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BBC Two are certainly making a big deal about Heroes, and at £500,000 per episode who wouldn’t. The first episode premiered last week to over 4 million viewers, beating BBC One by its biggest share since 1994.
The videos above are a special BBC Two ident and teaser. I still don’t quite understand why Heroes premiered on subscription television in the UK and is only just getting a terrestrial broadcast now, but the oddities of British television are what make this blog so fun.
- Thanks for the videos Graham.
Seven made quite a big deal of Heroes too and the first episode had huge ratings, nearly 2mil but then dropped of significantly to be a moderate rater but with a loyal audience
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500.000 pounds per episode? That’s an awful lot of money for a public broadcaster…
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It is a hell of a lot. Anecdotaly Australian broadcasters pay about $50,000 for an hr long episode of an imported show and spend around $500,000 an episode on Australian made shows like All Saints and McLeod’s Daughters. Except for the deleriously dull, suspensless, mind numbingly bad Sea Patrol which cost Nine $16million for something like 16 episodes (or 8 …can’t remember). You think they could have spent some of that on things like…I don’t know…writers? or actors? or music not made on one synth keyboard? I guess that would be silly.
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Regarding the subscription premiere, what’s not to understand? Someone was willing to pay more than the Beeb did at first. If the Beeb wanted to, they could have outbid. Shows rarely premiere on terrestrial first over here.
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It is the opposite here. It is very very rare for pay-tv to get a high profile show first. Arena did outbid the networks to get Entourage exclusively however.
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Pay TV gets all the exclusives here, which makes sense in my eyes. You pay to get something first, rather than pay for repeats (we do that too, but paying for premieres is the selling point)
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it premiered on paytv first because Sci-Fi UK paid more for the first run rights, Sci-Fi Uk had been showing it since January, and i guess had paid more to broadcast it first, though bbc has exclusive rights to the second season
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Yeah I guess but the networks have so much power here and pay-tv is still not a threat, Australians have a real problem paying for tv. Licence fees were done away with when colour came in and Australian TV has alwasy been really good so most people don’t see the need
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There is no other alternative to the licence fee at the moment, unless you want the BBC to become a ABC, funding starved..
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What the Howard govt has done to the ABC is appalling, and SBS is out in the mall dancing for spare change but hopefully Rudd and Labor will win the coming election and reverse the damage, not only to the ABC but the Unversities, Immigration, Health, Education…et cetera just generally undo all Howard’s evil
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I quite like these.
I seem to remember Rudd saying that he’d set up an independent commitee or somesuch to choose members of the ABC board (like the BBC) rather than having them chosen by the government – something I strongly approve of given the fascinating political backgrounds of many of the board’s members – Albrechtsen, anyone?
SBS are either not doing too bad or having been irreparably ruined depending who you ask – in-programme advertising has brought them in quite a bit of cash, and although it’s still a pain to put up with, it’s really helped give World News Australia a boost resources-wise (Stan Grant went to Kong Kong to celebrate 10 years since reunification, there’ve been reporters sent to Thailand, Afghanistan and France at various time).
Foxtel won’t pose a major threat for quite some time, especially since its ties with Nine have now been cut and Seven are planning to launch TiVo (which sounds as though it will be FTA-based) here sometime next year.
I don’t think Sea Patrol is dull, suspenseless or mind-numbingly bad at all. There have certainly been better dramas (local and overseas) but I still keep coming back to watch it – it’s improved a bit in the last few episodes.
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I think it is the most inane nonsense and gives a bad name to Aussie drama. The ratings have fallen every week too. It has had scathing reviews on Crikey and in The Age Green Guide. City Homicide on 7 soon looks like it may actually be good, proven cast and they have emphasised strong writing. TiVo will be FTA only, but it will be Hi-Def. Foxtel is launching an HD iQ next year too. Good thing since the current one has the lowest picture quality. Foxtel in general has much lower pic quality anyway (we have Digital Satellite). On our LCD tv it is just terrible.
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Foxtel posted revenue for the financial year higher than that of the Nine Network! But still way behind Seven and then Ten.
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The BBC should use any and all of the licence money that the British public pay, to ensure that the MEGLOMANIAC Rupert Murduch does not get his grubby money grabbing hands,on any popular[foriegn,American,sports,]which the British licence payer wishes to see.
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what’s the exact date for when heroes series 2 is gonna be coming back to bbc 2??????????
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The idents look much better without that nasty teal smear.
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