Hit the Target Audience with the BBC?
Moderator: Spectrum Strike Force
In the 1960’s I think it was Lew Grade who championed everything Anderson for ITV in England and made it possible for each new series to be properly funded. However now, in the 2000’s, I believe that the natural home of Gerry’s work is the BBC. I am a systems accountant, not a businessman, and am just speaking as a viewer but my instincts tell me that the BBC do it right.
£25 million is a lot of money to recover through sales to television companies, sales of toys, DVDs, repeats and so forth but I have a feeling that the key might be to virtually ‘give’ it to the BBC. Look what they did for Doctor Who recently, getting 10 million family viewers – in my opinion, exactly the same target audience required for NCS.
The BBC are wonderful at promoting their own shows, bombarding the viewer with tantalising clips and mentions all the time, both on TV and radio. I suspect that the combined total time of all these trailers and adverts is very much longer than the length of the program being advertised. Even I watch Doctor Who, a series which I abandoned after Patrick Troughton left, so the BBC must be doing something right.
I love New Captain Scarlet. Give it to the BBC (and Michael Grade!) and you might just get 10 million viewers! What is more, the extra sales of merchandise would more than compensate for any loss of TV company revenue! SIG!
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Father Unwin
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I agree with you about not wanting to see the 130 or more talented and hard workers on NCS disbanded. The ideal situation would be for Sony or Granada Ventures to commission another season of the show right now, so that the team would not have to be disbanded and can immediately commence work on the new series the moment the current production ends.
The alternative would be for them to commence work on an entirely new and different series altogether when NCS finishes. There was information of pre-production work on 2 new shows by Gerry given in October last year (see last paragraph at http://www.tvcentury21.com/content/view/297/. It would be interesting to know the current state of play on these.
As far as having NCS on the BBC is concerned, Granada Ventures could have sold the series to the BBC or Sky, but for whatever reason decided to hold onto it for themselves (Granada partly own ITV with Carlton). I guess if you are a TV broadcaster and you have a product that you have confidence in, you can decide what to do with it. Having it for yourself gives you the power to decide when to schedule it, whereas in the hands of another broadcaster you don't have much say in when a series can be broadcast, even if you try to negotiate a scheduling deal with them.
It wouldn't surprise me if Granada are 'testing the waters' by showing the series on Saturday mornings here in the UK. After all, it is a show that kids will want to watch. Hopefully we will see it in a more suitable family timeslot later in the year so that both parents and kids can watch it together - which is target audience the series is designed for.
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Lieutenant Green
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Father Unwin wrote:£25 million is a lot of money to recover through sales to television companies, sales of toys, DVDs, repeats and so forth but I have a feeling that the key might be to virtually ‘give’ it to the BBC. Look what they did for Doctor Who recently, getting 10 million family viewers – in my opinion, exactly the same target audience required for NCS.
Sorry but I have to disagree with that view. The BBC may be very good at promoting their own self-commissioned and produced series, but not necessary those they have to buy in.
'Virtually giving' the show to any TV company (not just the BBC) reduces the stakes they have in it. If they have to pay a reasonable price for it, then the onus is on them to make sure it's watched and gets good ratings by promoting it. Just give it to them, and they can do what they want with it - after all, what are they going to lose!?
No, Gerry Anderson has to promote the show, and get all the interested parties bidding against each other. That's the way it's usually done. I'm hoping the 'testing of waters' early screening on MOM doesn't backfire, and does indeed raise interest in the show to make it a much sought after commodity in the TV market for autumn screenings.
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shaqui
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Let's face it, Doctor Who is far more high profile than Scarlet. It had 27 years of almost unbroken transmission, which with the current season I might add, is more than all the Star Trek seasons put together. Who also has an enormous worldwide fan base and a large merchandise base. Even without the series on television, fandom and groups like BBC books, Virgin and Big Finish kept it very prominently in the public eye. The BBC are also very good at teaser publicity, building up to the premiere of the new series. Myself and many people I know suspect that the BBC actually put out the 'accidental' leak of the first episode onto the internet themselves in order to stoke up excitement for the new series.
Unfortunately, we couldn't have any such teaser promotion for Scarlet as it was rushed out to transmission. All of the Sci-Fi press was caught on the hop. Just look at the last six months worth of magazines. Plenty of articles about Doctor Who, but the only ones about Scarlet appeared a month into the screenings. Even Lucasfilms put out more than this.
Another major problem with BBC comes with programme content. Anything slightly controversial in an episode of a series and it gets moved to a much later time slot, usually after 23:00 hours, or cancelled completely. My best example is an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation. There was a reference to the IRA and the BBC did not show the episode. When Sky One showed that season not long after, they merely screened the episode with the dialogue edited out.
As for 'practically giving' a show to another network, that is a major no-no. If a series is to continue on for another season, or as a series of TV movies, it has to make money these days, and also bring in the ratings. Need I mention a certain series that has just been cancelled because of poor rating even though it bears a HUGE brand logo?
I would dearly love to see the new Scarlet succeed. Especially going on for another season. Even the aforementioned TV movies would be fine a la Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars, or the Alien Nation spin offs. It is now getting the publicity it needs, with any luck it will get a good time slot for repeats and really get the ratings.
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Kambei
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