'll run until 10.30; the clash will probably be more beneficial than the late finish.

Is this finally the end of the saturation of talent shows and soap operas?

Just hope for them they keep it - and hope for fans it continues to rates and doesn't go the way so many US shows have gone before on C4.

On that theme whatever happened to Dexter on ITV1/4. They made a big deal out of the first season but it seemed to disappear soon after.

I would not be against it, but its clear that for the moment, Star Trek is a movie property. I am a little surprised we have not seen a full CGI animated series In a similar style to the Tron animated series.

Also there is still Star Trek being made, even if they are fan films, World Enough and Time, is awesome.

What worries me about the new Trek timeline, is how little use we are getting out of it.

between TOS, TNG and the movies, you got an amazing amount of story. This is before you add in any of the other spin-offs. In 20 years time, we will look back, see at most 5 movies with the JJ verse cast, and think, is that all?

Presumably it didn't rate very well and they quietly dropped it. FX brought them didn't they?

I would think that many people tuning in for Take Me Out are also quite likely to watch XF regardless, so I personally don't think so.

The first two series were first run on FX and then played out on ITV1 on Thursdays at 10.35pm. Then it just becaem an FX show, shame really because it was the best american drama in years. It was also around that time that ITV had Pushing Daisies which tanked big time, perhaps that played apart, perhaps FX/Sky just wanted to get a few people hooked so by series 3 they could have a few more subscriptions, or perhps the c.1.2m it was getting at 10.35pm was not enough for ITV1. I rented the third series on DVD, but never bothered after that. One oof these days I may hire the whole 8 series when its wrapped up, but season 2 was easily one of the best things I have ever seen on TV, probably helped by that girl of hustle playing lyla

There's basically no chance they're every going to get the film cast to commit to a television series at least not a broadcast show. They might possibly be able to get them to do a cable series but there's no chance Chris Pine in particular signs up to a 20+ episode series at this point in his career. It would be madness and I don't think Zachary Quinto has any desire to get back on that treadmill either. So any Star Trek television series would have to be somewhat separate to the films. My guess is that Abrams will do a trilogy of Trek films and then bow out which would leave the door open for a new series to launch in the same universe. Or to reboot everything again.

As I mentioned before Bryan Singer and Bryan Fuller really want to do it. And they're currently working together on the Munsters reboot for NBC so its certainly not out of the question they'd go ahead with a new Star Trek series in a few years. At this point Abrams seems to be putting the breaks on it because he doesn't want to dilute the film franchise which seems fair enough. My guess is that the Singer Federations series will get revived in a few years time with Fuller signed onto write and run it. Of course there's also the issue that the films have probably changed what the expectation of a Star Trek series would be. The films are a lot more action focused than the original stuff so that kind of changes what people want from the show.

The thing to watch in all of this though might very well be Joss Whedon's SHIELD project at ABC. If Disney/Marvel/ABC/Whedon can get that off the ground and make it work creative and commercially (and the second Star Trek film is a success) then I suspect interest in a Star Trek series will go through the roof. I wouldn't however lock it in to landing at CBS though.

BBC3's entertainment news just reported series highs for Downton Abbey (10m) and TXF (9.8m) last night. Is that right? They've included +1, but they're repeating DS's mistake in using the error-prone figures last weekend for TXF, aren't they? Not actually a series high.


Just checked Digiguide and saw that specially-extended news! (22:10-23:30). It could be a hybrid bulletin/Strictly after-show, complete with a scantily-clad Fiona Bruce, but we already know that Good Cop is going to air at 22:30 that night, don't we? I only ask because Points of View mentioned the postponement but couldn't give a firm date.


I'm not up to speed with US telly so I had to Google these guys. Pleasantly surprised to learn that Fuller wrote one of my favourite Star Trek: Voyager episodes ("Workforce") - also apparently some eps of Pushing Daisies and Heroes. Singer exec-produced 175 episodes of House? Quite a big cheese then. Great to hear that a new Trek series might happen some day.

I'd highly recommend finding the time to watch it. Seasons 1-4 are some of the best television you'll ever see. Season 4 in particular is just phenomenal television. Things come off the rails a little with seasons 5 and 6. Although I thought season 6 improved greatly with the final few episodes (that's far from a universal opinion though). Season 7 is so far a brilliant return to form.

I've said it before (and I'm sure I'll say it again) I think its a shame that ITV don't make better use of imports. Even if its just airing them over the summer when their own original content tends to sink anyway. A couple of US dramas airing over the summer would give them a cheap alternative to their usual terrible summer output and I think the audience would be willing to accept it especially if its backed up with more investment in original content the rest of the year.