Family Affairs - Axed

Quite the contrary for me, actually. It's the best news I've heard all day.

Same here, it's a good thing as it will allow Five to put something different on at 6.30pm and more importantly, the £13 Million saved will go back into Original Drama and Comedy, something that is lacking from the Five schedule.

Though the News isn't suprising, the axe has been on the cards for years now, though AIUI it's going through a good patch at the minute.

First of all I'm standing up for Five's better rating soap - and the better of the "Big Two" Australian soaps. Home & Away might be under-rated in this country (because it's full of tossers who didn't pick up the show after its year off - something enforced by ITV might I add - and/or have the audacity to think Neighbours is actually better) but be assured that it is going NOWHERE - for three reasons:

1. It's Five's second biggest regular programme (next to CSI)
2. Five are contractually obliged to screen Home & Away for as long as Seven churn episodes out. They can shove it into a 3am slot if they want, but they are obliged to screen it. This is why ITV cannot buy it back.
3. It is Australia's Number 1 soap opera. It is to Australia what Coronation Street is to the UK. It kicks Neighbours IN THE BALLS. Incidentally, it is only Neighbours' following in the UK that keeps it on air in either country.

Now onto FA...

Not surprising I think. It was only a matter of time really, it never stood a chance up against Hollyoaks.

It's been suggested that Home & Away is moved to 6.30pm - which might mean that Five stop taking the scissors to it (which they've starting doing in the last 9-10 months, for the first time since the dark days of the ITV era)

As a fan, I'd be against Home & Away going permanently to 6.30pm for that very reason - it's up against Hollyoaks. Hollyoaks and H&A both go after the same audience (certainly over here they do) so again a permanent move would be fruitless. They both attract the teen audience in a big way and I think dividing the teen audience like that will be bad for both shows.

However I do think it would make sense for Five to replace FA with double episodes of Home & Away in the short-term, to allow them to get back in line with Australia. It woud also stop the big stories getting leaked months in advance.

If they put some of that £13m into bigging-up H&A as their flagship (and now only!) soap I think they'd do very well. Especially as FA will end around Xmas, just in time for H&A's 4000th episode which sees loads of ex-regulars return - just in time to plug it to get ex-ITVers in then!

Along with that Five will have a major death over Xmas/New Yr which will pee all over the other Xmas storylines.

So bring in the original stuff but put some more promo balls into Home & Away too - they have a very powerful tool there which I feel now has the potential to be very effective.

However, a lot of the new-skool soaps gone now:

Night & Day
Crossroads
Brookside
and now Family Affairs

all fallen by the wayside...

Yes, and how many people do you think will go over to Emmerdale at the commercial break?

H&A at 6.45 has to be the most dense piece of scheduling I've ever seen.

I cant say im surprised that Family Affairs has been axed, its always been on shaky ground. IMO the storylines have improved a lot since the 2003 revamp but the viewing figures havent.

Im not upset its being axed, I liked it but I watch too many soaps already.

I am trully sadened by the news; as many of you know Family Affairs got a revamp in 2003, it really has'nt been the same since; I much prefered the origonal version. I do hope that all the cast are back on our screens as soon as the show ends, either in another UK Soap or in new dramas. Well done to all who took part over the past 8 years, and once again, sad to hear that FA is ending. What will take it's place I wonder - 'Neighbours' maybe?)

I heard that Five have looked into getting the rights for Neighbours before so is there a chance they could replace FA with Neighbours?

The BBC have recently signed to the series for another 3 years so thats unlikely, though you never know what might happen in the future. Since they presently win that slot hands down, and having seen the gap ITV was left with after letting H&A go, I'd say the BBC would fight to keep the rights.

Maybe a stab at ressurecting Crossroads again?!

Home & Away at 6PM is a genius bit of scheduling and it would suffer badly moving to any time. As has already been said, the sort of people who watch Home & Away are also likely to watch Neighbours and / or Hollyoaks so it would be total suicide to go up against these guys.

To be fair to old ITV viewers, Home & Away is a very different show to what it was 5 years ago. The quality of the production, acting and stories is significantly higher. Channel 5 certainly should spend more cash on advertising it and that way the people who haven't seen it since it went off ITV can see how much better it is.

Oh, just realised that was all off-topic. Family Affairs : dunno, never watched it.

I agree, killing off the Hart's was a bad idea.

There was a good period after the relaunch with the Warrington family. If you remember didn't one of them have an affair with his stepmother?

Mortified.

Who said religion was a waste of time....

For any "simple" members of this forum, who take this statement at face value I tut serverly. This is in-fact an example of sarcasm.