A question about handcuff deals

I noticed last night that Alien Autospy - the film starring Ant & Dec aired on BBC One after Jonathan Ross (and Euromillions).
My question is how do the handcuff deals that various stars have with the various channels work. How strong are the guidelines or how relaxed can they be.

For example Ant & Dec are currently signed to ITV, which I considered meant that they could only be seen within programmes on ITV, but how does this equate to films, and as the film was made during their handcuff deal can anybody air it. Quite a few questions, but I found it all too confusing when I started to think about it.

Deals usually relate to Television only. There might be a feature film appearance clause in the contract, but that's unlikely. The distribution on Television of feature films is out of scope in these deals.

I guess it's not much different than the days of when for instance a Morecambe and Wise film was shown on the BBC, yet their TV shows would be on ITV, or certainately Film versions of 70s sitcoms like Man about the House, Rising Damp etc, they've all been shown on other channels at some point or another.

Film arms are entirely separate and the rights held by other companies. Therefore they can be sold to whoever buys the rights. All Golden Handcuff deals do is stop Ant & Dec from appearing on BBC One for example. There's nothing to stop the back catalogue of Byker Grove for example turning up one day on Nickelodeon for example.

Actually, that's a bad example, because it was reported a while ago that Ant & Dec bought the entire back catalogue of Byker Grove after the production company went bust. A better example would probably be anything they didn't make under Zenith Productions prior to joining ITV, which is probably not a fat lot if truth be told. The films they appeared in are separate though.

I imagine in this case ITV were glad their exclusive rights didn't extend to films!

On a similar vein though, I wonder how it applies to imported shows too. If they were available, could a non-ITV channel air American Idol, and similarly in the States with all the over-hype about Susan Boyle I wondered if Fox's deal with Cowell prevented NBC (or one of their cable networks) cashing in and screening Britain's Got Talent.

Except for them buying it.

Did you even read the post?

No - whooops!

See also

Lesbian Vampire Killers (Horne & Corden)

Magicians (Mitchell & Webb)

Which channels will these films air on d'ya reckon?

Theoretically there's nothing to stop any channel buying the rights to American Idol if they wanted to.
America's Got Talent, as dreary and miserable as it actually is, naturally airs on the back of the wave created by Britain's Got Talent, so it's natural for ITV2 to buy it.

With regards to Fox, their deal I would presume only covers American Idol. Simon Cowell doesn't do America's Got Talent, though Piers Morgan does, as Cowell's replacement. Apparently some clause in Cowell's Idol contract prevents it. On that basis I'd argue there's nothing to stop Britain's Got Talent repeating on a cable channel somewhere, though they've never given a stuff about it before Boyle.

Paper spin of course, but how arrogant and unfair on the actors who haven't had a career afterwards and could perhaps do with any repeat fees that might come their way.

Although oddly Zenith was originally part of Central TV and later got bought by Carlton.

I wonder what happened to the rest of the company's programmes, I know that the arm making CD:UK was sold on