26 years ago today...

I've just recently discovered that it existed whilst browsing Wikipedia - there are no other clips online so thanks for posting that! Wonder why it wasn't successful, since it's in a similar slot to what Jonathan Ross occupied, and now Graham Norton.

From what I remember it wasn't a chat show per se but more a review of the week with Wogan joined by a number of guests to 'chew the fat' so to speak. I've a feeling that there weren't really good quality guests on it, more like comedians etc. From what I remember Tony Hawks was a permanent panel member each week. Think of it more as a panel show than as a chat show.

I don't think ITV showed Baywatch to the end, did they? It ran until 2001 (albeit as a retooled Hawaii series the last 2 years), but I'm sure it hadn't been on ITV for several years before then.

They cocked up the scheduling in 1996 by pulling the underperforming Seaquest and starting Baywatch earlier than intended. The outcome being they caught up with the US schedule too quickly. So they suspended it for months and put the then new Sabrina The Teenage Witch in its place. Allegedly they didn't keep Wella (Baywatch's sponsor) in the loop of the changes and they weren't happy.

Anyone remember a show called Do The Right Thing with Wogan? I remember it being a panel show with a drama but they filmed two endings - you had to vote for which one was played out.

I have a vague memory of this - is was all based around a morality issue. Gosh, there were some truly awful ideas passing for light entertainment at the BBC in the 1990s and early 2000s.

One of the German broadcasters put money into it too.

Her e is the Wella thing: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/61263/media-itv-change-hits-baywatch-deal

im lead to believe it was pulled because of the the Simpsons starting. http://articles.latimes.com/1996-11-20/entertainment/ca-919_1_london-weekend

Was it S8 the last one ITV did on Saturday evening with Baywatch Hawaii and Baywatch nights moving to Daytime slots.

There's actually virtually an entire episode on YouTube...
https://youtu.be/MpNXGAKcigM

Frank Skinner talks about this series, and this particular show, in his autobiography, because he was on it quite a lot, as mentioned Wogan had a comedian alongside him every week in an attempt to make it seem a bit more late night, and there would be some other US bits like Tel doing a monologue (note Peter Baynham among the writers), and as you see there was a desk rather than a sofa. Frank says that he enjoyed it but he thought Tel's heart wasn't in it, it was basically commissioned as an apology for axing the 7pm show in an embarrassingly public fashion (he actually said to the Beeb in 1991 he fancied jacking it in, the Beeb refused to let him and then a few months later they axed it and the first Tel knew was when he saw it in the paper), but Frank said Tel was bored of chat shows and had interviewed everyone before, and before the show he used to tell Frank it didn't matter if it went badly because nobody was that bothered about it. It did last six months but it was very much a contractual obligation, I think.

In that particular episode with Cliff and Sister Wendy, Frank said he'd spotted that Cliff had previously said he didn't agree with the idea of female vicars, which was in the news at the time, so Frank asked him about it, and Cliff said that was right, and that led to a bit of an argument where Sister Wendy said it was a ridiculous view, and made Cliff look quite stupid. Frank thought this was a brilliant bit of TV, with the nun coming across as more forward thinking than the pop star. Then when he watched it on the telly a few nights later, they'd edited out Frank's question and Cliff's answer, and started it with Sister Wendy talking about female vicars apropos of nothing, and they'd even edited in a shot of Cliff nodding from elsewhere, as if he was in agreement. Clearly Cliff's people had had a word.

I know Graham Norton does alright in that slot now, but that show is good, whereas this was a boring show with a host going through the motions, and twenty years ago as well when Friday was a dead night for BBC1. Actually Jonathan Ross had another chat show on Friday nights on ITV in 1996 in the same slot he had his BBC show - but nobody noticed because it was only on Granada and LWT, as his career was in a right state at the time.

Well, this was nothing to do with the new contracts, it was simply because US programmes were no longer rating well. Indeed if anything it was anticipated after 1993 that there would be more US programmes in primetime because they were cheap, and of course on Christmas Day 1993 ITV showed back to back films from 6pm to midnight. It was certainly considered at the time that this would be more likely to happen in the future, but it didn't because the viewers simply didn't want to watch them.

ITV certainly tried their hardest with some US shows in the nineties - they tried Seaquest on primetime Saturday night, there were things like The Practice and Savannah at 9pm and famously they spent millions and millions of pounds on Millennium only to find it was totally unsuitable for primetime. Any of those could have taken off, but they didn't, and ITV more or less stopped bothering with US imports not based on any requirement, but simply because they all flopped, all four of those shows were abandoned before the end of their runs. Baywatch Nights was memorably taken off Saturday teatimes after two episodes. Viewers simply didn't want to see them, they preferred British programming.

If there was any kind of change in the mid-nineties other than a change in audience taste, it's basically because making TV programmes became a lot cheaper. It used to be that everything needed a studio and post-production and so on, but these days you can make a programme for 50p, film it anywhere and edit it on a laptop. So you can afford more new programmes. It's like how Alan Yentob got the number of repeats down on BBC1 in the mid-nineties, it wasn't especially because they spent more money but because docusoaps were becoming popular and they were very cheap to make, alongside other efficiencies in the TV production process. So there's no need for channels to rely on endless films and imports, and combined with the fact the audience doesn't seem to care anymore, there's no point in showing any.

As for Baywatch, as Independent Television in Britain points out, ITV as a whole (LWT were clearly the prime movers because it was an important slot for them to fill) were part of a consortium that put money into a new series of Baywatch, alongside Fremantle Media in Australia and other buyers from France, Germany and Italy. "In way of investment in production, ITV did not receive a great financial return - but the series did solve the channel's Saturday problem for six years."

I don't know why this is considered some great secret, I remember reading about it in Look-In. Just because it's not on the internet doesn't mean it didn't happen. Nor does it need to be on the internet.

Its clear there wasn't a change in what viewers wanted, since US drama are still very popular to this day, ITV has been heading wards in share% of years now.

All you done is highlight how bad the ITV network centre was at picking US dramas up, it could have been differently, if there had pick up better series. That Network centre has alot to blame for the troubles at ITV.

Baywatch Nights to be fair was a strange format. Oh yea if US programmes were no longer rating well, why did Sarbrina the teenage witch rate so well? There were a few other shows that did rate well aswell.

With the details about LWT and Baywatch, everything else is on the net why not this.

US drama, and drama in general, is of a much higher quality than it was in the 90s. C4 and Sky1 were also competing for the rights and their structure probably made it far easier to bid than for a regional network. I guess ITV network centre were also not allowed, or certainly not encouraged to bid for the rights.