Originally Posted by vauxhall1964:
“Showaddywaddy were on because their song had been a #2 hit. The Floral Dance had been at #2 for the first two weeks of 1978. That's what the Christmas edition was about, hits, not about who was 'hip'.. As for spurious notions of credibility (we're talking the pop charts here) I don't know how you can claim to speak for the audience. The show certainly had credibility with the music industry who had no problem grasping how an appearance could make or break a record. As you say it was light entertainment, not the Old Grey Whistle Test.”
I know, the point I'm making is that Pops must first entertain a mass audience, but also has to have some credibility among the younger audience. There were times when it moved more towards the former, such as in the seventies, whereas there were also times - in the mid-nineties for example - when it went too far in the opposite direction and while it was very credible alienated the wider audience. I say this as someone in their thirties but I would suggest that this year's Pops got the balance exactly right - bands and songs that would have been familiar to the wide audience but also had credibility with the young audience it has to serve.
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“The 1978 Xmas TOTP was rushed together on the 22nd December that year wasn't it because of uncertainty surrounding its production due to serious BBC industrial action? I think the quality of the show that year reflected that - along with the hideous spinning Santa head ident they used that year, Christmas 1978 on BBC1 was certainly one to forget!”
I don't think the strike had anything to do with that crap 1978 Christmas Pops because the 1977 Christmas show also had no studio audience and a load of videos and repeats. In the later years we came to expect the Christmas show to be one the most exciting and glamorous of the year but in the seventies it was often the other way round. I think 1978 was just a crap show full stop, I assume most of it was done before the strike because you would expect they started work on the Christmas show a bit earlier than a few days beforehand.
Originally Posted by Score:
“I think ITV need to get promoting Birds of A Feather quite heavily to try and salvage it. It'll be interesting to see what kind of state it is in come the 15th once it airs 'as normal' for the first time.”
The other thing I was going to mention about Birds of a Feather is that it doesn't have a single repeat at all on any of the ITV channels, which is totally ridiculous given it was opposite 'stEnders. Last year they had a repeat on Sunday nights after the news, a slot it could easily have filled tonight instead of the trillionth showing of Hot Fuzz.
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“Trouble with Alison Graham is that she is so far up her own arse that she genuinely believes that everything she says and writes is fact. She is one of the reasons that I stopped buying the Radio Times. It is way too self indulgent. And at £2 per week I think it's slowly pricing itself out of business.”
People say this about the price, I don't see how this is a problem at all. It's always been far more expensive than all the other listings guides and they're aimed at different audiences, nobody stands in the newsagent umming and ahhing over the Radio Times and What's On TV. People buy the Radio Times because they want to buy the Radio Times. It's not a commodity like bread and milk, it's a luxury. And given I pay £2.90 for The Observer and a fiver for Doctor Who Magazine, I don't find the price at all excessive. I don't particularly like Alison Graham's stuff but rather a magazine that has some personality and opinion than one that just reprints a load of press releases.
Originally Posted by Pizzatheaction:
“It reminds me of spring 1996, when Tuesdays at 8.30pm were a BBC1 sitcom slot, and The Brittas Empire was taking every other week off for the UEFA Cup.”
Yes, I remember that well because The Brittas Empire even got a Radio Times cover for that series and a huge amount of promotion - they even repeated the last episode of the previous series the week before as a reminder, and it was an important series because it was the first after the original writers had left so it needed to hit the ground running - but was then dumped in the most thankless slot. In the nineties the Tuesday 8.30 slot always used to be an awkward one of the Beeb because, as you say, they had football every other week.
Originally Posted by NeilVW:
“Will the missed episode on Monday really work to EastEnders' disadvantage? It's rather different to miss out an episode that people are expecting, from slipping in an episode that they are not. It could even increase interest in the Tuesday episode (which is in its normal slot).”
Yeah, I would agree with this. There's an obvious reason why it's not on tomorrow and it's not like people will think it's finished. And I can see no problem with the extra episode on Thursday - they'll clearly say before the 7.30 episode there are two episodes that night and say at the end of it it's back in half an hour, so unless viewers are not concentrating at all there's no way they won't know about it. The Wednesday one is a bit more awkward and only has a Miranda repeat as a lead-in, but ITV only have a repeat against it.
Originally Posted by Zac Quinn:
“Interesting that BT have opted to show their FA Cup highlights show in the 7pm hour this evening. Perhaps an indicator of the appetite for primetime football highlights ahead of Channel 5's upcoming move in that direction.”
No, it wasn't a proper highlights show, it was just an edit of the Blyth vs Birmingham game which was available for international viewers with no other matches. That's actually happened in every season of the FA Cup since Setanta got the rights in 2009, and it would have pulled in virtually no viewers. In fact in that 2009 season Setanta were able to show a 3pm kick-off in full, like Sky do with Game of the Day. But nobody watched them so nobody took up the rights to that after they went bust.
Originally Posted by A.D.P:
“Do we have a lot of padding going on?
Pointless is 55 mins, normally 50.
Casualty is 55 mins, normally 50.
Looks like it's done to hit the main news at 10 exactly.”
The obvious way to look at how Saturday night BBC1 is going to progress is to look at the teatime news bulletin - it's about eighteen minutes long so if it's billed in a fifteen minute slot, as it was last night, BBC1 are rounding down. Last night Mastermind started around 5.38 and Pointless around 6.08. If the teatime news is billed as lasting twenty minutes, the early evening runs exactly to time.
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“The One Show is on to counter ITV soaps. But, I strongly believe that what I said is right. ITV is declining more than any other channel. It simply offers no choice. The soaps may well have had the same number of episodes but until 2009, some episodes were shown on Sundays, the weekdays now are congested with them. It is not attracting non soap fans to the channel. I don't understand why you can't see this.”
Yes, it's not that there are too many episodes, but that there are too many episodes IN AN EVENING, I would suggest. People are happy to watch an episode a night as part of their routine but if you start putting two on each night - as a regular thing, it's OK as a very, very rare one-off - it starts becoming a bit of a chore, and makes the evening look unappealing for those with no interest.
Originally Posted by Score:
“Ouch for Take Me Out! The Nanny McPhee lead-in won't have helped but none the less that's a terrible start for Take Me Out! Even for being in a bit of a sea of nothing that's still a poor start. I wonder how low it will go with a 25 minute overlap with The Voice next week! If it carries on at this rate I can see this being the last series.”
I think that rating for Take Me Out is appalling, on the face of things that looked the show most likely to succeed last night because it's an established show and it gets plenty of promotion (even I saw the trailer a few times, and I barely watch ITV) and people have heard of it. And it lost out to a lottery show on only its second outing. And as mentioned, I know it skews young but you'd imagine this was the Saturday the fewest people would go out this year.
Yes, and funnily enough I saw the trailer for this last night. I think there are too many magic shows on TV, it's a genre that never seems very popular with audiences, I know Dynamo is famous but he's on a tiny channel. What this appears to be is a clip show so it might work as a bit of a novelty, I know Dynamo is billed but I can't imagine he's doing much other than topping and tailing it. Of course, the episode of Pointless next Saturday is a repeat, hence the 5.20 slot (but the weekday episodes are new again).
Originally Posted by Ambassador:
“I imagine the massively cynical use of Sinatras name which the BBC no doubt paid a decent whack to use, helped the ratings. It was utterly woeful though”
Cynical use of Sinatra's name? It was a programme about Sinatra! What else were they supposed to do? And I don't think he's much of a draw in this day and age on a Saturday night.
Originally Posted by Fudd:
“Does anyone know why a Mrs. Brown's Boys repeat took precedence over Match of the Day last night?”
Originally Posted by Chris1964:
“Arguably MBB would take precedence over anything at the moment but yesterdays cup ties were at the lower end of interest so presumably they decided the later slot would do.”
Yes, as mentioned there weren't many ties yesterday and also given they're showing two live games the highlights tend to take a lower profile. It was the same when they last had the rights, Match of the Day was often later in FA Cup weeks than Premier League weeks. The rights also mean they're able to show the goals on Final Score, as they did yesterday, so it was less important.
Originally Posted by NeilVW:
“This Mirror story was picked up on the Sky News paper review, and the mention of "four million viewers" for Top of the Pops got my attention.”
Hmm, this probably is rubbish, but as I said, I think the future of the show, as an annual thing, is more secure than it has been for many a year. I was thinking the other day that had the Yewtree business not kicked off, we may well have seen Top of the Pops come back because at the beginning of 2012 they really were going to town with it, the BBC4 repeats had started and were doing well, you had the fiftieth anniversary of the charts coming up and I remember reading they had loads of stuff in the pipeline for that, they featured it in that promo for the future of the Beeb and they announced the live show based around it. The brand really was getting a second wind and I genuinely thought we might see a revival. Then Savile ballsed it all up and the brand became totally toxic.
Originally Posted by aberdaberdonian:
“Jools gets pretty poor ratings too, doesn't he - something like less than 1m. Not sure that warrants a transfer to BBC1, even it was to a post news slot.”
Yes, I think Jools Holland more or less exists purely because of the Hootenanny because that does extremely well, way better than the weekly show. But of course the weekly show does have value for the Beeb in other ways, in illustrating they are serious about music and giving them credibility, and it's clearly a show valued in the music industry because it still attracts major acts because those that do watch are those who buy records.
Originally Posted by wizzywick:
“Andy23 is a firm ITV supporter. But, as far as I'm aware he has never, ever come across as childish and bitter like you. Do you not consider that people watched BBC1 last night, even though the Sinatra show was instantly forgettable, because they did not like what ITV were offering? BBC1 viewers will be using their remotes on Monday when ITV air Broadchurch, as they do each time that ITV shows something people enjoy watching. You need to be a bit more thoughtful with your comments.”
Yes, I find these comments depressing, it's calling viewers stupid for being too thick to switch over. If people don't want to watch what's on the television, they turn the television off. It's a total insult to suggest they're morons who'll watch any old rubbish. Viewers are extremely discerning and they have a million and one other things to do.
Originally Posted by Jaycee Dove:
“The reason Shane Ritchie has 4 million viewers is not him or the show but the lottery hook. People put up with the show or presenter to watch the draws (why they never do them early on!)”
I think that's wrong, I'm afraid, the lottery draws themselves rate extremely poorly, often with way under four million viewers. That's why they don't even bother to televise them at all on Wednesdays these days. Viewers these days know they don't need to watch the draw to get the numbers, they'll get them online or in the shop. And they also know the draws themselves are at the end of the programme so nobody sits through fifty minutes of a quiz they don't like just to see them.
We can see from the ratings too that the good quizzesrate well and the crap quizzes don't, which is why Who Dares Wins continues but stuff like This Time Tomorrow and Millionaire Manor doesn't. Because people didn't watch the latter, lottery draws or no.
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