Couldn't agree more. An often overlooked point with the perfectly excellent Sherlock, is that it can hardly be considered a 'series' in the normal sense. It is a high-impact, highly budgeted and highly publicised occasional 'event' mini-series. Its 2 yr gaps are the natural consequence of having two co-stars who are also leading international film stars, and a pair of prestige show-runners with numerous other work commitments.

I also think that having three-parts rather than 8 or 10 can flatter its 'series average' a little - skewing the figure towards the big impact opener. The audience for the last 3-parter declined slowly but steadily over the mini-run. We will never know how well such a concept would do over a longer series stretch - yet it is still measured on a par with other series that must impress for much longer runs.

I think that a variety of different transmission intervals and screening formats on British TV is actually a great thing. It's nice to see specials like Sherlock and Jonathan Creek spice up the schedules. But I do reserve a lot of respect those less critically-lauded shows that can turn in Sherlock audiences, week in and week out, over long series.

I can barely contain my excitement.

True but I don't think she's actually said or done anything yet. Next week should give a better indication as to what impact she's going to have on the show (if any) since presumably she'll actually have dialogue next week and maybe some hint of a storyline.

The knockout stages tend to attract higher audiences, but the group stages have seen ratings as low as 3 million, not much better than the normal flopzone offerings. Also there's a risk all the English teams can go out early.
I think an ITV free of most football could develop new dramas and comedies for the autumn and winter.

Sorry to break this news Glenn, but Itv wont be showing expensive dramas and comedies on Tuesday nights once they lose the Champions League. They'll be airing cheap game shows, factual programmes and documentaries in that slot. Losing the Champions League will be a big loss for them, even though group games were getting as low as 3million viewers, that's still more than what they normally get in the flopzone especially among young male viewers. The loss of CL, Europa League and FA Cup will have a big impact on Itv's weekly shares and also for Itv4- this is a big blow to the broadcaster. Expect long runs of shows like Tipping Point Lucky Stars and cheap docos on Tuesday nights from late 2015. One has to say that BT coming onto the scene has really helped in terms of increasing the gap in sporting rights between BBC and Itv, almost a blessing in disguise.

You probably wont have to - ITV will buy it in immediately to fill up Tuesdays.

This doesn't however mean that they won't reinvest the money that would have gone on the football rights into new drama and comedy. Particularly as there doesn't appear to be much in the way of new sports rights for them to go after.

True but it won't be a pound-for-pound swap: ITV will have to allow for the reduced ad income from lucrative young males (in particular) and adjust their budgets for the slots accordingly. This is assuming that they do not devise content which is equally high-rating among young males to take the football's place, which is a safe assumption.

Itv wont reinvest much into new drama and comedy. The football rights generated lots of ad revenue due to young males watching. Their dramas and comedies generally are loss makers due to the audience profiles of their shows not being as good as football. Itv will reinvest in the type of programmes which will not lose them money such as cheap game shows and factual.

Indeed.

It'll be interesting to see if they try and develop some more overtly male skewing output once they lose the football. Something along the lines of Ultimate Force again perhaps?

Perhaps they should develop some factual/entertainment programme along the lines of Top Gear, but with different vehicles. A bit like Countryfile at a step-back in time type of thing. Looking at past vehicles from buses to cars, to the present day.

I tend to disagree particularly now they've got ITV Studios up and running.

Certainly I'm not suggesting that all of the money from the football rights will be invested into new scripted content (that isn't going to happen) but I also don't imagine we'll see quite the flood of cheap factual and gameshows that you're expecting. ITV Studios is an important part of their move away from traditional ad sales revenue and its going to need drama to sell which likely means ITV are going to start commissioning more dramas along the lines of Mr Selfridge which can play well internationally even if they don't do exceptionally well domestically. Indeed this appears to be a large part of the motivation behind ITV Encore. In fact we shouldn't completely forget ITV Encore they're going to need repeat content beyond Downton Abbey for the channel. Obviously ITV Studios is going to want unscripted stuff to but that's going to require less initial production outlay from ITV to get off the ground.

This is possible. Trying to skew male doesn't sound like a bad idea in theory, given that BBC One's Tuesdays (for example) tend to be weighted towards female-friendly soap and drama.

However without football to draw them in, a sizeable proportion of young males in particular will scarcely watch ITV at all. The remaining soccer they will have - England internationals, and their share of the Euros/World Cup - will be more crucial to them than ever.

Although Factual has done well for them in the past and been very good programming such as; The Savoy, Long lost Family, POG Dogs, Prison docs, Cornwall etc. I wouldn't mind more like this, they might even invest in more animal documentaries based on the success of POG Dogs, but as long as they balance out with new drama.

The loss of the sporting rights means they will have to work harder in developing new successful programming, which is what we want from broadcasters. Surely they can't be happy with flop Tuesday? Its embarrassing.

Agree with this totally, ITV Encore suggests a bigger investment in drama, and high quality such as DA, Mr Selfridge. In fact I suspect the loss of the football rights may have spurred ITV into going ahead with ITV Encore. ITV Studio is now so big it it used by most channels for making programmes.

I doubt ITV will do much with Tuesday nights just because they are such a nightmare for them that any new drama will be wasted. But there will be some room in the budget - European football wasn't cheap and it has never been entirely clear that it's bringing in huge sums of money for them. The new stuff won't match the cost of the football (because it won't be attracting young men) but you can still make a lot of good TV on less than they pay for CL rights. The role of ITV Studios is also worth keeping in mind as pointed out by others.


http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/nige...urkish-format/


So they'll be singing the same song, 11 go by the end of the show. The winner each week goes into the final. Unless CBS tweak the format a bit (13 weeks is a bit of a stretch for a new format). I hate the title as well, sounds like it should be on God TV.

I think CBS could do with a big new franchise but talent shows have not been their thing (Rock Star: INXS and Live To Dance spring to mind). I actually thought they'd have been first in line for Utopia which sits better alongside their other reality brands.

And the whole judge thing is so overplayed out there at the moment. The Voice has a rotating panel of 6, Idol has gone through 11 judges since 2009, X Factor managed 8 in just 3 years... With Rising Star and Keep Your Light Shining that's another 7 required!

Itv only really care about making profits. Even though they have terrible rating shows on Tuesdays [2-3million], from their point of view, as long as theyre cheap it doesnt matter.

Profits and making money for their shareholders is what ultimately matters to them. That means sacrificing potential expensive but high rating programs for cheaper lower-rating type programs which makes more money. If Itv were so embarrassed by their Tuesday ratings, which has been so dire since 2006, they would've actively been sorting out the problem well before now. As they haven't, clearly they're not too bothered by the dire Tuesday rating situation and it is unlikely to change.

I also thought u where anti EE Cylon so I apologise to. Glad to see you do enjoy it and I fully agree its a shame it's not doing better as the quality has improved so much now.

Of course they're loss makers. That's why they keep commissioning them!

Theres less and less drama on Itv these days. They've been reducing the number for years. They've got an obligation to air some dramas, so they still do it. But in an ideal world for them, they wouldn't want to air as many dramas as they do even at the current declining levels.

You do have to wonder though how much of the BBC1 Tuesday night strategy has been defined by the football on ITV. Although BBC1's schedule is now so entrenched that its not going anywhere.

I should point out though that I wasn't specifically referring to investment in Tuesday night but more broadly across ITV as a whole. Its really not clear what ITV are going to do with Tuesday nights going forward. I suspect Samuel's probably right to say that we won't see a massive change in strategy there and that it'll remain largely unscripted. Although I still think they should buy in an imported drama for Tuesday night and see how it goes. Buy something from one of the US broadcasters and that's potentially 20+ weeks of Tuesdays filled with original drama for a relatively small outlay. I've basically given up on them actually doing this though.


To be fair I think its a better format than Rising Star and I think it fits a little better into CBS' overall reality portfolio than you give credit. Its basically a bog standard reality competition series. I think if they go with a cash prize at the end rather than a record contract it has potential to be a decent enough idea. 13 weeks is way too long though. I'd be tempted to do something closer to what NBC currently do with The Sing-Off and almost strip it across a week or a week and a half in December.

I can see why CBS didn't want Utopia though. I think perhaps its too similar to their other reality shows in that the basic pitch is Big Brother meets Survivor. As much as possible I think you want to try and keep away from crossover like that on the same network.

The celebrity judges thing is crazy though and its insane to think of how many judges The X Factor and American Idol have gone through over the past couple of years. You can also expand your list even further given that ABC had Duets and The CW had the Star Next Door which both featured celebrity judges/mentors of some description plus there's been a few judging changes on The Sing-Off. And that's without considering shows out of the strict singing show genre. You'd think that television would have to move on from this at some point.


That's an incredibly simplistic and not entirely accurate way of looking at it. Very broadly more focus needs to be given to who the viewers actually are rather than how many of them there are. If you've got 2.5 million viewers advertisers don't want to pay to reach then it doesn't matter how cheap the show was to make.

That's not true if only because in an ideal world they'd be making 20 Downton like successes every year (and they'd all be produced by ITV Studios) not less drama. Also it completely fails to take into account the huge value of (successful) drama to commercial broadcasters. This by the way is why more and more digital channels are getting into the scripted content market.

I'd like to know how you know this They literally just announced that they're launching a new premium channel with a budget of its own for original drama commissions, some of which I guess may be repeated on the main channel later on as well.

Regarding Tuesdays, I think you're being a bit hopeful that ITV won't try harder there. We won't see a dramatic change early on I wouldn't think but eventually they're bound to try something that will become a hit and rejuvenate the night for them.

OTOH 45 per cent of men don't like football and the game doesn't do as well among ABs as it does among CDEs. I'm sure a drama like Lewis, which is coming back next year, could get double the audience of a group match and be demographically good.
However, the other scenario is they continue with the flopzone.

If each contestant is only in 2 episodes at most, I think the cash prize is likely - I see this more in the area of The Winner Is than X Factor.

It's a nice enough format, makes me think a bit of the battle rounds on The Voice, but I'm just not sure it's going to fit for CBS or the US at the moment. On first read it doesn't have any glaring issues like Rising Star does with the timezones.

Would be nice to see something take off in the US this year and give the whole genre a bit of purpose - instead of bringing back recently cancelled shows or giving low rating series a second run because there are no other options.