Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“Well, as we "know" (ie, I remember Sandi Toksvig saying it on Light Lunch) the lowest rated BBC1 primetime rating was probably the SNP Leader Interview in 1997, inexplicably networked, shown at 8.30, not opposite a soap and at a time when the SNP were totally irrelevant outside Scotland. This time the SNP are far more relevant nationwide and it was opposite Corrie so there's no way it can be worse scheduling than that.
I don't think last night was that big a disaster, Panorama's gone lower than that before and Panorama's never going to rate well. The Leader Interviews are PSB ballast opposite Corrie and I know New Tricks is never that welcome but it's a bit of a funny week because next week is a Bank Holiday so you can't really start anything new there. And obviously Dispatches was on a very populist subect. Swings and roundabouts, could well be Panorama beating Dispatches next time.
I don't think ITV will be that bothered, they know they're never going to win on the night but they have all the resources there and they've got to cover everything for the news anyway, so it's a no-brainer to do a show regardless, it'd probably be less cost-effective not to do one. For all we talk about dumbing down, ITV have done more regarding elections in recent years because we now have an all-nighter for the US Elections whereas in the nineties we never had that.
It's an interesting one, the C4 one, because with both last time round and the Election Night Armistice I always found it was falling between two stools a bit because people interested in politics are going to watch the proper coverage and people who aren't interested in politics aren't going to watch political comedy at all. Certainly in 1997 nothing the Armistice did was more exciting than the actual election coverage. But this time, as you say, it's going on until 6am and does seem to be sold as proper full coverage. In the past that wouldn't have been possible because you'd have needed a huge infrastructure to do this kind of thing but these days, what with all the silicon chips and such, you can do it all making use of Twitter, Skype and so on.
Of course the other interesting thing we've got coming up too is the royal baby. Part of me really wants Kate to hold on until election night itself, just because I'd love to see them have to juggle between the two, or indeed the next day just to add to the chaos of the weekend with the VE Day commemorations to fit in as well. I really don't want her to give birth just before polling day, in case everyone is so happy they think everything's brilliant and all go and vote Tory.
Oh, dear me, what is it with all these under-predictions? No slight on you personally, but it's a new Peter Kay sitcom, it'll get a huge audience, he has more goodwill than any other comedian on the planet. He gets at least three million viewers for the trilionth repeat of one of his DVDs on Channel Four. Surely the nearest thing to a guaranteed hit BBC1 can get. Like having Samuel back!”
“Well, as we "know" (ie, I remember Sandi Toksvig saying it on Light Lunch) the lowest rated BBC1 primetime rating was probably the SNP Leader Interview in 1997, inexplicably networked, shown at 8.30, not opposite a soap and at a time when the SNP were totally irrelevant outside Scotland. This time the SNP are far more relevant nationwide and it was opposite Corrie so there's no way it can be worse scheduling than that.
I don't think last night was that big a disaster, Panorama's gone lower than that before and Panorama's never going to rate well. The Leader Interviews are PSB ballast opposite Corrie and I know New Tricks is never that welcome but it's a bit of a funny week because next week is a Bank Holiday so you can't really start anything new there. And obviously Dispatches was on a very populist subect. Swings and roundabouts, could well be Panorama beating Dispatches next time.
I don't think ITV will be that bothered, they know they're never going to win on the night but they have all the resources there and they've got to cover everything for the news anyway, so it's a no-brainer to do a show regardless, it'd probably be less cost-effective not to do one. For all we talk about dumbing down, ITV have done more regarding elections in recent years because we now have an all-nighter for the US Elections whereas in the nineties we never had that.
It's an interesting one, the C4 one, because with both last time round and the Election Night Armistice I always found it was falling between two stools a bit because people interested in politics are going to watch the proper coverage and people who aren't interested in politics aren't going to watch political comedy at all. Certainly in 1997 nothing the Armistice did was more exciting than the actual election coverage. But this time, as you say, it's going on until 6am and does seem to be sold as proper full coverage. In the past that wouldn't have been possible because you'd have needed a huge infrastructure to do this kind of thing but these days, what with all the silicon chips and such, you can do it all making use of Twitter, Skype and so on.
Of course the other interesting thing we've got coming up too is the royal baby. Part of me really wants Kate to hold on until election night itself, just because I'd love to see them have to juggle between the two, or indeed the next day just to add to the chaos of the weekend with the VE Day commemorations to fit in as well. I really don't want her to give birth just before polling day, in case everyone is so happy they think everything's brilliant and all go and vote Tory.
Oh, dear me, what is it with all these under-predictions? No slight on you personally, but it's a new Peter Kay sitcom, it'll get a huge audience, he has more goodwill than any other comedian on the planet. He gets at least three million viewers for the trilionth repeat of one of his DVDs on Channel Four. Surely the nearest thing to a guaranteed hit BBC1 can get. Like having Samuel back!”
Well I hope that it does well as there is few comedy on the main channels at the moment and W1A is now rubbish.
