But can't they 'Make time'? I seem to recall something happening on BGT where Simon Cowell put his foot down and think it overran then due to him saying 'We will make time' or something to that affect.
I remember it too. That girl, Connie, or whatever her name was, broke-down and started crying during the middle of her performance, and I think Ant and Dec told her she couldn't do it again, at first, before Simon told them they'd 'make time' for it. They might have just simply cut something else out, but I'm not sure.
But can't they 'Make time'? I seem to recall something happening on BGT where Simon Cowell put his foot down and think it overran then due to him saying 'We will make time' or something to that affect.
I remember it too. That girl, Connie, or whatever her name was, broke-down and started crying during the middle of her performance, and I think Ant and Dec told her she couldn't do it again, at first, before Simon told them they'd 'make time' for it. They might have just simply cut something else out, but I'm not sure.
I can remember the event but not how they handled it, but I do remember it being in the middle of the show so making up 90 seconds to 2 minutes wouldn't have been too hard. All they'd need to do is be tighter with the judges comments and make Ant & Dec's links a little bit shorter. But right at the end of the show, its much harder to create the time because they don't have much scope to shorten anything, whereas throughout the BGT show they probably just took 20 seconds or so here and there, so viewers wouldn't have even noticed.
That incident occurred early in the running though - not in the last five minutes. To be fair to ITV1 they have to hit the timings right to get the ads in - both The X Factor and Downton Abbey will have a full 12 minutes of ads within their hour, with 10.5 minutes within each break and then 3 minutes in between them, meaning the ads have to begin at exactly 20:58:30 so 90 seconds are in each hour. (They also have full breaks before and after, but in the 7pm and 10pm hour respectively).
Not sure how flexible OFCOM would be about ads airing even seconds later - in reality it would make little difference to viewers but OFCOM are usually quite strict on the maximum number of ads in any given hour.
The Hollie Steel situation on BGT a few years back was really very difficult to handle. Firstly, as the programme was thrown into chaos with Hollie bursting into tears they obviously couldn't make her perform again straight away so had no option but to go to a commercial break. Which, unfortunately, ended up costing the production company £80,000 in a fine from Ofcom for showing too many adverts within the hour.
Secondly, there was no time left in the running order to allow her to do the performance again. Until Simon said that there they would find the time somewhere (as there's really nothing else he could have said seen as there was a 6 year old in tears on national TV) they weren't going to allow her to perform again. This then resulted in the ITV News having to be moved back by 5 minutes which may not sound like much but if there's one thing that doesn't get moved - it's the news. The decision to allow this had to come right from the top management at ITV within the few frantic minutes before it was allowed by the network and by presentation. This then has an impact on all the regions timings, etc etc - you get the idea.
Making up the time for an intro performance and comments (probably about 4 minutes in the running order) is actually much more difficult than you'd think. There is only so much you can cut from items already in the running order as they are all timed to end at the exact off-air time anyway. There are usually non-essential items such as website promos, best bits etc that can be cut out but they are never major parts of a show so you'll never gain that much time from cutting them out. That's why it only takes one small miscalculation or item going slightly wrong to throw a whole show off course - such as Sunday night's incident on The X Factor.
There, Louis had, most probably, forgotten what the other judges has said and therefore didn't know which name to say to take it to Deadlock. Which, presumably is what they had all been instructed to do. The best bits VT and chat to Dermot were all dropped from the running order to make up the time to bring the show off air on time.
ITV1 give the gallery an exact off air time to the second, usually for Sunday approx 20:57:00 and that has to be met to the second - an optional over/under run of around 45 seconds is usually offered by Presentation but this has to be taken much earlier on in the running order - you can't call through to Pres 30 seconds before you're due off air and ask for an extra 30 seconds - they'll just say no and the ending of the show will be ugly.
On Sunday, they were running late even before all the drama. Dermot was chasing Louis for an answer almost as soon as he started speaking. The point in the results show is to see who is eliminated so they should be allowing plenty time for this. As it is, the sing off and judges comments are very rushed. I can't understand how it is the same situation every week (though not as bad as this week usually) with nothing getting done about it. They don't need extra time from Presentation, the director and others simply need to manage the running/organisation of the Results show better.
ITV1 give the gallery an exact off air time to the second, usually for Sunday approx 20:57:00 and that has to be met to the second - an optional over/under run of around 45 seconds is usually offered by Presentation but this has to be taken much earlier on in the running order - you can't call through to Pres 30 seconds before you're due off air and ask for an extra 30 seconds - they'll just say no and the ending of the show will be ugly.
Although, presumably ITV1 wouldn't cut The X Factor mid flow as there is the potential for even further uproar.
But what I've noticed with American live shows that doesn't seem to happen here is that everything seems to run so slick. Take American Idol for example, they're results show is seamless and flawless.
And on the odd occasion it does run late they put astons on the screen to advise that 'Normal programming will resume as normal' once said live show is finished.
ITV1 give the gallery an exact off air time to the second, usually for Sunday approx 20:57:00 and that has to be met to the second - an optional over/under run of around 45 seconds is usually offered by Presentation but this has to be taken much earlier on in the running order - you can't call through to Pres 30 seconds before you're due off air and ask for an extra 30 seconds - they'll just say no and the ending of the show will be ugly.
Although, presumably ITV1 wouldn't cut The X Factor mid flow as there is the potential for even further uproar.
They almost certainly would. It's up to the programme to hit it's out time, and if you can't do it, off air you go anyway. If you think you're going to be running late, you need to tell pres as soon as possible, and they
may
extend your off air time, either way, you still have to hit that time.
Most live shows have a fairly flexible finish anyway, allowing the duration to be altered at very short notice, but if something goes wrong in the last few minutes of the show, you have to rush whats left and drop what you can.
But what I've noticed with American live shows that doesn't seem to happen here is that everything seems to run so slick. Take American Idol for example, they're results show is seamless and flawless.
And on the odd occasion it does run late they put astons on the screen to advise that 'Normal programming will resume as normal' once said live show is finished.
Ah, I have seen a few complaints over the years about the outcome of Idol being cut off peoples recordings due to finishing a few minutes after the hour. Granted though generally the US do keep to time much better and only genuine over runs cause any delays, unlike Australia where even pre-recorded shows can finish 20-25 minutes later than billed on a weekly basis.
On Sunday, they were running late even before all the drama. Dermot was chasing Louis for an answer almost as soon as he started speaking. The point in the results show is to see who is eliminated so they should be allowing plenty time for this. As it is, the sing off and judges comments are very rushed. I can't understand how it is the same situation every week (though not as bad as this week usually) with nothing getting done about it. They don't need extra time from Presentation, the director and others simply need to manage the running/organisation of the Results show better.
I did notice though that the sing-off was done differently this year. Normally they get the acts off the stage, get the relevant judge to introduce the act and then there's either the contestant intro / walk on and the performance, with the whole procedure repeated again for the second act. This year they got both acts to walk on together and made the other act watch the sing off standing with Dermot with the acts switching places on stage. Didn't seem very slick in my opinion.
They did seem to want to have all the acts on stage (or on camera) as much as possible. That's to say that as they were "saved" by the public vote, they didn't walk off stage, but rather they went to the corner of the stage, like last year in Week 1 where each judge sent one of their acts home. Likewise, there seemed to be a new "holding area"/"green room" off stage where the contestants wait (with cameras) before performing. Maybe it was all linked?
There was a video available of the Final from 2010 (with One Direction, Rebecca Furguson and Matt Cardle) where someone had managed to record a satellite feed with the talkback. Was very interesting to hear how it all works behind the scenes.
I was expecting a battle like on The Voice at first, but found it distracting when they kept doing cutaways to Carolynne. It just felt a bit cheap, I hope they drop that aspect for this weekend.