Holby City to end

[London Lite]

Casualty still has some decent episodes per series and the casting is still reasonably good. It still has Derek Thompson who's been around since series 1 and Amanda Mealing who was one of Holby's most iconic characters as Connie Beauchamp as a lead, but even now it's still very soapy, although their Covid episode was proper drama.

[adamiow]

Taking the example of Ackley Bridge, which has halved its episode length without compromising on content and given that the reduced run time of 40 minutes doesn't seem to detract from the episodes, I wonder if they couldn't make the episodes 30 minutes long and then slot a new continuing drama in the other half hour. To make it less bitty (and save some money from the reduced sets and staff), they could return to two wards rather than three.

[BettyS]

A stupid and somewhat internal political decision caused by the promise of Drama made elsewhere. 250 jobs rely on Holby city & Elstree has all the departments already there for continuing drama. Set & prop building, advanced (gory) make up etc.
Its as if the BBC where trying to piddle off their entire audience bit by bit. First news axe popular presenters then Production axe a popular continuing drama.
Of course the 'New' drama will have to be subject to a bidding process so BBC Studios are not guaranteed to get the commission.
Its true that Neptune house is falling apart but that is just a handy excuse.
Stupid senior management interference yet again.

[steely12]

One of the few programmes I watch religiously every week so this has come as a bit of a shock.

I’ve never really got into Casualty and found Holby much more appealing.

It’s a bit of a surprise they keep Casualty and axe this - I suppose it’s because it’s more of an iconic programme, but I’m not sure how it does in the ratings in comparison.

Casualty has traditionally rated a little higher than Holby City - the latter has been languishing in the low 2m bracket for a while now (not helped by being against The Great British Bake-Off); in recent months, Casualty has sunk to the 2m bracket as well, but it does tend to pick up in ratings terms in the autumn / winter months, with the help of Strictly.

If this were a cost-cutting exercise, you'd actually think it would be "preferable" for the BBC to bring Casualty to an end, given it must be more costly to produce - it involves a lot more location filming than Holby City has ever done, for example. However, I imagine the fact that there is more viewer loyalty towards Casualty, as the more established BBC brand, and the fact it is produced outside of the M25, in Cardiff, means it Casualty is spared - for now, at least.

[valley]

250 jobs rely on Holby city

I gather a significant number are freelancers, although that does not negate from the fact that Holby may be their primary source of income.

[Brekkie]

It is an unusually bold call by the BBC. The safer option may have been to cut Holby back to 40 episodes a year initially and trial a new show in the other 12 hours, but I guess reallocating a fifth of the Holby budget wouldn't be enough to get a new show off the ground.

Will be interesting to see if ITV put more effort into the Tuesday 8pm slot considering Tuesdays have been somewhat of a write off for them for years. At the very least suspect new episodes of the likes of Midsomer, Vera etc. will be used against early episodes of any replacement.

[steely12]

The silence from Kate Oates as Head of Continuing Drama at the BBC - in a week when the iPlayer release of EastEnders' episodes ahead of broadcast has been announced, and now the axing of Holby City - is rather deafening.

[BettyS]

The silence from Kate Oates as Head of Continuing Drama at the BBC - in a week when the iPlayer release of EastEnders' episodes ahead of broadcast has been announced, and now the axing of Holby City - is rather deafening.

Probably working from home using Covid as an excuse for doing nothing... or hiding from the flak.

[JAS84]

The silence from Kate Oates as Head of Continuing Drama at the BBC - in a week when the iPlayer release of EastEnders' episodes ahead of broadcast has been announced, and now the axing of Holby City - is rather deafening.

Corrie and Emmerdale are doing that too.
https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/coronat...des-early/

[Brekkie]

The silence from Kate Oates as Head of Continuing Drama at the BBC - in a week when the iPlayer release of EastEnders' episodes ahead of broadcast has been announced, and now the axing of Holby City - is rather deafening.

Probably working from home using Covid as an excuse for doing nothing... or hiding from the flak.

Or maybe actually doing her job and putting the practicalities of dealing with 250 people who will soon be out of work, plus the launch of two new continuing drama series, ahead of appeasing anonymous folk on internet forums.

[gottago]

A stupid and somewhat internal political decision caused by the promise of Drama made elsewhere. 250 jobs rely on Holby city & Elstree has all the departments already there for continuing drama. Set & prop building, advanced (gory) make up etc.
Its as if the BBC where trying to piddle off their entire audience bit by bit. First news axe popular presenters then Production axe a popular continuing drama.
Of course the 'New' drama will have to be subject to a bidding process so BBC Studios are not guaranteed to get the commission.
Its true that Neptune house is falling apart but that is just a handy excuse.
Stupid senior management interference yet again.

…but no-one’s watching it.

It’s sad for the cast and crew but 2 million viewers for a mainstream prime time drama is not good value for money. It’s a show that’s long past its prime, has no impact on the public consciousness, isn’t even ticking any quota boxes. It’s amazing they’ve made it this far frankly. They’ve absolutely made the right decision to axe it.

[James Martin]

To be honest the other problem is that I'm not sure two hospital dramas appeal right now. I watched the Covid special of Casualty but otherwise I would actually go out of my way to avoid any sort of medical drama in the current climate.

Folk turn to their televisions for an escape, and a hospital drama during a health crisis that has completely and utterly flipped life as we know it upside down is just not that.

My sister who's been on the frontline as a junior doctor pointed out a major error in that Covid ep (which was still brilliant telly despite some obvious dramatic license) Holby should really have done it, as a real A&E department wouldn't be the unit handling Covid-19.

[Score]

Sad for those who work on it but the right call. The ratings have been poor for a few years now and it’s only going in one direction. Plus BBC1 need it less than ever. They’ve now got The Repair Shop holding down the 8pm hour on Wednesdays and Dragons Den on Thursdays also getting better ratings than Holby at I expect a fraction of the cost. I assume this new continuing drama will get Tuesdays when it comes along but given the way the soaps are declining just now I don’t hold out a whole lot of hope for it.

[RDJ]

Most outrage on Social Media is sympathy towards the actor Davood Ghadami.

A popular face on EastEnders as Kush before he was killed off last month and subsequently announced as joining Holby City.
He’s not even appeared on screen yet and already he’s going to be gone within the year with no option of going back to EastEnders.

Most people have noticed that he’s deleted his joining announcement off his Instagram - so it’s understandable he must be quite annoyed by the timing of todays announcement.

[James Martin]

Sad for those who work on it but the right call. The ratings have been poor for a few years now and it’s only going in one direction. Plus BBC1 need it less than ever. They’ve now got The Repair Shop holding down the 8pm hour on Wednesdays and Dragons Den on Thursdays also getting better ratings than Holby at I expect a fraction of the cost. I assume this new continuing drama will get Tuesdays when it comes along but given the way the soaps are declining just now I don’t hold out a whole lot of hope for it.

That's why putting River City on network makes sense - although they'll definitely need to do a special upsummer episode of the story so far so people can come into it, but with some clever writing that'll be a relatively easy thing to handle. The ITV regions all started both Corrie and Crossroads at different points after all, and some regions had the Antipodean soaps shunted around loads in the 80s and 90s.

It will cost very little to expand it out to network (indeed it can already be streamed nationwide) and it ticks both an out of London and a Nations box.