Originally Posted by centauri72:
“It's not really news though that Gerry Anderson has been trying, and failing, to get the rights back to Thunderbirds and failing to make progress - he has been trying for at least 20 years, and none of the rights holders over those years - Polygram, Carlton, Granada, now ITV - have ever given him the time of day.
It doesn't help that we had all this with his (IMO truly excellent) CGI reboot of Captain Scarlet back in 2005, when he did get the rights to remake one of his 60s shows.
A vastly expensive series (estimated to have cost over £1 million per 25 minute episode) which he made with independent funding - then sold to ITV, who buried it in a dreadful Saturday morning children's show called Ministry of Mayhem, where it had no regular timeslot, had each ep cut in two, lost the start and end titles/music, and had graphics and phone numbers shown all over it.
The result, not suprisingly, was a much poorer ratings performance than it would have got if it had been shown on Saturday nights at 6 or 7 pm.
The result was that, I suspect, Gerry Anderson's backers lost money on making the show and he might therefore find it more difficult than the linked article indicates to raise money for a new series. Plus of course the Thunderbirds movie in 2004 (made without any Gerry Anderson involvement at all) tanked badly at the box office.
The sad thing is that Gerry Anderson is quite right - something like Thunderbirds would have exactly the same cross-generational appeal that Doctor Who has.
But ITV are, they tell us, not interested in any drama before 9 pm and any new children's programming at any hour, so even if (which seems unlikely) GA could get ITV to sell him the rights, I can't see them having the imagination or budget to schedule a new Thunderbirds series where it belongs (and ironically where the original was back in the 60s) ie a 7 pm slot.”
They're only not interested because they blew all the money on football, and know that the advertising market is more competetive post-watershed, so the 8pm slots may as well be filled with factual programming.
It would've been so nice if Saturday and Sunday had a slate of well performing drama series:-
Saturday
- Primeval (12 weeks) from January-March getting 5-6 million viewers
- Tomorrow People (6 weeks) in late Summer, early Autumn, probably getting around 4 million viewers with room to grow.
- Thunderbirds (6 weeks) in mid to late Autumn could achieve heights of 6-7 million viewers, given its mass appeal.
Sunday
- The Royal (12 weeks) a real Winter slot with a real soap lead-in, against the popular Lark Rise to Candleford, it would probably average between 5-6 million viewers, being neck on neck with BBC1's period drama.
- Wild at Heart (10 weeks) in the summer, again after the soaps, probably set for around 6 million viewers, given it'll be in the summer, and it won't have that Dancing on Ice winter sandwich, but 6 million is very decent for the summer.
- Heartbeat (12 weeks) from late Autumn going throughout Christmas and into the New Year, giving the show the best possible on-going slot. I don't think it would be against Top Gear but I might be wrong. If it is, it'll probably be getting around 5 million viewers but a low share, given the lead in from the soaps. If no Top Gear, and it's against Strictly Come Dancing, I think it could pull in 6 million viewers, and a highish share.
And perhaps Kingdom could add to that Sunday slate eventually.
And that could be, apart from The Bill, ITV's pre-9pm slate of programming, IF ITV hadn't paid for all the football, which came out at an astronomical price
Clearly hit badly by the Tennis. How many times has Holby City outrated the EastEnders episode before it?!
We could start having Have I Got News For You: Series 37 or Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow: Series 6, considering it's first 5 series were called Live at the Apollo. 
