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Post by WildcatMatt on Jan 6, 2024 3:27:38 GMT
I've never really understood how they arrived at 14 to begin with. It isn't a multiple of 4 and it isn't a divisor of 52. Although I guess as the show was getting some two-episodes-per-week seasons having 14 would give you 7 full weeks. But it shows how much management didn't care by giving them a number that didn't play nice with the existing show structure in any way. I heard how they came up with 14. Season 22 was run as 13 50-minute episodes (the equivalent of 26 25-minute episodes). After the cancellation, when they were SHAMED by the public into bringing it back (RELUCTANTLY, GRUDGINGLY), they were heard to say, "We'll giving you a longer season this time." So instead of 13, it was 14. That's so asinine that I actually believe it. :facepalm: Ultimately I don't know enough about the financial structure of the BBC either then or now, [...] Lionheart however had to be making money hand over fist during the 80s with all the PBS contracts and I'd be interested in understanding how that did or did not fit into the decision-making process. Whichever of the A-HOLES it was who said it, I read it was said that "They could only consider the domestic market". It's quite possible that the BBC1 Controller may have been constrained in that fashion by the charter. At the very least his job is to look out for BBC1 and not BBC2, or Enterprises, or anything else and it would be up to his boss to say "Yes, Coronation Street beats the crap out of Doctor Who every week but overseas sales more than make up for it so keep it on the schedule." That of course is where we run into the problem with JN-T burning too many bridges within the Corporation; if he hadn't rubbed so many people the wrong way maybe BBC2 could have picked it up, or they could have found some creative accounting methods to float the show via Lionheart. (This also presumes all these decisions were personality- and performance-based and were in no way coloured by JN-T's sexual orientation or taste in shirts.)
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Post by profh0011 on Jan 6, 2024 4:45:49 GMT
"Yes, Coronation Street beats the crap out of Doctor Who every week but overseas sales more than make up for it so keep it on the schedule." Simple fix: MOVE IT to another time-slot.
But that's predicated on NOT wanting to CANCEL a VERY-POPULAR show that's bringing in tons of money.
Over decades, I keep hearing THE GREEN HORNET was cancelled because it was "played straight" instead of "silly" like BATMAN. B***S***. It was up against not one but TWO highly-popular shows: THE WILD WILD WEST (in the top 10, even when it was cancelled-- how sick is that?) and TARZAN (which had a decades-long existing audience). All they had to do was move it, to say, 8:30 AFTER some popular 8 PM show (just an example-- that's how THE BOB NEWHART SHOW survived 6 whole years, it as always on right after MARY TYLER MOORE-- I always remember my brother saying Newhart was the "dullest" comic actor he ever saw).
When they move a POPULAR show, it usually KILLS it because audience don't know when it's on anymore. (This happened to THE OUTER LIMITS and THE AVENGERS back in the 60s, and WKRP in the 80s.)
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Post by dsjr on Sept 12, 2024 17:52:37 GMT
I simply couldn't understand why 'they' put this show up against Corrie, when the latter show was flying higher than ever, having been given a kick in the pants by the BBCs Eastenders! I had my own TV by then although as said before, I didn't watch this season.
I'd have watched this on VHS once and again on the DVD when purchased, but watching it a third time, the over-acting and comedic parts absolutely ruin it for me. There's a kind of 'BBC comedy sending up' humour which seems to pervade this story and Richard Briers should have been effin' well ashamed of himself, hamming it up so much. I'm currently giving it a '3' and to me, even that's generous... And yes, I am watching the extras as I go and J N-T's apparent difficulties finding stories quickly at the time.
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Post by profh0011 on Sept 14, 2024 3:04:41 GMT
I simply couldn't understand why 'they' put this show up against Corrie, when the latter show was flying higher than ever, having been given a kick in the pants by the BBCs Eastenders! Earlier examples that come to mind...
THE OUTER LIMITS was reasonably successful in its 1st season, Mondays at 7:30 PM. But ABC kept screwing with the producers so much, all 3 guys quit at the end of the season. When it came back for Season 2, they moved it to opposite THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW on Saturday nights. I didn't even know it was still on then, until I happened to turn on one episode halfway in. ABC wanted that show DEAD.
THE AVENGERS over here was successful Friday nights at 10 PM (allegedly "the death slot"; DOCTOR WHO was also very successful here in that exact same slot in the mid-late 2000s). But when it switched from Diana Rigg to Linda Thorson, they moved it to Monday nights at 7:30 PM, directly opposite ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN-- the #1 highest-rated show at the time! ABC murdered the ONLY English show to ever be shown in America in PRIME TIME. They wanted to take down LAUGH-IN, but LAUGH-IN killed it. It sank without a trace. I only found out it was still on at all halfway thru Thorson's run. Another perfect example of losing regular viewers when you move a successful show. For decades after, countless idiots have tried to blame Linda Thorson for this, but it was really ABC-- who put up the money to allow them to make the show on film and on location in the first place.
Shows should only be moved when they're in trouble. If ABC (them again!!!) had moved THE GREEN HORNET, it might have lasted 2 seasons, enough for a successful syndication package.
When it first started, THE MAN FROM UNCLE had poor ratings. It was moved to a different day, and its 2 stars toured the country promoting the hell out of it. It became a success! But then the network started SCREWING with it, and its quality started to nosedive.
I hate knowing the people in charge of these things are so often such COMPLETE IDIOTS.
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Post by iank on Sept 14, 2024 7:43:59 GMT
They did the same thing with the comedy series Newsradio in the 90s.
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Post by dsjr on Sept 15, 2024 11:42:34 GMT
Thing is, I like the 'Cartmel Masterplan' era starting with Remembrance. Sure Sylv couldn't do 'loud and shouty,' but he was excellent at the darker, mysterious and almost sinister stuff in his final TV season. I didn't mind Ace much either, although the character should have been allowed to grow up a bit, again, given time.
The one thing that permeates all the commentaries is that the actors and 'team members' commentating keep banging on about this being an effin' KIDS show, when I'd politely suggest that after 1970, it bleedin' well wasn't, as so many of us who WERE kids in the 60's, stayed with it and it grew up with us, at least until Peter D took over, even with the Douglas Adams/Tom Baker frivolity and the 'austerity years' which followed, subduing Tom just a bit too much, maybe.
I suppose the post 2005 era show is trying to establish a new audience, including the handful of us oldies who can be bothered now, but the powers that be, don't seem able to do it I feel, as the age and attention-span range seems to be too wide.
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