Five Wins Neighbours!

[ste]

Does anyone know if BBC has a clause in their contract with Neighbours like ITV did with H&A, that prevents other channels showing it for a year?

[Jess]

I agree with what Skykat is saying - most of the articles about the renewal of the contract have been the BBC talking about money, so I guess we can assume that it's playing a large part in the negotiations at the moment.

I know a lot of people in Northern Ireland don't have five, but I think that if Neighbours moved then ratings would increase if five do their proposed Australian soap hour. And then if they do the 'First chance' thing on Five Life then that'll increase popularity, too.

I don't know what the Beeb will do, though. Okay, so they'd still have Eastenders, but that's going down the pan, too, and doesn't really appeal to the teenage market in the same way that Neighbours does, IMO.

[victim-ofthenight]

When home and away went to five it was off air a while but as Ryan said nothing was missed as it continued exactly where it left of On Itv. However if Neighbours moves and both end up on Five i do think it will become a big problem for the few people who do not recieve channel 5 terrestrally and they are in one of the few areas without freeview signal or high sky signal. I doubt very very very Highly ITV will recieve it they are slowly becoming extinct in my opinion desperately reapeating things and relying heavily on coronation street and Emmerdale.

[simmins]

What does ITV see in Neighbours?

Channel FIVE have H&A, what does it want with Neighbours?

ITV should gets its hands on h&a, not Neighbours?

[victim-ofthenight]

Since losing Home and Away and Shortland street to name just 2 i think ANYTHING ITV can get it's hands on will be a bonus, It is an endless string of repetitions and tack how many more runs of touch of frost,midsummer murders and Rosemary and Thyme can we have before we die of bordom

[-Andrew-]

I hope ITV do NOT get their filthy hands over Home and Away, they'd treat it like a cat with a tinker ball.

[alexx]

Was Home and Away shown on ITV from the very beginning of the show in the 80's?

I bet they're regretting letting H&A go. Do you think the popularity of it in the UK would have remained high if it stayed on that network?

[victim-ofthenight]

ITV showed home and away from day 1 back in late 1989 kicking off with the 90 minute pilot on a sunday afternoon commencing with the regular showings 12.30 & 5.10 moving in 1994 to 1.30 & 5.10 then eventually dropping fridays episodes and screening just the lunchtime version before moving to five

[ste]

Was Home and Away shown on ITV from the very beginning of the show in the 80's?

I bet they're regretting letting H&A go. Do you think the popularity of it in the UK would have remained high if it stayed on that network?

ITV definately regret it. It's been 7 years and they still haven't found a suitable replacement ratings-wise in the time slot. For a short period they did with the huge success of The Paul O'Grady Show, but they treated him like crap so he took his show and moved it to Channel 4. They obviously didn't learn their lesson!!

I think the year gap did way more damage to the ratings that just the channel move alone. If the show had moved channels without a gap I don't think the loss of ratings would have been nearly as big (but there still would have been some loss because Five isn't availible everywhere and some people just don't watch it regardless of what's on). If it had stayed on ITV the ratings would probably have stayed high-ish but they did treat the show like crap in comparison to Five so from a purely selfish point of view I'm glad it moved.

[Ross]

On the one part, if Neighbours was to move to five, maybe the ratings of Home and Away would improve, as many devout Neighbours fans may switch over and catch H&A before/ after Neighbours, depending on how the schedule would work.

However, if it was taken off air for a year, I think we could see a repeat of what happened with H&A, where many viewers are lost for one reason or another, and, as people have mentioned, five isn't available everywhere so some fans may not even have the choice to continue watching.

I would much prefer it to stay on BBC and I would definitely hate for ITV to get it, especially after their decision to enact the clause in their contract about H&A. I think they need to find something original of their own instead of bidding for a show which has aired successfully on the BBC for 20+ years.