Originally Posted by RobbieSykes123:
“I think it was always BBC1, but started off as a cheap docu-soap filler in a weekday 8pm/8.30pm slot, but then got promoted to Saturdays after Casualty, slightly controversially, and pulled 12m viewers becoming something of a bigger hit than it had been.”
Going back to this, the first series in 1996 did alright but it was the second series in 1997 that was the big hit, because that was the first series with Jeremy Spake, and docusoaps had really taken off in 1997 because of Driving School. I remember the Teletext story announcing it was going to be on Saturdays, it was big news, and it went up against London's Burning, which had been moved to Saturdays, and completely thrashed it, to the extent they had to move London's Burning to 9.30 (the first week they did that unbilled in the Radio Times) and show Police Camera Action repeats at nine, and then after six weeks took London's Burning off until the new year (when they put it back on Sundays).
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“Excellent Saturday night schedule on BBC1 that year:
5.45pm The Hidden Camera Show
6.15 Jim Davidson's Generation Game
7.15 Noel's House Party
8.05 The National Lottery Stars
8.20 Casualty
9.10 Aiport
9.40 The X-Files
Now that is what I call a Saturday night schedule! (Oct 1998)”
You've got a bit mixed up with your Saturday nights there. The Hidden Camera Show was in the autumn of 1999 and was a big old flop, it was just your bog standard hidden camera show presented by Ainsley Harriott and it got shoved earlier and earlier in the schedules. Airport and The X Files were only paired up in the autumn of 1998, in 1999 at 9.30 was the second series of John Sullivan's unpopular minicab drama Roger Roger.
That 1998 Saturday night schedule is hardly vintage anyway because the House Party was in terminal decline and soon to be axed and the Generation Game was bloody rubbish, and by that point I'd defected to Gladiators and Blind Date on ITV (though Gladiators was also declining).
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“That schedule remained pretty solid throughout the Autumn. The replacement for Airport in mid-November that year were repeats of the previous Thursdays episode of Dinnerladies. The Hidden Camera Show was replaced after it ended by repeats of Only Fools and Horses. Before Airport though, Saturday nights had the repeat showing that year of the previous Thursday comedy flop "Let Them Eat Cake". Who remembers that?”
You're thinking of 1999 again. In 1998 Airport and The X Files carried on until the end of November and then in December were various one-offs including Parkinson's much-hyped George Michael interview. In 1999 when Airport and Roger Roger finished it was Jonathan Creek and same-week repeats of Dinnerladies.
Originally Posted by nick202:
“I don't remember LTEC being repeated at all - I thought it was just the initial showing and then it resurfaced on UK Gold a few years later. I suppose the idea of the repeat would be to see if they could muster up enough interest to make a second series viable. From what I remember, LTEC had all the right elements in place, and it was quite an original concept, but the scripting just lacked the bile or sharpness which had made Ab Fab such a hit.”
Yes, Let Them Eat Cake was never repeated on BBC1 and was pretty much a notorious flop. This again was in 1999 and funnily enough got on the cover of Radio Times in the first week of September for the new season, which was always a big deal, and it was news because it was the first thing French and Saunders had done together they hadn't written. It was on Thursdays at 9.30 with the first BBC1 series of The Royle Family at ten, and the Royles outrated it every week I think. Far too esoteric for primetime BBC1, I reckon.
Originally Posted by RobbieSykes123:
“I'm intrigued though to see how the old folk will react to Keith Lemmon doing Keyhole given the sort of unsavoury and distateful things he gets up to on his other puerile and revolting shows...”
I'm sort of reminded here of when they did Dick and Dom's Ask The Family, which was certainly no Bungalow, but the criticism was a million times worse than it would have been because ridiculously they really played up the fact it was a revival of Ask The Family, to the extent they did a documentary about the original series AND even showed some old episodes in the build-up. Of course all this meant was a load of nostalgic OAPs tuned in thinking it was going to be like the old Ask The Family and slagged it off, when of course it was never going to be like that, it was half an hour of Dick and Dom arsing around. So you got loads of people slagging it off for not being what it was supposed to be.
As for Through The Keyhole, Keith Lemon has never taken off on ITV1 and even the repeats of Celebrity Juice on ITV1 have done lukewarm business. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the core ITV1 audience still do not get the joke. I certainly don't.
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“Indeed. BBC1 have not really heralded new seasons since about 1997. They have lots of new shows lined up for the dark evenings but generally end of September has, for about ten years or so, been when BBC1 launch their big hitters.”
Yes, the concept of the new season, on any channel, is archaic now because we've had a constant stream of new programming all summer long. This week BBC1 is brand new (and British) six times out of seven at 9pm. Next week it's seven times out of seven. In the eighties and nineties that would have been unthinkable. You'd have been lucky to get about two out of seven. And it's such an abitrary definition anyway, why should we expect a pile of new programmes just because the calendar's changed?
I wish people would stop referring to factual programmes as filler too. You can't have drama every night at nine, it's too expensive. Some of them are very popular as well.
Originally Posted by Hassaan13:
“As for Great Night Out, would they really give a late night repeat run for a show they are 100% not going to give another series? They are seemingly only repeating it because they are not completely sure about the decision to axe it. As mentioned, a similar situation to Not Going Out.”
But ITV repeat everything these days! They've given up investing at 10.35 so it's either films or repeats and they haven't got enough to repeat. It's like how when they were running out of money a few years ago and Tough Gig and all the other shows they'd abandoned got transmitted, months or even years after their truncated runs, whereas in previous years they'd have thrown them in the bin. They need content at 10.35 and a light drama that they've got on the shelves and didn't stink the place out will do.
Originally Posted by centauri72:
“I don't agree actually. Sky treat US imports much better than Channel 4 - peak time, regular slots which are adhered to whatever the ratings performance; ad-free On Demand options; extensive repeats between seasons to help viewers catch up; no likelihood of being exiled to (heavily edited) daytime slots or (irregularly scheduled) late night dumping grounds for first run episodes; no odd timeslots which can result in the start or beginning of recordings being lost.”
Apart from The Simpsons, of course.
Originally Posted by johnnymc:
“Rowan am I correct in thinking the events are only for people who work in the media world or can joe public go to the discussions?”
I think anyone's allowed but it costs a bomb to get tickets, looking at the ad in Broadcast the other week there aren't prices mentioned but it says if you book before a certain date you get £100 off, so clearly it's out of reach of members of the public and it's entirely populated by people who can get their companies to pay.
I attended once, back in 1997 as part of TVYP which was the part of the Festival for young people wanting to get into TV (it's still going, it's called The Network now) and you had to get your teachers or lecturers to endorse your application. Can't remember if I'd applied off my own back or they'd sent forms to the college. One obvious reason I qualified was not just because I was mental about telly but because I was Welsh and S4C sponsored a few people, and when you attended it was blatantly obvious that the delegates had been picked to fill diversity quotas as some of them weren't that interested in TV and had been asked to go.
There were a couple of sessions of the proper Festival that had been designated TVYP sessions so we all attended - one was about reality TV, one was Mark Thompson's interview when he was Controller of BBC2 - and we also got to go to the McTaggart but it was the worst one ever by Marks and Gran who spent the entire hour just complaining they weren't living in LA and making millions of pounds like Clement and La Frenais were.
Among those who were there with me was future CBBC presenter Kate Heavenor and Dougie Anderson off of RI:SE and other things. But I didn't make any real contacts and passed up on the opportunity to put my name about because in between me applying and going my main interest had switched from TV to girls. And there were lots of girls there.
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