Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“Airline and Better Homes also did well because they were shown as part of extremely strong schedules, Airline of course started between Corrie and The Bill on Friday nights and Better Homes got a succession of plum slots, and that was in the era when ITV had an enormously loyal audience and lots of people (my gran) used to watch the channel all day. That's not to belittle the success of those shows, of course, they were amiable enough in their own right and all channels have always tried to jump onto the nearest passing bandwagon since television was invented. You can also look at We Can Work It Out, the ITV Watchdog, which did perfectly alright for a few years because it was different enough from Watchdog to be appealing to the core ITV audience.
One thing that possibly makes a difference these days is that when a show is successful there's loads more of it. When ITV did Airline BBC1 were doing one series of Airport a year and people were hungry for more, so it filled a hole. But if ITV are taking their cue from Masterchef, they're on a bit of a hiding to nothing because there's already loads of Masterchef so there's no real need for a lookalike series.
Long Lost Family is a perfect example of the kind of factual formats ITV should be doing, shows that are a bit emotional that the other channels find a bit mawkish.
Indeed, and there were loads more primetime repeats in those days, even in the autumn and winter. It's a bit different now too because it's cheaper to make a TV show as you don't need a massive studio or spend ages on the edit, you can do it all on a laptop. Will Wyatt's book points out that under Alan Yentob there were more new programmes on BBC1 than before, not because of any particular budget increase, but because there'd been a lot of factual hits which could play where light entertainment traditionally played, and were a lot cheaper.
But the point is, you can say ITV are "making the effort" with Keep It In The Family and The Cube but if the public don't want to watch them, there's no point. And they're clearly being burned off in a dead slot anyway.
Shoestring ended because Trevor Eve wanted to pack it in, and indeed the creation of Bergerac was pretty frantic. When Shoestring finished the Beeb were at a bit of a loss because it had been a big series for them and asked its creator Robert Banks Stewart to come up with something else that was a bit similar, shades of when Eve packed in Waking The Dead and the Beeb commissioned The Body Farm as a straight replacement.
So it was a bit of a cynical commission, but of course it was hugely popular. At the start, at least, the last series or two weren't very successful at all, I know the last one of all in 1991 got rather poor ratings, it probably went on too long.
Yeah, and it's an illustration of how big cycling is becoming that you had that on BBC1, creeping into primetime to boot. Of course ITV did show the final day of the Tour de France on ITV1 when Bradley Wiggins won it, but I think the difference is that there's no one moment where you "win" the Tour de France, Wiggin and Froome had both won it before the final day so I suppose you have to show it all or not at all. And I also guess it's of far greater value for ITV4, where it's the biggest show for months, than ITV1.
Yes, Andrew Marr does always go off for the summer although famously a few years ago there was some kind of cock-up and it was still billed in all the listings because they'd forgotten to take it out of the schedule, and only at the last minute did they realise there wasn't going to be one.
The break used to be much longer and for a couple of years they did a replacement show for the summer called News 24 Sunday with Peter Sissons which was virtually the same show but, as the name suggests, simulcast on News 24 which struck me as very odd as the Marr show wasn't. Before that Breakfast with Frost was usually on all year round but it would take off all the Bank Holiday weekends so it works out around the same, and Frost himself used to take weeks and weeks off anyway,
It's not a European football channel, they branded it as "your home of European football" when they launched but it's called Sky Sports 5 so they can show what they like on it, like they bill Sky Sports Whatever as "your home of darts" but they don't just show darts on it. Presumably they assumed everyone would just forget that advertising campaign, like they assume everyone forgets everything they say when they totally contradict it eighteen months later.
Eh? What's wrong with that? I know it can never be shown ever again but Animal Hospital was a bloody big hit, wasn't it? What's wrong with a soppy factual show looking at cute animals in an animal hospital? Absolutely heartland ITV stuff, they should be doing more of it. I don't know why people are slagging it off based on the title, it might not even be called that in the end. It sounds attractive enough to me.
What have those two got in common? One's is a scrapyard and one's in a bookmakers. Yes, they're both locations frequented by the working class but what else have they got to do with each other? Pound Shop Wars has done alright, hasn't it?
Pointless getting a bigger audience for repeats, which started on Monday, than it did for the new episodes last week.
If you're counting You're Back In The Room as a hit you should also be counting Win Your Wish List and 5 Star Family Reunion as hits, they got similar-sized audiences and the latter has just absolutely thrashed a long-running ITV light entertainment show. You can say, oh, they're lottery quizzes, but you can look at other lottery quizzes which have died on their arse, as well as the draws themselves of course when they're shown on their own and get diabolical ratings, and it can't be argued people aren't watching these shows because they want to watch them. If you thought 5 Star Family Reunion was rotten in week one there's no need for you to watch it in week two, you could watch The Cube and get the lottery results from the shop. You're Back In The Room had a much better lead-in than those shows as well.
Indeed, to much controversy of course. You're Back In The Room was an indie production as well, as are I think all ITV's comedy shows.
I see Miller's Mountain, now renamed Mountain Goats, starts its series next week on BBC1 with absolutely no publicity, I didn't know it was even starting until I saw it in the Radio Times which hasn't even made it a Choice with they usually do with all new comedies and dramas. Not a priority for the Beeb, I feel.”
Bergerac went a bit weird in the end didn't it, became a private detective and the whole show moved to France, no wonder ratings dropped.
