I don't think ITV has that many 'fluffy' dramas, there's more successful crime drama on the channel than things like Cold Feet or Victoria.

Decent for EE. Pity it didn't hit 7 as the quality was there.

EE really has been excellent recently. How men are affected by mental health and grief are rarely covered. Scott Maslen and Danny-Boy have put in some outstanding performances. The scripts and filming have been sound too along with the pacing.

I feel those 30 minute filler shows are lost in soapland. I wonder how many non-soap fans just write off itv until 9pm and it's only likely to increase.
Those shows you mentioned are the sort of shows which could be an hour long, it's only really 45 minutes.

The bottom line is itv will probably be filling 10 hours of TV with six hours of soap. Some will love it, many will feel the opposite. Most probably won't care or even notice the extra Corrie episode because there's lots of other channels.

Actually, the bottomest line is that the soaps are still very popular as last night so clearly showed.



What was that?

An hour of Tonight would be too much, some shows just work at half an hour and expanding them risks making them dragged out.

Ash you seem to be avoiding the subject regarding the BBC idents, i can't think why.

Jericho. It looked like a Sunday drama, but ended up on a Thursday with a 90minute opening ep.

True, I was really thinking of a lighter shows. Panorama used to be quite long but I don't believe it is anymore.

World in Action was a powerful 30 minutes. The opening titles image was so memorable.

How does EE compare to the rest of BBC programming? From my point of view, EE could happily sit on any other channel. Its not a BBC programme through and through as SCD or Let It Shine might be.

Its much like TVUK in the respect.

Okay so let's keep the double Corrie on Monday and Friday, the double Emmerdale on Thursday and throw another randomly timed Corrie in as well (likely 8.30 on Thursday after 2 Emmerdales and a random 30 minute filler slot).

I have suggested a way to neaten the schedules up from the mess they are now, and are going to further become. No idea why you have a problem with what is essentially rearranging what's already there to be tidier and make more structural sense.

All this talk of 'should' ... if I could wave a magic wand I'd put them all back to 3 episodes a week but it's not happening. It's not happening so I've suggested a good way to work with what we have, which is 4x30 EE and 6x30 ED & soon CS, without arduous double episodes and sandwiches everywhere.

Rather than talk about how things could be in a utopian universe where the soaps were cut down, can we discuss why my idea of ditching the double episodes and having fixed start times for all the programmes is better or worse than we have now, for either network? I put it to you that it's not, it is a big improvement on the current scheduling format.

Oh I see what you mean now. I thought you meant that a drama on Sundays slumped to 3.3m.

My wife enjoyed Jericho, she stuck with it even though she knew it'd been cancelled. She liked its originality.

Diversity might have played a part but it was quite a big timeshifter last time. It added on nearly 2 million last time, resulting in some underwhelming overnights looking quite respectable when consolidated. I imagine that'll be the case even more this time against Death in Paradise. Not sure how much ITV look at that but seeing as it got renewed when other series didn't I'd guess it had some sort of role to play.

I wouldn't describe 4.3m up against Death in Paradise as a turkey, although it doesn't have much room to fall. The dramas they've cancelled (Home Fires, Brief Encounters) have got those sorts of audiences against much weaker competition (and with bigger lead-ins). I expected worse last night and I think ITV may have as well as they barely bothered to trail it. Very different to last year when Jericho was promoted to death and yet only launched with 3.3m in the same slot against DIP.

It's far, far better than Kidnap/Ransom and especially The Level though. It's really good and has been highly praised pretty much all round today. It got a BAFTA nomination for Supporting Actor last series. It's quite refreshing to see a crime drama where the detectives are just normal people, rather than being "haunted by their demons" etc.

I've created a visual representation of my soap schedule reorganisation:

https://s24.postimg.org/4yho1lxth/itvsoaps.png

Rather than bemoaning how often the soaps are on (which cannot be changed) can we have a debate about whether/how the proposal I've shown would benefit/disenfranchise the BBC or ITV?

I can safely say viewers of soaps would appreciate the proposal, as it does away with all double episodes/contrived cliffhangers and irritating sandwiches. It also uses exactly the same amount of time in primetime as now, just neatens it all up and gives each show a consistent timeslot.

Well Kevin Lygo said he would buy up EastEnders in a pinch as the Demos are amazing. It would sit well on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 even on Sky 1 and Netflix. It is its versatility and demos that BBC crave and need really. I wouldn't want it to move, but it could. But that would impact massively on BBC to its detriment. I don't know but the question is "Why should it move?"

I don't think you really read or understood my post there. Not quite sure why you've got so angry but it's the internet so . . .

EE is very BBC and very unique. It tackles issues no other tackles. EE has always been more drama than soap. Remember too, BBC EastEnders came about when the govt required the BBC to increase it's share in the early 80s. BBC EastEnders is important to the BBC. The BBC has always done popular content, it should continue too. ITV on the other-hand... Strictly and Let It Shine are very BBC too. It's all about the tone.

Well it doesn't appear we are even talking about the same point so not sure why you quoted me before...

My point was the schedules are very messy and disorganised as extra episodes have been added over the years, and I proposed a way to tidy that up, and wanted to hear views as to why or why not that is a good idea for either network. Personally I can see no downsides whatsoever to my proposal, though I'd like to hear other opinions in form of a debate.

I didn't realise EastEnders was called BBC EastEnders. WHY do you do this? It's akin to propaganda. There are other television channels in this country you know.

Have ITV never done popular content? At all? Not even across its 61 year history? My god almighty.

Firstly, there is far to much soap on tv, especially on ITV. They are like a millstone around the broadcasters neck. Tidying them up is a good idea so that those of us who aren't interested in them know when it's safe to turn the telly box on. I am against the soaps increasing their output. I think it impacts on quality in a negative way and is frankly lazy.

...but it also provides the BBC with the perfect vehicle to cover 'public service' issues. Dot getting her eyes tested/being in denial that she needs them tested/mental health issues/body image stuff (recently with Bex), drugs...the list is endless.

Of course Lygo would like EastEnders. The commercial sector are lazy. They would rather poach content and talent from the Beeb than invest in their own. I give you the dreadful behaviour of 4/Love Productions re: Bake Off. Unforgivable behaviour.

To be fair to Home Fires and Brief Encounters, they managed their overnights in late spring (I think!) for the former, and summer for the latter. When you think how much higher the soaps have been this week than they tend to be in spring and summer, that's a significant factor. I suspect individuals' whims play a part in recommissioning decisions, too, though.

I expect Unforgotten to drop under 4m over the course of the series, which I regard as ratings turkey for a 9pm BBC One or ITV drama in January/February, even though 4.3m wasn't quite in turkey territory. My point was that ITV have set it up to drop into turkey territory by weakening last night's 8pm hour by moving Emmerdale, and strengthening BBC One's 8pm hour in the process. Helpful for Death in Paradise, and unhelpful for Unforgotten.

When there were split EastEnders doubles last year, the 8.30pm one tended to rate around a million lower than the 7.30pm one. I certainly don't think an 8.30pm episode last night would have managed 6.8m.

What ITV should have done with last night's schedule when they saw BBC One was planning EastEnders at 7.30pm and 8.30pm (incidentally the same scheduling as the two previous winters when this thread had BBC One down as targeting Feather) was to move the second Emmerdale to 8.30pm, allowing EastEnders to slide into 7.30-8.30pm, and craftily undermining the lead-in for Paradise, and boosting the lead-in for Unforgotten, but no, not ITV, they lost sight of what was best for their 9pm drama, and instead tried to nobble EastEnders by running Emmerdale from 7-8pm.

Bollock well and truly dropped.

EastEnders is not unique. It's not. None of the soaps are. It tackles the same issues as Corrie, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks, just at different times.

So LIS is "very BBC" even though you've not seen it? LIS could be on any channel quite frankly.

I don't especially want to get into this discussion again but I will mention again that the problem with turning Corrie into a permanent hour-long show is that is becomes, well, an hour-long show. I know that sounds stupid, but the point is that it will require a different form of storytelling if you're always going an hour, after fifty years of half hours. Fewer cliffhangers, a different mood to the episodes.

I know you could argue they already do hour-long shows every week but split them in two halves, but they are all produced as half hours. And also as well I think it becoming a bit more of a chore for the audience. My mum will often watch the first episode of an evening but maybe record the second one because there's something else on, and sometimes watch it before she goes to work or something. It's easy enough to fit into your schedule. At an hour, it starts to look a bit like a chore having to watch it all in one go. I know it's the same duration in total, but it's being served in larger chunks.

I mean, I hate double episodes as much as anyone, because I think it becomes totally impossible to emphasise anything special - whereas last night's 'stEnders was rare enough to seem a bit special - but making all episodes an hour long doesn't help, I don't think. Would much rather it was shown on as many different nights of the week as possible.


Well, as I always say, there's only one extra episode of Corrie and Emmerdale now than there was in 2000, and they haven't added any more episodes for over a decade. It does seem like there are more of them now, yes, but I think that's more to do with there being fewer other programmes in the schedules. There used to be enough on ITV when they regularly showed new programmes after 10pm to ensure the soaps didn't dominate, not so much these days.


Tonight was, of course, originally an hour when it began in 1999, but that was when the format was of a programme with a number of stories in the hour. Unfortunately that's not a concept that's ever caught on with the British audience who prefer to watch current affairs shows on a single topic.

The model when Tonight when that started, as it has been for many other programmes, is 60 Minutes on American telly which does feature a number of stories in each edition, and is a very famous and popular show. Although it's worth pointing out that one reason for its success is because the regulations in America said that the networks had to show either an hour of local programming in primetime on Sunday night, or a networked news programme, and everyone opted for the latter, so it has a bit of a captive audience. A bit like when Songs of Praise and Highway used to be on at the same time.

Indeed we talk a lot about competitive scheduling but in America all the network news programmes are shown at the same time, and so are all the talk shows.

So when the BBC bought the rights to TVUK, they were being creative? Give me strength.

Commercials channels are more likely to buy into formats because its harder for them to get a good success rate. For the BBC, they might have had a few flops, but all they need to do is create a format, stamp National Lottery on the front, and its garunteed 3m-3.5m

You really overestimate the role of what program comes before another. People find what they want to watch.

But no, I'm sure you have a greater knowledge of these things than the UK's largest commercial broadcaster.

Emmerdale is tackling dementia and doing it so well, better than any soap so far.

Coronation Street will soon be tackling the subject of grooming young girls. Corrie has tackled depression (though not as well as EE, because Stuart Blackburn was in charge)

EastEnders: Depression

EE is a soap. Its not a drama. As much as you think the sun shines out of the BBC's backside, EE, Corrie & Emmerdale are all the same in terms of tackling issues, creating drama, and peaks and troughs of quality.