Shows abandoned before broadcast

Interesting article here on this programme:
http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/?page_id=330

Something Very wrong with what Wiki page says, its claims BSKYB axed the show, YET it first broadcast was 5 weeks before the merger, and no other epsoide were broadcast by BSB. all 8 must have been made.

Whats the real reason for it being pulled?

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It's first broadcast was as part of a comedy weekend. IIRC it wasn't intended to air the rest of the series immediately after in any event so could easily have been trashed after the merger.

I might slot that into wiki then, thus given better information. I wonder when there were planning to broadcast the other 7, Maybe at the start of Nov to lead them into Christmas?

I have a look on off the telly and there is an interesting piece about the Simpsons and how its was 6 years until its appeared to the masses in the UK: http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/?page_id=377

It misses out the part how SKY held all the rights to the series, Alas that piece only relates to England, most of the time we NEVER got the Friday episodes and thus only got it once a week at 6pm Monday, what made it worse was Scotland actually falling behide in new episodes. Queen Margaret drive did back down and started filling up Double bills on Monday and Friday to try and clear the back log, while England got more fresh prince and something else.

The problem appear when Thursday slot was had for De a nis, Eòrpa etc, and this meant Buffy got moved to the Friday 6.45pm slot with Robot wars I sure moving 45mins earlier to 6pm. it also mean within 4-5 hours Buffy was seen again for its uncut version 11.15. It meant anything at the 6.45 Thursdays were lost forever, including Sliders, and repeats of Outer limits etc. Wales had the some issues but still put back in the all missing content at some point.

BBC has treated many US show with utter contempt, Like Senfield, Malcolm in the middle and a few others. I wonder what would have happened if ITV got hold of the rights.

It's pretty much the standard practice all over the world not to pay out a game show prize until it is broadcast. It also discourages them spilling beforehand too.

Good piece, that. Cough.

Anyway, it's a complete myth that the BBC treat US series badly. The Simpsons had a prominent slot on BBC2, they showed one series a year and only started taking it off because they lost the rights and needed to sort out a replacement. If Scotland opted out that's their problem. And since The Simpsons have been on C4, new episodes are being shown at 6pm completely unbilled, they went a good eighteen months without showing a new series and shoved new episodes out on Sunday afternoons for a bit. Way worse than BBC2. And you should try following it on Sky One, the scheduling is appalling.

That followed the third series of Futurama being shown on C4 at 1am on Fridays and the fourth series at 9am on Saturdays. And as for Family Guy... If it wasn't Friends C4 didn't give a toss. They even dumped Frasier at half eleven.

BBC2 first showed Seinfeld at 9pm in 1993 and trailed it extensively, I have my 1993 diary where I announce I'm not going to watch it because the endless trailers have put me off. It only moved later because nobody was watching it, and even then - I'd started watching it by then - they showed one new series a year in a regular slot, albeit a late one. They only messed around with it in 2000 because of the Olympics and in 2001 because of 9/11. And people say they gave Mad Men no promotion, it was on at 10pm on BBC4, with trailers on all BBC channels and the last Beeb series got on the cover of the Radio Times. It was certainly more prominent than on Sky, behind a paywall.

Meanwhile, for ITV, two words - Pushing Daisies.

AH you wrote the piece? its a very nice piece but Alas Scotland were trying to fit in to much and it did not work very well, lets just say it ended up a dogs dinner, I know for fact after emailing them that at least 5 New episodes were not getting broadcast at that time/year. Is it True SKY held all right to the series until 1996? and both ITV and BBC nor ch wanted it in the first place in 1989. BBC did treat other US series as bad as Channel 4.



I have to agree with you there about Channel 4, There treatment has been a bit crap, there treated Family guy and hacked it to bits, King of the hill was again late night. I could never understand why Futurama was so down at the heal, south park went the same way.



Why on earth did there start with Ep2 and still miss out a later episode!

That story featured in Stephen Pile's book "The Return of Heroic Failures". Apparently the answers were so obscure it was impossible to get any of them right, unless you happened to have extremely powerful psychic capabilities. According to Pile, the series lasted just six episodes.

Also 'Friday night lights' and as late as January ITV2 threw the Australian drama 'Winners and Losers' all around the schedule.

They didn't, it was episode 2 which was skipped.

I remember reading about Monday, Monday not sure if anyone watched it, it was comedy drama show set in a supermarket head office starring Fay Ripley and Holly Aird. But According to wikiepedia;


So it seems like some other may have not even aired.

A little bit more about the infamous You're In The Picture. In fact the show itself lasted only one episode, as show two was a rather lamentable review by Gleason of the previous week's edition.