ITV scheduling of NCS
Moderator: Spectrum Strike Force
1. To gain bigger ratings over BBC's Saturday morning kids TV.
2. They are so embarrassed that an independent producer - Gerry Anderson - can come up with an expensive and fantastic family show which probably costs as much if not more than some of their own live action productions. Therefore, because they can't have 'a kids show' outperform their own productions, they slip it into a slot where it cannot do much damage.
3. By placing the series in a kids TV slot with little or no promotion, they hope that only a few people will watch it. When the time comes for the DVD to be released, they will give it massive promotion all over the place, so that when the majority of people realise they have missed the series on TV, they will go out and buy the DVD in truckloads. The result - tons of money for Granada who are part of ITV and who are handling the UK merchandising.
-
Lieutenant Green
- Cadet
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:26 pm
- Location: London, UK
Lieutenant Green wrote:I have a few theories as to why ITV have decided to schedule New Captain Scarlet on Saturday mornings during MOM.
1. To gain bigger ratings over BBC's Saturday morning kids TV.
2. They are so embarrassed that an independent producer - Gerry Anderson - can come up with an expensive and fantastic family show which probably costs as much if not more than some of their own live action productions. Therefore, because they can't have 'a kids show' outperform their own productions, they slip it into a slot where it cannot do much damage.
3. By placing the series in a kids TV slot with little or no promotion, they hope that only a few people will watch it. When the time comes for the DVD to be released, they will give it massive promotion all over the place, so that when the majority of people realise they have missed the series on TV, they will go out and buy the DVD in truckloads. The result - tons of money for Granada who are part of ITV and who are handling the UK merchandising.
Some interesting ideas - concerning #1 - I don't think MOM has gotten better ratings with the new series. Does anyone have any numbers to show this?
#2 is certainly a possibility - perhaps a political reason as well.
#3 may also be true but I would think that if more people knew about the series, more would buy it. I think Granada should invest a ton of money into promoting the DVD as the ITV showing seems to have failed.
KP
-
shadokp
- Captain
- Posts: 294
- Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:57 am
- Location: USA
I looked at various forums across the internet when the first season started. The same message kept coming up again and again, namely that people were not prepared to get up early on a Saturday morning and/or sit through MOM to catch Scarlet, but would be prepared to wait until the DVD came out. Multiply the amount of people saying this sort of thing by the thousands, and you have a very large captive audience waiting with baited breath for the DVD release.
Those who have already watched it may have already recorded it on VHS or DVD, and so may be less tempted to buy the official DVD version.
-
Lieutenant Green
- Cadet
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:26 pm
- Location: London, UK
KP
-
shadokp
- Captain
- Posts: 294
- Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:57 am
- Location: USA
Also, Gerry seems to agree with me that when the DVD is released it will sell bucketloads because so many people are unaware of the series on TV. He is definitely not happy that ITV have stuck the series in the middle of MOM. Check out http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=105&ArticleID=1141131.
-
Lieutenant Green
- Cadet
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:26 pm
- Location: London, UK
OR - it could go the "Firefly" route and work its way into popularity after the DVD release, but then that is word of mouth by the fans.
On the American front, there still may be a chance that the series will do well over here depending on the station that picks it up and the times it is aired. Again, this will only help the series but with good promotion.
KP
KP
-
shadokp
- Captain
- Posts: 294
- Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:57 am
- Location: USA
I suppose the idea could be to store up all the promotion effort for the release of the DVD set, but I'm afraid this sounds to me like wishful thinking. Nobody's going to buy something they've never even heard of - and from what I've picked up from my wife's comments about the pupils at the junior school at which she works, NCS simply hasn't even registered on their collective consciousness. Compare that with the reception that Doctor Who received: it was the only subject of conversation on Monday mornings for weeks, and if you weren't there, you were square. I gather there's a Doctor Who Christmas special to capitalize on the new fan base that's now been established, and the merchandise sales will no doubt be riding the crest of that wave. Unless ITV really goes to town on this, any promotion that the NCS DVD set is given could be too little, far too late - and if that happens, I shall be bitterly disappointed.
Oh, we'll all buy the DVD set ourselves, of course, but that isn't going to be enough to prompt anyone to finance another series - which has to be the ultimate objective if Scarlet has a long-term future. At least part of the reason the movies of Superman, Lost in Space, Spiderman, X-Men etc etc got made because the original concepts made such an impression on their young audiences that when those kids grew up and some of them made careers for themselves in the movies, that's what they wanted to see again - but bigger, better and even more spectacular this time around. There must be a knowledge transfer from one generation to the next if the concept is going to survive - and that's precisely what ITV is preventing by this ridiculous scheduling.
-
Clya Brown
- Cloudbase Captain
- Posts: 239
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:47 pm
- Location: United Kingdom
-
Kambei
- Captain
- Posts: 291
- Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2005 4:57 pm
- Location: In The Village, where your days are numbered, and so are you!
Two words: Tax loss. This has been done many times before by many TV companies. Make a series that you know is going to do okay, but not brilliantly. Bury it in ridiculous time slots or don't even show it, or cancel it after a fe episodes, and then write it off against tax.
But this is NOT an ITV production, so they don't have any money to lose. They haven not invested anything in the series. Admittedly they (Granada) do have the merchandising rights, and this is where they could potentially make a killing.
I think if they had produced this show they would have given more care and attention to it as far as promotion was concerned. They would no doubt have put it on in an early Saturday evening slot because they would have seen how succesful Doctor Who had been.
As a result of Doctor Who's success, it wouldn't surprise me if ITV are even now considering producing a family series of their own to be shown on Saturday evenings in the future. Publicity wise they will flog it to death in order to get the public's attention, and put it on in a different time slot or in a different season to Doctor Who. If it became successful, they would pat themselves on the back for a job well done. However, when it comes to another producer's product on their channel ''Frankly my dear, they don't give a damn''.
-
Lieutenant Green
- Cadet
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:26 pm
- Location: London, UK
-
nice_captainscarlet
- Cadet
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 12:33 pm
I think it is now in the hands of the production company or the DVD rights distributer to handle promotion for the DVD release. Or is it up to the fans to spread the word as with "Serenity." In this case, "Serenity" had a very unusual marketing campaign relied on word of mouth and the fans. Now finally the movie is being promoted on TV heavily.
KP
-
shadokp
- Captain
- Posts: 294
- Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2005 12:57 am
- Location: USA
Why create a show costing millions then bury and even destroy it in a kids trivia show, where most of the content is really just moving wallpaper between the adverts to sell more junk.
As has been mentioned here, the BBC made Dr Who into a national must watch on a Satuday night show, reminesent of 1960's type of viewing where everyone stopped into watch then talked about at the pub or work for days later, i know they did where I worked.
Yet when i mention NCS, EVERYONE said, who? what? that puppet thing? It just didn't get any coverage.
I also dont know if the DVDs will sell at all, as only the converted seem to know they exsist. Granada really need to spend some time and money on this. As someone mentioned in this forum, a saturday newspaper giveaway of an episode seems ideal, with appropiate TV coverage.
Finally, Is there a conspiricy against Mr Anderson?
-
Daveyblue
- Cadet
- Posts: 43
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2005 11:43 pm
- Location: In-gland
Daveyblue wrote:Finally, Is there a conspiricy against Mr Anderson?
I've often pondered this. My view is that Gerry is very, very passionate about his productions and can get very outspoken if he doesn't like the way things are handled. This is understandable, of course but sometimes I get the impression that some of his more colourful criticisms get people's backs up to the extent that a lot of doors close in his face.
I've said it before that I think that CITV are now only showing NCS out of contractual obligation.
-
steviep
- Lieutenant
- Posts: 126
- Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2005 8:56 pm
- Location: where noodles go bad....
"I’m glad you like New Captain Scarlet, the CGI format is fantastic for this brand. The core target audience for Captain Scarlet is 6 – 9 year old boys (although obviously there is a much wider secondary audience which includes fans of the original series) based on that MOM is a perfect slot for Captain Scarlet. It is actually Gerry Anderson Productions that sells the format rights and did to CITV; Granada Ventures handle all of the merchandising and licensing rights.
Off air there is a range of toys and merchandise plus a big promotion launching this autumn and to support that there will be a marketing campaign, this will in turn drive awareness of the brand and television show.
If you have any further questions about the format and schedule can I suggest that you forward you comments directly to GAP?"
Several points of interest come out of this, not least that GAP sold the show to Citv, which flys in the face of Gerry's stated aim of finding a family audince for the show. As far as I know Citv wouldn't have any slots around the 6:00pm tea time on the major terrestrial channels that would have been ideal. So, a possible own goal?
Another point is that Granada Ventures only retain an interest in the merchandising rights, so its hardly surprising that they would only want to spend money on promoting the toys.
The finance for NCS was raised through the Enterprise Initiative Scheme, which pools the money of a large number of investors, large and small, who then hope to get a return on their investment. As such they is no single large body to push for the promotion of the show other than Gerry Anderson Productions. Yet Gerry was adament at the convention that this was the responsiblity of Granada who clearly think its not their responsibility at all.
I can't imagine how this whole mess came about, you'd think that with millions of pounds at stake somebody at GAP would have thought about who was responsible for marketing the show well before it aired. In light of this evidence I agree with previous comments that because its not Citv or Granada's money at stake then they have no vested interest in making the show a success. Back in the days when the shows were made for Lew Grade it was a very different story. ITC and ATV had made the financial commitment to make the shows and as such they did everything they could to gain a return on their investment. The same is obviously true of the BBC where Dr Who is concerned; it's their money, their reputation at stake, of course they are going to promote the show and do their best to make it successful.
So it seems that there is an important lesson to be learnt here. Gerry has been brave going it alone, but ultimately its greed that oils the wheels of big business. Looks like Gerry needs to find some cash to promote it himself, otherwise I fear NCS is going to struggle.
One final point: Granada gave me an email address and a name to contact at GAP. I sent them an email outlining my concerns together with a copy of the email from Granada, and asked if they could please clarify the position from their point of view. I have not yet received a reply. If I do I'll post it here.
-
spurge321
- Cadet
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:21 am
Things are not as they were in the days of Lew Grade: as Gerry himself commented with evident disdain, the commissioning of shows is controlled by accountants these days, who are not known for taking risks with novel concepts. Major successes are generated by visionaries who have the power to override the concerns of their financial advisors about whether investors' money is being placed at risk; the only catch is that they have to get it right. Presumably that's the difference between a genuine visionary and merely an aspiring one.
-
Clya Brown
- Cloudbase Captain
- Posts: 239
- Joined: Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:47 pm
- Location: United Kingdom
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests