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ITV Box Office

Launching next year with Chris Eubank Jnr fight. (August 2016)

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BR
Brekkie
"Furore" is a slight exageration regarding the loss of Granada Plus. Yes, there were a few disgruntled Sky customers I'm sure but on the whole the benefits of gaining ITV3 free to air outweighed the closure of a pay-TV channel.
RE
Rex
"Furore" is a slight exageration regarding the loss of Granada Plus. Yes, there were a few disgruntled Sky customers I'm sure but on the whole the benefits of gaining ITV3 free to air outweighed the closure of a pay-TV channel.

Yep, almost the entire GSB archive was in the hands of ITV to flog off to ITV3 and it was far more widely available thanks to Freeview carriage, whereas Plus at the time of closure was only on Sky, NTL and Telewest. It completely negates the closure of the latter for a channel that brought archive material to a wider audience - no wonder why ITV3 along with ITV2 gain excellent multichannel ratings.

By 'furore', I did mean about many people who were disappointed about Plus closing and the early schedules of ITV3 being nowhere near as good - by the start of 2005 that began to change once they incorporated the former Plus archive into the schedule.
JA
james-2001
The Coronation Street repeats never did reappear though, sadly.
RE
Rex
The Coronation Street repeats never did reappear though, sadly.

Apparently from what I've read from the infamous Digital Spy forums - an ITV employee noted that they were never planning to move Classic Corrie on to ITV3, unfortunately. And from the speed of the closure - impossible to even see it on YouTube aside from an NTL slate on analogue cable.
Last edited by Rex on 14 December 2016 11:21pm
JA
JAS84
That's stupid. Corrie was, and still is, one of ITV's highest rating shows. You'd think repeats from decades ago would do decent business for ITV3, it's not like they don't show other 70s and 80s shows.
BE
Ben Founding member
I guess it's potentially fairly expensive to repeat with the size of the cast royalties etc. When Big Centre bought the rights to Crossroads I know some former cast members were publicly unhappy about it.

I am surprised they haven't ever done more Eastenders Revealed type of programmes piecing together major stories etc.
NW
nwtv2003
JAS84 posted:
That's stupid. Corrie was, and still is, one of ITV's highest rating shows. You'd think repeats from decades ago would do decent business for ITV3, it's not like they don't show other 70s and 80s shows.


By the time Granada Plus closed Corrie was only being shown at 9am and 1:30am, I don't think it rated very well by the stations closure.
:-(
A former member
What year was it up to before the closure? Must have been mid 90s.
VM
VMPhil
JAS84 posted:
That's stupid. Corrie was, and still is, one of ITV's highest rating shows. You'd think repeats from decades ago would do decent business for ITV3, it's not like they don't show other 70s and 80s shows.


By the time Granada Plus closed Corrie was only being shown at 9am and 1:30am, I don't think it rated very well by the stations closure.

Similarly UK Gold dropped the EastEnders and Neighbours repeats after the comedy rebrand (they didn't move to Watch). I've said this before but G.O.L.D. as was continued showing Neighbours for the first week or so despite it being totally out of place.
RE
Rex
What year was it up to before the closure? Must have been mid 90s.

Plus was running towards 1994 episodes when it was closed.
WH
Whataday Founding member
What year was it up to before the closure? Must have been mid 90s.

Plus was running towards 1994 episodes when it was closed.


By which stage repeat fees for satellite channels were becoming standard - I wonder if this was a factor.
RE
Rex
What year was it up to before the closure? Must have been mid 90s.

Plus was running towards 1994 episodes when it was closed.


By which stage repeat fees for satellite channels were becoming standard - I wonder if this was a factor.

I'm not sure about this - was this really the case of not transitioning classic soaps onto ITV3? Or was it the issue of royalties for soap actors, as one poster has outlined?

Either way I'm not sure about this.


JAS84 posted:
That's stupid. Corrie was, and still is, one of ITV's highest rating shows. You'd think repeats from decades ago would do decent business for ITV3, it's not like they don't show other 70s and 80s shows.


By the time Granada Plus closed Corrie was only being shown at 9am and 1:30am, I don't think it rated very well by the stations closure.

That was when GSB thought that introducing Crime Plus would bring in much better ratings than it usually would - shunting the non crime programmes in less appealing slots in the schedule. Crime Plus sounds like a prototype of what part of ITV3 would be, especially with the fact that it was mainly populated by crime drama.

By 2004 - thanks to the ITV plc merger - GSB found itself on life support especially when plans for ITV3 were being set behind the scenes. It's astonishing to see how it became reality in a matter of hours - on the grounds of a valuable EPG slot and the dangers of spreading content thinly, which ITV would have obviously risked had they kept both channels running concurrently. It was much more effective to gain a wider audience via Freeview and channel 119 on the Sky EPG and have access to the GSB archive rather than keep both channels - which ITV bosses had no choice but to do.

As for Box Office - it's the most muted channel announcement for ITV since ITV3 in 2004 - but for it to be successful, ITV don't just have to market it hugely - the pricing needs to be effective given the vitriol of boxing fans over Tuesday's announcement and its newcomer status in the boxing business.

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