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Smtv Live reunion

(August 2020)

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FL
Flux
Those claims that they bought the show to stop it being repeated were ridiculous and I doubt there was the slightest truth in it. They've never been ashamed of the show or reluctant to talk about it or send it up, why would they want to keep it off air? Most likely they just bought the rights because they were going after the collapse of Zenith, along with SM:TV, and some tabloid hack tried to spice it up with the "keep it off TV" claim. I think it was The Sun that reported it, which tells you all you need to know.


There might be some truth to it. I can imagine it's more that they wanted to control the repeats rather than block repeating full stop. It's also not a show that would work as a straight repeat anyway, but by owning it outright they can stop others releasing compilations of any kind without them being included in the decision making. There could well be some things in there (especially the early days) that they don't want seeing the light of day again, especially out of context, and if they own it it means they can control who sees what and when. It doesn't mean they're ashamed of it.
ME
mediaman2007
I guess when you take out the pre-recorded shows SMTV itself wasn't actually that long - probably half the two hour run time, minus ads. Was it generally just Pokemon and Sabrina shown in each episode (or their equivalents), or was their a third show as well?


Just two shows like Sabrina and Pokemon usually. Sometimes there might be more cartoons than studio time like when it started in 98 abd they had no content or again after Ant and Dec left and they showed stuff like Becoming which was awful.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Given some of the tripe on Netflix a show which is an 8.1 on imdb should be in with a shout.


You do realise IMDb is owned by Amazon? If nothing else that may give Prime UK ideas on what content they can go after for the platform. And the rating system on IMDb is not a true average, its weighted (so if you vote 10 and I vote 6, you don't see a rating of 8 for example). So that 8.1 might not actually mean anything as not all votes have the same weight.
SL
Slocker
loydy posted:
There was a report that Netflix was adding the complete SMTV and byker grove


What report was this? I could understand Byker Grove being put on there, although it'd probably be more suited to Britbox... but I can't see them putting SMTV on Netflix whatsoever.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/12475526/ant-and-dec-look-to-into-streaming-services-netflix-manager/ here the report. its from the sun so who knows id its true or not
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Ah, so its been twisted. They want to develop formats for streaming platforms its not just a case of wanting to stick SMTV and Byker Grove on Netflix. That's an entirely different thing
JA
james-2001
I guess when you take out the pre-recorded shows SMTV itself wasn't actually that long - probably half the two hour run time, minus ads. Was it generally just Pokemon and Sabrina shown in each episode (or their equivalents), or was their a third show as well?


There were three shows in the early days, definitely- Cow & Chicken, The Angry Beavers and Sabrina (though Sabrina wasn't on when it was a Formula 1 week with a shortened show- so she wasn't on the very first episode) when it first started, and a video on YouTube from November 1998 shows the Angry Beavers had been replaced by Dexter's Lab.

I guess they cut it down from 3 shows to 2 once they started having more content to fill the show with. And then they started cutting down the shows quite heavily, presumably to fit more in, certainly in those final 3 episodes I posted, the episodes of Sabrina and All Grown Up were very heavily edited- nearly half the Sabrina episode in the final edition is missing.
Last edited by james-2001 on 9 January 2021 10:04pm
ME
mediaman2007
Just had a funny thought about Ant and Dec owning the rights to SMTV. When Zenith which made the show was going down the drain it was almost sold to a company owned by...Noel Edmonds! Kind of funny given the Saturday Night Takeaway connection. So Noel would have got the rights to both SMTV and CDUK and the CDUK archive probably wouldn't be in America.
ME
mediaman2007
Randomly found myself watching parts of this pre recorded New Year special from 2000 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=253COYxU4_c Cat is up against Ant in Challenge Ant and lots of best bits from 2000 in there. Little things still make me laugh like when Ant would always say "Hi Ant fans" when doing his Ant's song 😅

12 days later

ME
mediaman2007
Behind the scenes of SMTV in 1999:

26 minutes in https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PfQENNDAEKY

Also 32 minutes in
Last edited by mediaman2007 on 22 January 2021 9:05pm
paul_hadley and fanoftv gave kudos
JA
james-2001
ITV repeated that show several times over the years, even after SM:TV had ended. Clearly made one one of the weeks over summer 1999 when Cat was away, which was followed by a few weeks with Cat without Ant & Dec, then the week they returned was when they had the revamp and introduced Chums and the likes.

I can remember when the Killer Question on Challenge Ant just had the sound effect of the scream rather than the dramatic jingle they replaced it with, I preferred the scream myself!
Last edited by james-2001 on 22 January 2021 9:51pm
SL
Slocker
Ive Just rewatched The story of SMtv and cbs viacom where credited with being involved. any idea how they where involved?
PA
paul_hadley
Don’t they own Channel 5 who bought the rights for CD:UK?

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