Originally Posted by johnnymc:
“The cast in "By Any Means" look quite impressive though and I think it could impact on the stranglehold "Downton Abbey" has had over the last three seasons. Its only competition has been "Spooks" but it was on its tenth year. The trailers are on a lot for "By Any Means" and the cast includes BAFTA actress Gina McKee and the same house used in "Line of Duty" must belong to a BBC director!”
I don't think By Any Means will be much competition for Downton Abbey, I think it's going to skew quite young judging by the trailers. Certainly it's going to offer something very different to Downton, but it doesn't seem particularly mainstream fare and might seem quite out of place on a Sunday.
Originally Posted by Jaycee Dove:
“Does anyone know if the new series of The Indian Doctor is BBC Wales only?
And I assume it is not going to be appearing on BBC 1 daytime if only 3 episodes.”
They could re-edit three hour-long episodes into four 45 minute episodes and that'd fit a week nicely enough with some one-off pilot thing on a Friday. The problem with daytime drama in primetime is that in daytime they work in 45 minute slots usually, hence a load of awkward scheduling in primetime.
Originally Posted by Rowan Hedge:
“ITV has in recent years been damaged by soap overkill as commissioners look for the easy ratings winners that are cheap to make, there is a creative void at ITV especially where drama is concerned as they won't for the most part take a risk.”
Hmm, I dunno, I think quite a lot of ITV's drama problems in recent years have been because they've been a bit too risky and have gone for stuff that isn't right for the mass ITV audience. I don't mean to say that they should just churn out by numbers precinct stuff but they don't have enough ratings bankers like they did with Peak Practice and London's Burning and so on which can build big audiences and help feed audiences to the more challenging stuff. Like when you used to have Heartbeat or Wild at Heart at 8pm and then something more adult at 9pm.
Of course since 2000 we've only had one more episode each of Corrie and Emmerdale, and an extra hour a week hardly seems like overkill, though it seems more now because they schedule it in bunches which means pre-watershed seems to become completely crowded with soap. And then you've still got the problem of Sundays which have no year-round fixtures in the schedule and so when there's no big shows about then the night just never takes off.
Originally Posted by
Fudd:
“I can understand what you're saying but I don't think it will be that difficult. The Thursday Coronation Street simply follow on from EastEnders so there's a soap crossover. Wednesday is a quiet evening for BBC One and Coronation Street is only on half an hour later. The remaining episodes are in current slots. I think any viewers lost from Emmerdale moving to 8.30pm would be gained from the Coronation Street lead in.
But it's just IMO. 
”
Indeed, but again it's just confusing the viewers. People watch Corrie who don't watch 'stEnders so saying the Thursday one is easy to remember cos it's after 'stEnders just isn't going to work for some people. You have more crossover between Emmerdale and Corrie and you're getting the confusing aspect of Emmerdale before Corrie some nights and after it others. And Mondays and Fridays at 9pm show that a Corrie lead-in doesn't have a huge impact.
As mentioned above, you'd be better off moving one of the weekday episodes to Sunday. And I still think 8.30 is too late for Emmerdale. I think eight o'clock is too late for it, actually. People like to see it earlier in the evening.
Originally Posted by SamuelW:
“Surprise Surprise should be getting around 5million viewers tonight. Last year, it averaged 4-4.5million viewers against Strictly Come Dancing. Take into account the much easier competition it's facing tonight, it should rise about 0.5-1million compared to last year to break the 5million mark.”
Originally Posted by Brekkie:
“You wouldn't be expecting a 10% rise if it was a BBC show. You're just trying to raise expectations so you can slag it off in the morning. Realistically 4m+ is what they'd hope for - it's not going to beat Countryfile.”
I'm not The Samuel Police here but this is the kind of thing that annoys me, a post with at least an attempt to provide some analysis and make a fairly decent point which is then just written off as rubbish, and (apart from one poster) nobody then mentions when it turns out to be absolutely right.
And if we've got to the stage when ITV light entertainment, the genre the whole success of the channel was probably built on in the first place is "not going to beat Countryfile", then it really is in a sorry state.
