With all these cable and Sky channels why isn't there a dedicated soap channel to show repeats of popular and rarely seen soaps. Didn't Sky used to have some sort of soap channel a few years back?


Tony

Yes, SKY Soap. All it really showed was Emmerdale Farm, High Road and some cheap US soaps. It wasn't very popular and closed in April 1999

Like James said there used to be a dedicated Sky Soap Channel but it closed down due to low viewing figures.

UK Gold shows old Eastenders and Neighbours episodes while Granada Plus shows old Emmerdale and Corrination street episodes and Sky One used to show old episodes of Brookside during the early hours of the morning and thats about it.

Most of those channel are nearly caught up to the present day now with most shows. I would love it if they started to show Corrie, Emmerdale, Crossroads and Brookside from the start again. I don't think it's possible with Crossroads though with a lot of episodes being wiped but it would be nice to have a repeat of the 80's episodes on UK Gold.

Really the list of soaps I would like to see repeated is endless, Dynasty, Prisoner, Dark Shadows, Knots Landing, I could go on and on.

I wonder if a soap channel would get higher viewing figures now, I know they have one in the States which does quite well.

I think there should be a soap channel.
It could have soaps such as:
The Young Doctors,Prisoner,Crossroads,Take the high road,Eldorado,A Country Practice,Home and Away,Brookside,Neighbours,Sons and Daughters,The Sullivans,Knots Landing,Dynasty.

Neighbours will be only shown once on UK Gold from next month due to bad ratings. But UK Gold say they will continute with the series once a day till the show ends. Home and Away is shown on Living TV in the early hours and Bold aswell.

I think there should be one that show's the more classic soap years. I know many people would love to see Neighbours from the start and it would be cool to see Home and Away from the 80s to.

There are so many soaps that are no played in the UK mainly US ones, but they could make up a channel with all the soaps around. Classic and current US ones.

Is there anyway we can start a campaign for a soaps channel?

Is that once a month or once a day? And if once a day- is it the Mornign or Afternoon showing thay are axing?

It will be shown once a day at 7:55 AM. The 2:15PM showing is being axed as is the late night showing on UK Gold 2.

Did anyone catch Days of our Lives, five showed it for a while just after Sunset Beach concluded, then suddenly ripped it out of the schedules, do any other UK broadcasters show it?

(One of those show's that's so bad its good, and i'm going to be a student from September, so i'm going to need some cult viewing!!!)

Steve

I remember that. It was on less than 2 years ago and Five said it was going to return.Of course it didn't.

Days of Our Lives was Brilliant, i would love it to return, but iv recently read that te Wesley family have been axed Poor Nancy, she was a great character, remember when she got stuck in a window! lol.

I really think there should be a soap channel on the UKTV network: UKSoap, showing classic and current soaps. Classic ones from anywhere in the world, and current ones from abroad which arent shown in the country such as The Young and the Restless (the highest rated US Soap, and As the World Turns! Oh, and bring back Days of our Lives!

Any soap channel would have to show a run of "Night and Day" and give it a proper time slot.

Neighbours on UK Gold will be shown once a day, James. From the 7th April at 7.55am and from May 7.20am.

UK Gold says " For as long as the BBC carry on showing Neighbours so will UK Gold. It will stay as a permanent feature of the schedule for a long time.

Unfortunately though it is unlikey to return to its old slots. The reason we moved it from 2.15 and 11.15 is that we revamped our daytime schedule and decided to bring new programmes in. Neighbours lost out because is wasn't getting as many viewers as we had hoped.

This will have no effect on the uncut versions. We will carry on playing them in full...but just at that earlier time.

How many viewers does it normally get?

It think it's gone down a lot over the years, people are seem to be less interested in the Neighbours repeats from the mid 1990s. The ratings would rise if the showed the 80s again, I am sure of it.

UK Gold have told me in the past the rating are bad, even after the Uncut trailers they ran last year.

The contract doesn't allow them to show Neighbours on UK Gold+1, so no chance of it moving to the early hours, which is good.

Ok
2 Questions
Why aren't they allowed it show it on UK Gold +1?
plus also they can't move programming around and UK Gold +1 as its jsut 1 hour ahead of UK Gold right?

UK Gold+1 hour shows programmes 1 hour after they aired on UK Gold. The contract for Neighbours states it only can be shown on UK Gold and UK Gold 2.

Why don't they just renogociate?

I did ask that as I thought it would be good to have a early morning repeat aswell as the breakfast time showing, they replied:

"It has been looked into and extra costs would be incurred. Neighbours, while still important to UK Gold, it isn't presently a key priority"

There aren't really enough soaps to have a channel dedicated to them! Thats why there ain't a soap channel! (Well, I THINK anyway! )

FIVE are currently showing one of those older Aussie soaps in the middle of the night. Flicked past it the other day - not sure which one (is there any difference?) but might have been Sons & Daughters. nd

Oh yes I remember!

back in the good old days.

sky soap is just another one in a long list of channels that have just slipped away without hardly anyone noticing.

Like BBC Knowledge! and [.TV] !

cant think of any others at the moment but im sure there must be loads and loads.

I wouldn't say [ .tv ] slipped away without hardly anyone noticing...as people still go on about it today......IMO this has to be one of Skys biggest mistakes, the channel was obviously popular!