Brekkie post_id=67387 time= user_id=976 Wrote:Apparently they paid £21m a year for Neighbours compared to £3m for Home and Away. Baffling though considering they'd have known the possible likely outcome of contract negotiations that they dumped Home and Away out of it's slot for a show they knew they were likely to axe a few weeks later.
Home and Away clearly wasnt performing at 6pm so regardless of Neighbours I think it still would have moved from 6pm. Home and Away is quite cheap for Channel 5 so its worth them keeping it as a cheap filler at lunchtime as well as its evening slot on 5*. Not that they would be able to axe it given the contract they have.
It seems ridiculous they have been paying 7 times what they are paying for Home and Away, given its the same type of show and Neighbours isnt that much popular than Home and Away is.
Unlike with Big Brother, it sounds like Channel 5 really wanted to keep Neighbours but Fremantle wasn't willing to compromise.
If you're asking about the future of Neighbours being shown on RTÉ2 in Ireland in the future; my take on it is that it's pretty much over when this story had been reported over the weekend. If Channel 5 are not going to commit to pay anymore production costs for Neighbours. RTÉ cannot afford to pay for more money for the rights of the show either if they were asked to do it by Fremantle Media.
RTÉ are currently facing a huge amount of scrutiny from the Irish public & Irish government over their broken funding model from the TV Licence. A draft report from the Future of Media Commission has recommended that the TV Licence model for RTÉ should be scrapped & replaced with direct taxation funding from the Irish Government.
Now RTÉ are funded with advertising and the TV Licence funding model together. If the commercial revenue side of RTÉ does begin to see big changes with how the advertising revenue goes into RTÉ. It may affect how they pay for imported content which currently includes rights deals with BBC Studios, ITV, WB/Discovery, Disney/Marvel, UEFA/FIFA, Viacom & Fremantle Media in the future.
These options, along with other ones, if more enhanced broadcast regulations came into force in Ireland, may put RTÉ into a difficult situation if they are not able to pay for the rights of the show in the future.
I don't know how many viewers would Neighbours or Home & Away get for RTÉ in the Ireland at the current time. I would presume the amount of viewers episodes of these shows during the weekday evenings on RTÉ2 or for lunchtime repeats after the news on RTÉ One would be very low nowadays.
I could predict an average of roughly 50k to 100k viewers per episode who would watch H&A and Neighbours every day in the current era of the rights deal for both shows on RTÉ.
I haven't seen or read any reaction from Irish people about the axing of Neighbours from Channel 5's schedule as of yet. I would suspect that the viewers will be very small to non existent now that a lot of the younger generation back then who are into TV dramas now are mostly into Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. There's no real incentive for them to watch the soaps anymore while they are at home.
Have just emailed channel 5 urging a rethink and Fremantle as well thanking 10 peach for their continued enthusiasm and a plethora of uk broadcasters asking them to consider talking to Fremantle about taking it on - if others did likewise who knows if not at least we ve tried and we’ve nothing to lose
Unless you've also sent them a cheque for a few million quid no amount of emails is suddenly going to make it financially viable. This is a practical business decision rather than an axing due to wanting to change creative direction which could be challenged.
Torpido1 post_id=67419 time= user_id=857 Wrote:Have just emailed channel 5 urging a rethink and Fremantle as well thanking 10 peach for their continued enthusiasm and a plethora of uk broadcasters asking them to consider talking to Fremantle about taking it on - if others did likewise who knows if not at least we ve tried and we’ve nothing to lose
I get the passion but be realistic. Your emails will get stock file responses if you're lucky. It's losing money and it's audience is a fraction of what it was, let alone the issues it has of it being an imported soap - totally unpopular in its native market - Performing in a competitive digital world. It isn't 1991. Virtually nobody cares about neighbours now, and like most times when a long running series is announced as ending, the bulk of those saying how sad it is and it should stay on probably haven't watched themselves for years anyway. I've made a few posts on the subject today because I watched every day in the 90s- early 2000s but I gave up because I grew up and frankly, it's rubbish now. There's no point in pretending otherwise. There was a Radio 2 programme a few months back on Neighbours. All very well and good, but naturally the bulk was reminiscing the glory days of the late 80s which has almost zero connection to the present show. And that's all that neighbours is now, a name trading (badly) on past glory. The TV version of woolworths.
It's had 37yrs and a very, very good run. Enjoy what is left of it. Do you really want to watch a hollowed out production with an even smaller budget and reduced cast & storylines limp on for another couple of years? Look up for example other dying soaps that have been cancelled by their broadcaster and picked up by another only to have a fraction of the cast back, the most basic of stories to keep it going and it still gets cancelled for good. You'd be best focusing your effort on getting UKTV or the like to buy the first couple years to repeat on Drama.
Starting to see some former cast sharing their support on Twitter this evening. Julie Mullins aka Julie Martin has even signed the petition.
Channel 5 today is not the same as it was in 2007 when they acquired Neighbours for a hefty sum. The focus is now on original British content and not imports, they still have a place with the afternoon movies and Home and Away but their success in recent years has been driven by both original drama and factual and diverting more money to those areas as well as other genres makes sense.
I doubt C5 are spending much more than £1m on each 4-part primetime drama so the money saved can potentially go a long way.
Brekkie post_id=67445 time= user_id=976 Wrote:I doubt C5 are spending much more than £1m on each 4-part primetime drama so the money saved can potentially go a long way.
I think the thrillers are low cost but things like All Creatures, Dalgliesh and even Madame Blanc look like they've had money spent on them, obviously less than BBC One and ITV but still decent amount although all three are co-productions with either PBS or Acorn TV.
Neighbours is one of those shows that has just kept going, with little to no change over its lifetime, and I think that this news might do some good. The show isn't what it once was, and I say that as someone who watched it with my Grandad when I lived with him for university (And that was 5 or 6 years ago now). I am not a fan of Neighbours, but I think if the opportunity is there for Channel 5 to stop funding the show, and focus on creating new stuff (and some of the stuff they are producing is really good) then I say they should.
XIII post_id=67448 time= user_id=894 Wrote:Brekkie post_id=67445 time= user_id=976 Wrote:I doubt C5 are spending much more than £1m on each 4-part primetime drama so the money saved can potentially go a long way.
I think the thrillers are low cost but things like All Creatures, Dalgliesh and even Madame Blanc look like they've had money spent on them, obviously less than BBC One and ITV but still decent amount although all three are co-productions with either PBS or Acorn TV.
A piece from RTS from last March here:
https://rts.org.uk/article/channel-5-s-drive-drama
A funny anecdote: I always used to joke that the only reason that Neighbours still aired was because my Grandad was still watching it on his ageing Sony silver box television. Unfortunately, my Grandad is no longer with us, so from then on I said 'Neighbours just lost one of its last few viewers' and that the show is going to go any day now. It's flippant and silly, of course, but its a fun memory, and I will always remember Neighbours for that
They're talking briefly about this on BBC Radio London right now. The reporter on the phone thought Neighbours was a sitcom and later admitted they've never watched it.
JasonB post_id=67458 time= user_id=901 Wrote:They're talking briefly about this on BBC Radio London right now. The reporter on the phone thought Neighbours was a sitcom and admitted they've never watched it.
Journalism is alive and well