Originally Posted by Andy23:
“I wouldn't say Foyles War was one of their biggest dramas, not as big as Silent Witness is to BBC1 anyway.”
Used to be, used to be a huge show for them, a proper prestige production. Here it is in 2002 in its first series getting enormous ratings and thrashing, yes, Silent Witness.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/oct/28/overnights
(PLEASE be aware that this page is now in the new Guardian style and therefore the original picture has been zoomed in quite substantially to fit. You have been warned.)
It's not doing much now, perhaps, but it was introduced as a replacement for Inspector Morse and initially it was as much of an event as, and got as big an audience as, Morse was. It's not cheap, either, it's probably one of ITV's most expensive dramas.
Originally Posted by guestofseth:
“Of course the move to BBC One makes sense, but where will it go? FA Cup replays will disrupt it on Wednesday 8pm, I think so anyway, not sure when the next ones will be.”
After mid-February there shouldn't be massive problems with FA Cup replays, you may have a sixth round replay in March but given there are only four matches in that round there's a good chance there won't be one, and if there is they could probably cram in it at 8pm on the Tuesday if they want to get a continuing series on a Wednesday.
Originally Posted by Fudd:
“My personal belief (I hope I don't fall out with anyone else over this) is that BBC One is becoming more and more like a commercial broadcaster without the adverts. Arguably the fragmenting audience and ITV's rapid decline from 2013 is aiding this view but I feel the BBC should be there to compliment commercial networks and err to sometimes air shows, perhaps in primetime, that commercial networks simply cannot afford to do rather than looking to go toe to toe, it feels like all the time.”
Sorry to bring this up again but I don't see where how it's becoming "more and more" like a commercial broadaster when it's now demonstrably doing things on BBC1 it would never have done in the past. You get lots of history programming at 9pm, like the Churchill documentary, which in the past would have been later in the evening or on BBC2. People's Century, the Beeb's big history show in 1995, was after 10pm. Andrew Marr's history series recently was at 9pm. I know the news was at 9pm, but it wasn't even at 9.30.
And in 2003 you had Fame Academy against Pop Idol which was the most cynical bit of scheduling by the Beeb, moving it around every week to start at the same time as Pop Idol. And they were incredibly similar shows, you can talk about The Voice vs Britain's Got Talent but that's the equivalent of The Voice vs The X Factor. And that was over a decade ago.
The idea they're being "more and more" like a commercial broadcaster baffles me, they're no longer doing things like Big Break and other shows that were just cheap ways to fill slots (there's lots of Pointless, yes, but it's a million times wittier and more intelligent than Big Break) and they're showing history, nature and current affairs in primetime very frequently. They've always been competitive and the only argument against them doing it now is that it's unfair on ITV because they're in a poor state. But that's bad for the viewer.
Originally Posted by Fudd:
“It defies logic. How are they managing to lose audience share but grow advertising revenues? If it wasn't for them managing to sign up contracts I would say it's their Studio work which is bringing in the money (especially as they're buying up quite a few independent studios) and advertising revenue is actually declining.”
This is a bit like how TVS became hugely profitable in the eighties, because in terms of audience share it was actually the least successful ITV company, because the region had a higher than average ABC1 skew and they tended to prefer the BBC. But that meant that advertisers actually had to spend more on TVS and take out more adverts to reach the same number of people as in other regions who watched ITV more, so it was one of ITV's most profitable companies despite it being the least watched.
Originally Posted by iaindb:
“Broadchurch was supposed to be the biggest show on television this year. It should be able to cope with a bit of competition from a programme that's not only 18 years old, but one of the least fashionable dramas on TV. It doesn't have any critics ranting and raving about it and, as far as I can make out, it doesn't even get nominated for awards, never mind win any. Whereas Broadchurch won loads of awards including 3 Baftas.”
That's absolutely true, Silent Witness is not the kind of drama that gets Radio Times covers (it did when it started, but that was years ago) or appears in the new season previews (I don't think it's in the 2015 trailer) or gets weeks of trailers and the cast appearing on chat shows and so on. It's probably also one of the cheapest dramas on the BBC. It probably gets taken for granted a bit.
It's these kinds of programmes that are the building blocks of a schedule and which ITV absolutely need more of. They've got lots of drama but they don't appear to have enough returnable series, and instead you're often at the whim of actors' schedules (Doc Marin, Broadchurch) or at the mercy of one person (Downton) which means if they want to jack it in the whole show has to end. ITV used to have returnable series coming out of their ears like London's Burning and Soldier Soldier and knowing you have X episodes each year and can rely on them holding fairly steady (unless they shunt it to an awful slot or the entire cast leave en masse, which saw the end of those two respectively) is great news for a channel.
Originally Posted by cylon6:
“The BBC should never clash drama with drama or comedy with comedy.”
Well, that was certainly a problem over Christmas but I don't think it was too awful a clash last night, if you're clashing drama with drama at least make them demonstrably different, which these were - procedural mainstream drama vs dark historical drama. If they're substantially different it doesn't matter. Sometimes the problem can come from shows of different genres which have the same kind of atmosphere, one of the biggest moans about clashing I can remember is when BBC1 showed Ashes to Ashes against Mitchell and Webb on BBC2, which ostensibly would be fine as they were different genres, but they appealed to very similar audiences.
Originally Posted by Score:
“I don't think there's a massive need for more primetime drama. A bit more in the Summer would be nice (even in July/August something in the Monday 9pm slot wouldn't go amiss and would probably do OK) but in the Autumn/Winter there's enough as it is and you'd probably end up in the situation where things start getting squeezed if they add too much more.”
Absolutely they should do more in the summer, I think it's pathetic that ITV didn't have any new drama outside the soaps for three months. Drama is what sets ITV apart from the million other channels because they're one of the few channels with the budget to do it, so we shouldn't be going months without them. The ratings in August are not massively down on the autumn and it would be a decent opportunity to try something a bit different without it requiring six million straight off the bat.
Originally Posted by cylon6:
“I think Channel 4 and BBC2 squander the 10pm slot as they put comedy there that has no compatible lead-in to give it a boost. I think Wolf Hall/Up The Women might work better than some drama/comedy orfactual/comedy pairings on BBC2. I think what BBC2/Channel 4/Channel 5 should consider is hour long shows starting at 9.30pm to see what happens.”
That's a dreadful idea, when people stop watching the shows at 9pm on BBC1 and ITV there's a huge audience that doesn't want to watch the news. The lead-in comes from those channels. On a Friday, for example, where do most of the viewers for QI come from, the nature programmes before it on BBC2 or the comedy shows on BBC1? Surely the latter. Comedy is an obvious alternative to the news which is why BBC2 show most of it at 10pm, like how when the news was at nine they showed most their comedy at nine. BBC2 show comedy at 10pm, it's easy to remember.
Originally Posted by Zac Quinn:
“Not a chance, I don't think, after they did the same thing with Citizen Khan and it failed miserably.”
Did it? It's been recommissioned again, so I wouldn't call that a failure, and it seemed to hold up well enough opposite Corrie, as well as Room 101 is doing at the moment.
Originally Posted by NeilVW:
“Just a note in advance of the figures that both of those episodes were subject to opt-outs in Wales.”
And last night's, and next week's, is also opted out of in Scotland. The BBC Wales show is Rhod Gilbert's series which I think does quite well, it certainly does decent business when it's repeated on the network.
Originally Posted by RobbieSykes123:
“Ta. Disappointing, even making allowance for the lack of Wales. Deserves better but it's the sort of thing you'll love or hate. No middle ground with this one!”
Well, you say that, but you would surely assume that the ratings would collapse after episode one as everyone who hated it switched off, yet they have remained remarkably consistent, which virtually never happens to a sitcom. I think given how low the first series went its stability can only be seen as a good thing for this series. It seems to have had some decent reviews this time around as well, and it does generally seem to be a stronger series.
Originally Posted by RobbieSykes123:
“I can't wait to see where the "reintroduction" takes place....”
Of course, the absolute best example of this came from Julian Clary's Mr and Mrs in 1999, one of the first series in the 10pm slot where it was shown on Friday nights ans died on its arse, and ITV took it off after about three weeks, citing "experiments with the schedule" and saying it would return in a better slot. And three months later it did return... on Fridays at 10pm.
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