BBC plans to set new soap North of England

[NothinButAttitude]

 

Interesting. Didn't know that. Has it affected their ratings? 

[Skylover]

 

The ratings are up in the UK at the moment.

[NothinButAttitude]

 

How are they in Australia? 

[Skylover]

 

They're always bad there but it's on a digital channel there, I don't often check the Australian ratings.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Skylover

[LondonScribe]

It’s widely known that, save for the loyal U.K. audience and the financial investment by Channel 5, Neighbours would have been axed years ago.

 

The ratings in Australia haven’t been good for a long time, hence it being moved from Network 10 to their digital platform.

 

And no, I can’t assist with numbers, I’m afraid.

 

I think Home and Away stands a little more on its own and remains on Network 7 in Australia.

 

Which is interesting because I personally found the efforts of producers and senior writers Louise Bowes and Lucy Addario uninspiring, to the extent I stopped watching. I hear the show has found its groove but I’m too far removed to get back into it.

[Skylover]

 

I can. It gets about 100,000 viewers daily in Australia. In the UK, last week it had a boost and was getting close to 1.7m daily.

 

 

Uusally it gets about 1.4-1.6m daily in the UK.

[Faulkner]

Holby City cancelled after 23 years to make room for two new long-running drama series set beyond London:

https://deadline.com/2021/06/holby-city-cancelled-bbc-23-years-1234767733/

[wingwalker]

I stopped watching Holby a few years ago, because the quality of the show got so bad. Ratings wise, the show hasn't been doing well either, so it's not a complete surprise, but it's still shocking. 

 

Even though it's not exactly the same, feels almost like when CBS announced Guiding Light got axed. The dam has now been broken. If you can axe a 23 year old Holby, you can EastEnders. I've long felt that the UK soaps have been largely on the same path as ours, just on a 10-15 year delay. 

 

While I don't think Casualty or EastEnders will get cancelled right away, those two shows should consider this an early warning to get their [!@#$%^&*] together. 

 

I don't have much confidence in a new northern soap. Corrie and Emmerdale viewers aren't going to switch. Plus their existing main soap, EastEnders is in terrible shape, perhaps fix that fist. 

[DRW50]

 

And later we learned the cast and crew were only told ONE HOUR before the press was informed. This type of thing might even make Frons shake his head. 

 

The fate of the UK soaps breaks my heart. We have seen them go exactly the same way, and frankly, I'd say a few are actually worse than a number of US soaps were at their time of death.

[I Am A Swede]

It's been quite some time since Holby City aired here, but I watched the first few years and it was a pleasant enough show. I did lose interest after Anton Meyer (George Irving) left. He was definitely my favourite character on the show. But although it's been so long since then it's still a little sad to hear about the show's cancellation.

[NothinButAttitude]

 

That is horrible that they learned of this information an hour before it went public.

 

Also, can't the UK audience have a say so seeing as BBC is a taxpayer channel? 

[DRW50]

 

Sadly, no. The government controls the channel and they are making it become more and more right-wing.

[NothinButAttitude]

 

That's probably why EE has become such a mess lately. 

[I Am A Swede]

 

I would have thought that the BBC was like our national broadcaster, SVT, and stood free from political interference.

[DRW50]

 

I wish that were the case, but it is seemingly chock full of Tories, who are simultaneously using the channel as propaganda and slowly bleeding it dry because they hate and resent it.