Originally Posted by H of De Vil:
“One wonders why BBC1 commission these comedy series like Sun Trap and Mountain Goat is they are just scheduled to die in a late slot. Waste of money.”
The 10.35 slot was also home to Mrs Brown's Boys, which has done alright for itself. And we know full well that if they showed these sitcoms in primetime they would immediately be written off by everyone in five seconds because viewers are so used to slagging off every sitcom every five seconds. These series at 10.35 can potentially get decent sized audiences and if they work they can be moved to elsewhere in the schedules, like Count Arthur Strong. There's certainly nothing to say any sitcom at 10.35 is immediately going to die, Mrs Brown has proven that.
You can't complain that new shows are put in the middle of primetime like Jason Manford was on ITV and say that it's too exposed a slot, and then complain when new shows are put in less prominent slots to let them grow.
If Mountain Goats does die on its arse, which it probably will, it's not because it's at 10.35, it's because they've given it no publicity whatsoever and it probably won't be very good. But there are political reasons for commissioning it, I think, because it's a BBC Scotland production and they have to do X hours a year. Not the most fantastic way to commission things, perhaps, but that's how it is,
Originally Posted by H of De Vil:
“And the replacement of TC at 5pm, highlights how those viewers will default back to BBC1 and to Pointless.”
Originally Posted by H of De Vil:
“There own fault. They just gift BBC1 with a default audience. Hello Campers is no Coach Trip.”
Sad to see the D word make an unwelcome return to this thread, once more seeming to suggest BBC1 viewers are indiscriminate and just watching the channel for the sake of it, which is wrong, especially at the height of summer. The Pointless audience has gone up a bit now The Chase isn't on but only by a very small percentage and the vast majority of the Pointless audience is watching it because they want to watch Pointless. I certainly am, I don't give a toss what ITV are showing, I want to watch Pointless. And what they do in the rest of daytime is of no interest to me, because I'm at work.
Originally Posted by Jaycee Dove:
“Countdown is the TV equivalent of doing the puzzle page or crossword. I imagine it skews rather old but in that sense it is probably doing a service. Helping OAPs to ward of Alzheimers by keeping their brains active.
It is also one of the very few participatory TV shows where viewers are as involved as the contestants. You can actually play against the contestants in fact which is pretty much unique.
I even think if Channel 4 ever axed it then it would find a new home somewhere as it would take its small but loyal audience with it.”
Originally Posted by stewartuu:
“Not so much nostalgia as loyalty. Countdown is recommissioned because C4 know they'd be hard-pressed to replace it with anything that would do any better or even as well for the same cost.”
I don't know why we're even floating the idea that Countdown needs to be axed. To suggest it's boring now is to forget the first decade or so when it was incredibly boring. Yeah, Richard livened it all up later but for the first few years it was as dull as they come. The whole point of the show is that it doesn't need any kind of gimmick, the game is the game and that's why people continue to loyally watch it, it may have a small audience but there are incredibly loyal, even despite C4 continually messing around with the scheduling and irritating people. Which is not something you can say about any of C4's other daytime shows, it's the very last one that should be axed.
Originally Posted by mrstreetcred:
“Maybe not all to my taste, but bbc1 is looking like a very strong august 9pm schedule...
Sun... Partners in crime
Mon... Sherlock repeats, (I actually really want to watch this series again)
Tue... New tricks
Wed... Nature after bake off(???)
Thur... Who do you think you are
Fri.. Ripper street”
Indeed, brand new at 9pm six nights out of seven and with four new dramas to boot (if you count Casualty). I know one is technically not new but it's new for the vast majority of viewers. It seems to be now that August does bring about something of a new schedule, it certainly happened in 2012 and 2014 after the Olympics and Commonwealth Games but now it seems to be the case every year.
Originally Posted by D.M.N.:
“France vs Italy is a high-profile match and considering they have the Six Nations next year, it'd make no sense to move it to ITV4, whilst USA vs Japan is the last game of the group stages.”
USA vs Japan may be the last game of the group stages but it'll probably have nothing riding on it whatsoever so I would be 99% certain it won't be on primetime ITV.
Originally Posted by Score:
“Although I think France vs Italy might end up on ITV4. It doesn't make much sense, but Keep it in The Family is 7 episodes long, which means the last episode will air on 19th September - ie. the night of France vs Italy. They couldn't shift it earlier due to the teatime match either. Looks like ITV have decided they'd rather air The X Factor that night. I suppose it makes sense from a commercial perspective but it doesn't look great. Unless KIITF shifts to Sunday for the final episode, but surely they'd have just started it a week earlier if that were the case?”
The fact they're burning it off at teatime on August Saturdays, and nobody seemed to know anything about it until it turned up in the TV guides, suggests that ITV don't care about Keep It In The Family and they will shunt it from pillar to post if required. There's no continuing aspect in the format, is there, so it's just as likely they'll keep hold of the last episode until Christmas or any other night that needs filling.
Originally Posted by burbe:
“Yeah, they probably think it's too much having two contestant based shows together. I'm surprised they haven't paired Who Do You Think You Are with GBBO since both have 10 episode runs.”
But you don't want loads of big shows on one night, because you don't get twice the promotion, you get the same amount split in half. This week Radio Times has a Bake Off cover and next week it had a WDYTYA cover, if they started the same night they couldn't do that. Similarly we had all the big Bake Off contestant profiles yesterday and all the chat about it on breakfast TV this morning, if The Apprentice started the same day they wouldn't have the time or space to cover both. Yesterday too BBC1 could spend all day on Twitter and on air promoting Bake Off, whack The Apprentice on there too and what gets priority?
Originally Posted by Markynotts:
“For some reason it appears that the BBC wanted to kill off New Tricks. Showing it after Bake Off, may have given it a ratings boost over the number that they received on Tuesday, which would have then made it difficult for the BBC to shelve a popular programme - perhaps.”
If the Beeb wanted to axe New Tricks, they'd axe it, they don't need to make up an excuse to get rid of it. Even if the ratings were huge if they don't think it's any good anymore they can drop it. The great example is Zen which got a decent response from viewers and pretty good ratings, and the Beeb still dropped it because they just didn't fancy it. In the interview in the Radio Times this week Dennis Waterman says he was packing it in because he thought it had gone a bit rubbish and if that's the view of the Beeb as well, they're within their rights to axe it. You don't want to flog these things to the very last plot, regardless of the ratings. There's a story that the light entertainment department in the late eighties wanted to stop doing Little and Large because they thought the show had totally run out of steam, but the Controller of BBC1 overruled them because it got decent ratings. But that's not conducive to quality programming.
It's hardly like the Beeb are trying to shove New Tricks out with a whimper, it's been trailed to death and Tuesday at nine is probably BBC1's best slot throughout the year. It was different this week because of Cilla but for the rest of the run ITV will be showing all sorts of rubbish there.
Originally Posted by Andy23:
“It's a ratings thread rule. If a show doesn't air on either a Sunday or Monday in Autumn and Winter then it's terrible scheduling, on track to fail or being burnt off.”
And if a show comes back in the same slot as last time, or stays there for a bit, it's terrible scheduling because they need to freshen things up.
As has been said, stonking numbers for Bake off which is a real curiosity in how it's grown, from a low key BBC Two baking show, to arguably the biggest show on British TV atm pulling ratings reserved for the three big entertainment behemoths at 8pm on a Wednesday Evening- If it stays at that level for the rest of the series or even grows a little bit, I can't see anything else catching it in terms of series average, which is just phenomenonal
. Such a shock that I don't actually believe it. Should be able to keep the audience from last night hopefully.
