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BREAKING NEWS: 24 Hours in A&E production halted
lufcfan1998
Posts: 18,895 Forum Member
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According to reports on Twitter, Channel 4 has halted production on 24 Hours in A&E after more than 300 episodes. Planned filming for this year has been scrapped. Producer The Garden broke the news to the production crew that had been pencilled in for this autumn's shoot earlier today. The show employs around 190 freelancers.
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It's the only saying I could think of to announce it on here.
Wow. I knew about the C4 cuts but didn't know about advertising at an all time low across all 3 main commercial TV networks.
Richard Osman recently discussed it on his podcast.
https://youtu.be/0XhH5f97t2E?si=1OLT96PUs0OVyFbC&start=92
Also it's interesting Richard mentions that "Its amazing what Mr Bates and the post office can do." When today Kevin Lygo announced
He went on to say 4 hours of drama (if you include advert breaks) about the UK Post Office just doesn't resonate with overseas TV channels. Think he used the example of Estonia (was somewhere in Baltics) and their TV companies said why is it of interest to people living here and unsurprisingly didn't buy it.
He said it was only sold to about 12 countries. ITV thought after the political scandal broke and it was all over UK media and news agenda this would attract more overseas sales but it didn't they didn't sell to any more places.
This is why ITV really need to focus on the "cozy" crime shows as that is what sells from UK to other countries. You can sell those easily to 100+ countries so they are profitable.
Interesting that ITV's next big real life drama is on the blood scandal and all the people killed by HIV and Hepatitis C from infected blood products. Guess that is potentially more relatable internationally than IT failure and claims of fraud in the Royal Mail. People dying tugs at the heart strings and is something foreigners will probably be more interested in watching.
Otherwise UK TV will just disappear down the plughole and we'll end up with nothing but the cheapest shows that make the most money overseas.
I can see that being of more interest internationally on account of the nexus to blood supplied by dubious American sources - e.g. homeless, ex-prisoners etc...which even America didn't use.
What was wrong with: '24 Hours in A&E production halted' ?
Exactly. Not every programme has to be profitable.
ITV is a Public Service Broadcaster and gets privileges from being so, such as the guaranteed third slot of the EPG; the quid pro quo of that is that it has to make some programmes that meet the PSB remit, even if they aren't profitable.
For every occasional 'Mr Bates...' drama, there are a string of Midsomer Murder-type shows that do make a profit.
While that's true ITV is more likely to commission dramas which are of high quality but also marketable to overseas broadcasters, so they can recoup their investment. Clearly overseas audiences are not going to be interested in a drama about a scandal at the UK post office.
Clearly but not *every* programme has to be thought about in terms of overseas sales
An hour later, the OP 'bumped' the C4 is struggling thread, with the same news. Meanwhile, I was fast asleep - as I guess most of us were at 1am...
Don't worry, I went to asleep not long after posting that other comment, as I had to be up at 7am.
It was a bit stale
24 Hours in A&E is all about the back story or personal lives of the patients, far too much time taken up with relatives' pieces to camera.
To be fair I haven't watched it in a while too. It must be at least 5 years since I last watched a full episode.
When it first started it was mostly about the medical side of things and what they could do for certain medical problems. Then like so many other programmes, it started milking the emotional story side of things and showed less and less of the medical side.
Nowadays, it is one long hour of sob stories and background: All stuff that didn't actually happen in the A&E dept.
BREAKING WIND*
News at Sh*ts
Channel 4 Poo's
Exactly why I tired of watching it too.