Originally Posted by grondagronda:
“I do sometimes think that the people in charge of ITV have lost their marbles.
If you'd told me 20-odd years ago that the channel behind World in Action, Barrymore, Cilla and Game for a Laugh would be airing a celebrity sheepherding show in primetime, followed by a barbecue competition, I think I'd have called you a liar.”
I think this is exaggerating a bit, especially mentioning Game For A Laugh there which was a massively vulgar and unsubtle show and had this thread been around then it wouldn't have stopped slagging it off, it may have been popular with the public but critically it stank the place out. And I don't think you'll find many light entertainment or light factual formats over the years that haven't been considered bizarre when they began, I've said this before but I've got a review of Stars In Their Eyes from when it began which says it's the stupidest format ever made and a new low in TV and it did sound strange when it began. And twenty years ago you had The Shane Richie Experience and Man O Man which were bloody awful. Light entertainment has always been slagged off and polarised opinion and most formats sound weird written down.
And 21 years ago this week, celebrity sheep shearing on primetime BBC1!
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/d8ff79939...aa0e10e4ecad40
Originally Posted by dave01:
“What's going on with Don't Tell The Bride? I could have sworn I saw a trailer saying new episodes on BBC3. Does this mean they have given up on it half way through the series and moved it back to BBC3 or are there two different styles of it airing now on each channel?”
This seems to have confused absolutely everyone, seemingly including people in the BBC itself. There was indeed a series of Don't Tell The Bride on BBC1 with older couples, which has now ended as planned, but the BBC3 series is continuing as well, using the original format with just younger couples. It might have been less confusing if they didn't show both series within a week of each other. But no, it's on both channels with a slightly different format on each.
Originally Posted by davey_wavey:
“In reverse, I thought BBQ Champ would do a fair bit better than that. I was expecting 3 million or so. It's not a lot different to Masterchef, and that was doing well only a few weeks ago. It's just another cookery type format, and they are formats that do quite well.”
Originally Posted by sn_22:
“Agreed about BBQ Champ. Some success in factual entertainment formats would really help ITV - they can be relatively cheap, run for lots of hours, create spin-offs and have some attractive demographics - but it's tough to crack. They'll have to see how this fares as the weeks go by, because these shows do tend to start slow. Indeed, BBC One's strength in the genre over the last decade has almost all come from proving grounds of BBC Two, where formats can start small (e.g. Masterchef, Bake Off, Apprentice).”
Yeah, I think the original post rather sums it up - it's similar to Masterchef which was on a couple of weeks ago, so if you've just watched that, why bother watching another? Sure, it'll pass the time if you've got nothing better to do but people aren't going to deliberately seek out "another cookery type format", especially on a Friday in the middle of summer.
What ITV really need to do is find a factual format that nobody's done yet which they can own. Trying to come up with something that's like another successful format always means you're going to come out second best. What they need is to find a genre they can pioneer and aren't always going to be overshadowed by other channels. I don't know what that is. Doing stuff a bit like Bake Off or, as seen tomorrow for the second time in two months, a bit like Gogglebox is always going to see you lagging behind other channels.
Originally Posted by Pizzatheaction:
“Was that the one they held back from December 1991? It was very good apart from the bit with the obvious model plane.”
Yes, they did of course have to postpone the first showing of the last episode of that series of Casualty in December 1991 because it featured a plane crash and they realised it would coincide with the anniversary of Lockerbie, so they held it back and showed it on its own in February as a special.
Originally Posted by lewiep93:
“BBC 1
18:25: Film: Raiders of the Lost Ark - 3.15m (22.1%)
20:15: National Lottery: Five Star Family Reunion - 3.18m (19.1%)
21:10: Casualty - 3.98m (22.6%)
ITV
18:30: Film: Mamma Mia! - 2.17m (14.9%)
20:30: The Cube - 1.88m (10.8%)”
Well, there you go, you commend ITV for "making the effort" and their one new show gets the lowest rating of all, so what's the point? And just to point out, by the way, even with Keep It In The Family next week there is still just as much new content on the BBC with Casualty as well as the lottery show, plus Match of the Day of course. And from a couple of genres, not just two LE shows that have been on the shelf for ages.
I think if anything shows the weakness of The Cube it's that it was pretty much soundly beaten by a lottery quiz on only its second outing which isn't particularly good (and as we know, it's nothing to do with the lottery itself). I doubt ITV have particularly high hopes for it if they're burning off episodes on August 1st, I doubt it'll be coming back. I was wondering if Raiders of the Lost Ark might get the highest rating of anything last night, people will certainly getting excited about it on Twitter, and though it didn't it certainly illustrates why they keep on showing it, people are genuinely happy to watch it over and over again, like they are Mrs Brown.
But I mean, I dunno what people are expecting from teatime on a Saturday in August. Where I am it's boiling hot and loads of people are on holiday, in many ways we should be amazed five million people between them are watching BBC1 and ITV at teatime on a boiling hot August Saturday, there's loads more they can be doing. It's incredible it's getting that much. The argument is that if you put something good on people will come, which is not something I disagree with in normal circumstances, but not on a Saturday teatime in August. People just don't want to watch television there, and nor should they have to. We shouldn't be wringing our hands over rubbish ratings in that slot. People should be doing other stuff anyway.
Here are some classic hopeless summer Saturdays from the past. If anything it's remarkable there are any new programmes, they certainly didn't feel the need to do anuthing like that then...
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules...don/1992-08-15
http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules...don/1993-08-14
).”
