True. Plus soapies just AREN'T the ratings grabbers they are in the UK.

The UK population are rather obsessive when it comes to soaps. They are a habit.

If Eastenders had gone through the stage it did a couple of years ago in Oz, viewers would have deserted it very, very quickly. The axe would probably have fallen.

For some reason in this country we feel a loyalty to shows where we continue watching utter drivel no matter how awful it is.

Neighbours ratings are very good for Network Ten. As has been mentioned, Ten gets around 21% of viewers in general, while Seven and Nine, who are having a bit of a battle at the moment, get 27-29% each.

Like over here, networks care about the 16-39 demographic. Especially Ten, who's remit is to be a channel aimed at younger people. Neighbours averages 41-46% viewers in this demographic, which is the most important for advertisers.

Do not watch either of them, they are ham. Not a patch on UK soaps,

I noticed the accents are alot stronger in Home & Away, but in Neighbours alot of them basically speak with a London (Or American) accent

[quote=jonparadise]True. Plus soapies just AREN'T the ratings grabbers they are in the UK.

The UK population are rather obsessive when it comes to soaps. They are a habit.

If Eastenders had gone through the stage it did a couple of years ago in Oz, viewers would have deserted it very, very quickly. The axe would probably have fallen.

For some reason in this country we feel a loyalty to shows where we continue watching utter drivel no matter how awful it is.

Neighbours ratings are very good for Network Ten. As has been mentioned, Ten gets around 21% of viewers in general, while Seven and Nine, who are having a bit of a battle at the moment, get 27-29% each.

Like over here, networks care about the 16-39 demographic. Especially Ten, who's remit is to be a channel aimed at younger people. Neighbours averages 41-46% viewers in this demographic, which is the most important for advertisers.[/QUOTE]


Fully agree with you there!!!!!!!!

That is partly why Seven axed it back in 1985. Then weeks later Grundys and 10 were reseuuecting it to Seven's horror.
Seven immediately responded with creating their own in-house proiduction Home and Away. They knew there would be a UK buyer as ITV needed a weapon to fight Neighbours.

It does surprise me though that Seven and ITV fell out over Home and Away.

Melbourne is more British than Sydney and more classical actors are in Victoria (Melbourne).

I watch both, it's easy, neighbours finishes at 6:00pm and H+A starts at that time!

home and away (if i recall correctly) did once do better than neighbours- and that was when it had it's regular tea time slot on ITV 5 days a week. the whole faffing around with Channel 5 and the delay in time (plus the fact alot of people never got a signal for channel 5 unless they had sky television) meant that the show lost viewers, as they had missed so much of the show, or got bored of waiting.

i prefer home and away for darama, neighbours is better for more realism (if that's a word??)

anyway, that's my opinion!!

I watch them both and depending whats going on which is better changes. So whats the difference in UK figures?

Apparently Network Ten isn't as widely available as Seven and the other networks, especially in the outback, and more remote settlements - a bit like the analogue version of five.

Outside of the main cities, Ten and it's affiliates are relatively new.

Can someone tell me (or provide a link) as to why ITV got shot off H&A?

They could not agree with Seven on a price.

Also, when the Seven Network dropped Neighbours, did Ten, when it took it on takeon a whole brand new cast, ie: was the Sevens cast different to Tens when it started on Ten?

I have always found Holby boring - it's got no warmth!

Only one cast change Darius Perkins was axed and his Scott Robinson character was then played by Jason Donovan.

Seven refused to sell Ten the sets they were using to film the show.

I can vaguely remember him playing Scott, so did we in the UK see the Seven version then before Ten got it?

We started in Oct 1986 well after Ten had already taken over it.

Yup. We didn't even get a gap over here, I remeber that day, a rather long time ago, when all in one epsode a heap of new characters arrived and the sets changed, and Scotty changed his face.

I watch both but prefer H&A if i had to choose 1

I've no problem with your use of the word "realism"... awareness or acceptance of things as they are.
But I was a bit concerned about "darama" (drama)

Neighbours and Home And Away both have their own appeals, but for me Neighbours has the edge, as it works better for a larger demographic than the teen orientated Home And Away -although Amanda was very easy on the eye, if you know what I mean!
Last edited by kevin58 : 03-09-2006 at 15:32

I've always siad that too, great minds eh!

Neighbours is getting more ratings in Ireland than emmerdale.

I reckon Neighbours gets the most viewers just going by the amount of people who I've spoken to who watch Neighbours who just don't care bout H&A.

Though going by the eps I saw just before the xmas break I'd say H&A is the better soap. Neighbours is kinda too surreal and some of the scenes are laughable.

Also H&A seem able to keep there secrets better. Cos when the finale came up in Oz they managed to hide what was happening whereas when the same type of story came up in Neighbours you automatically knew the outcome cos it came up in the advert for the next episode.

I loved home and away- i feel that the producerof home and away know its a soap and they came make it out of the world with crazy explosive storylines, but since i move to uni in Bedford i have not been able to wach it due to you cant get channel 5 OR freeview tut tut

Also ITV at the time- pre hundreds of channels and loads of competition- assumed they could stick anything in the timeslot and get good ratings.

Also there were censorship issues. ITV were cutting it really heavily, to the extent they did not screen whole episodes more than once, because of storylines involving guns post dunblane. Five said they wouldn't cut it. (They were lying)