Originally Posted by Ambassador:
“Could benefit it. An utterly pointless friendly against a less than crowd pleasing Denmark. People may search for alternatives”
I don't see why England friendlies are always written off, they got enormous ratings on the BBC, I always mention that one against the USA in May 2008, when they hadn't qualified for Euro 2008, which got 7.5 milion opposite an hour-long Corrie and I'm A Celebrity. It's nonsense that people don't care about England, when they played San Marino at Wembley last year, the most pointless match you can get, the attendance was 85,654. by some distance the biggest in Europe. The papers tomorrow and on Thursday will absolutely full of coverage.
It's always the same, England friendlies are pointless if they win them, and if they lose them or don't bother trying it's a disaster.
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“If we win, it will not cost £30m. It will be less. It is entirely possible to stage the contest and make it a smaller, more intimate affair, and that is what the BBC will do. It isn't just about the Saturday night. There are two semi-finals to host as well. The money will be set aside from a totally different budget to the drama budget. We might just get 6 more Pointless Celebrities repeats instead of a new LE format, but we won't lose out on drama.”
And, of course, the BBC happily put on major events on many occasions. Is the Eurovision Song Contest likely to be more expensive than the Jubilee Concert? Not especially, you'd think, and that was in a year when we had the Olympics as well. If the likes of Latvia could afford to host the contest in recent years, there's absolutely no chance the UK couldn't.
Originally Posted by yorkie100:
“I think the fact that ITV are keeping drama in the monday slot is helping everything they are putting there as people know its a regular drama slot. Unlike the BBC who chop and change with the slot.”
I doubt it, I don't think the general viewer knows what programmes are on any night, aside from the soaps. And it depends what the dramas are, surely, I'm not sure how DCI Banks could benefit from being in the same slot as The Bletchley Circle when The Bletchley Circle was a massive flop.
Originally Posted by laddergoat:
“Its a shame Carl Froch vs. George Groves at Wembley is on Sky Box Office. Can imagine that viewing figures would be fairly high if it had been on terrestrial TV.
What were figures like back when big fights used to be on terrestrial TV. Obviously back in the day they would have been bigger due to less channels etc, but just wondering?”
They could be massive, the famous one is Barry McGuigan vs Eusebio Pedroza on primetime Saturday night BBC1 in June 1985, which got eighteen million viewers. That was the year when there was no football on telly for three months and the BBC and ITV both pointed out that football was no longer the main attraction because boxing was one of the sports (alongside snooker and skating) that was now more popular. Indeed I know Harry Carpenter stopped presenting Sportsnight in 1985 because they were now showing more boxing than ever before.
Other notable boxing ratings from Television's Greatest Hits include a Charlie Magri fight on BBC1 at 10.30 on a Wednesday in September 1978 which got 13.3 million viewers, an Alan Minter fight getting 14.1 million on ITV on a Sunday night in March 1980, another Barry McGuigan fight getting 18.3 million on Saturday night BBC1 in February 1986, Frank Bruno vs Joe Bugner in October 1987 getting 16.3 million viewers on Saturday night ITV even though it didn't start until 10.30 and the BBC's repeat of the Bruno vs Tyson fight (which was live on Sky) on a Sunday afternoon in February 1989 getting 17.9 million viewers. It helped it was one of the sports that could be shown in primetime and not take up massive swathes of the schedule.
The Beeb went off boxing in the early nineties and ITV began to dominate, around 1992-93 there was a fight more often than not on a Saturday night, in fact I think the idea was to compete with Match of the Day which had just come back, although obviously you were taking a bit of a punt because the quality and length of the fights could vary wildly. But by the mid-nineties it was more or less entirely pay-per-view.
Since then there have been a couple of attempts to get it back on free TV, ITV had a go at the end of the nineties with a couple of fights involving Shea "The Shamrock Express" Neary but none of them rated that well (though it did mean showing one where the ring collapsed), then in 2001 the Beeb were back in it in a big way with a Lennox Lewis fight acquired at huge expense and the antics of Audley Harrison. Then ITV tried again in the mid-noughties with Amir Khan and they showed it quite frequently but of course the really, really big fights were on PPV. And now of course you have C5's occasional bouts which do alright, but are again not really out of the top drawer.
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