On Wednesday, 14 September 2016 00:43:42 UTC+1, Adam Bowie wrote:
>
> The biggest thing here is that Channel 4 seemed to have bought the format 
> without securing the talent. As Mark mentions above the two presenters have 
> announced they're quitting, and the pressure will be on to see what the two 
> judges, Paul and Mary, do. Without the talent, C4 has basically bought a 
> large tent in a field, and I would suspect will really struggle to recoup 
> its investment. Oddly enough, which network airs a show is a *big thing* in 
> the UK, and the production company are probably seen as really greedy by 
> the public at large for not doing a deal with the BBC. 
>

The other issue with this is that Channel 4 are obliged by law to innovate. 
It's clearly stated in their remit - 
http://www.channel4.com/info/corporate/about/channel-4s-remit - to wit, 
"Our overall role is to champion innovation in TV, film & digital – 
nurturing and growing new ideas, formats, views and voices, faces, talent, 
audiences and production companies." Poaching the most popular show on 
British TV for 25 million pounds would seem somewhat at odds with that, and 
Michael Grade - former CEO of Channel Four, of course - has been in the 
media pointing out that, at a time when C4 are running a campaign to avoid 
privatisation, this is the worst thing they could have done.

One great example of this from the past came in the eighties where Thames 
poached Dallas from the BBC, after offering the distributors a huge amount 
of money. This was a huge controversy because it breached the gentleman's 
agreement that the networks didn't get involved in bidding wars for each 
other's programmes, to stop costs spiralling out of control, and even the 
rest of the ITV network, who weren't consulted about it, said Thames had 
behaved in a shoddy and underhand manner. In the end Thames had to 
humiliatingly give them back, and the CEO of Thames resigned.

Someone I follow on Twitter was suggesting putting a bet on the next series 
of Bake Off being on BBC1. Given how badly this is going so far, I would 
endorse that.

(BTW, I do work for the BBC. But not a part that has anything to do with 
this.)

-- 
-- 
TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People!
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "TV or Not TV" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
--- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Reply via email to