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H&A's highest ever viewing figures in the UK.


Homeandawayfan.

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On 31/10/2021 at 17:54, BobbyFridge said:

I have always preferred the locations used on H&A over Neighbours. I just love the beach and the fact that the characters are spread out in different locations around Summer bay. Neighbours just kind of felt like the Australian version of Brookside or something with that dull cul-de-sac. Not knocking Neighbours or Brookie as i enjoyed both during their best era's but H&A just has the best setting and the beach always seemed lit up in golden sunshine. It always appealed to me more than Neighbours as a bit of escapism and an attractive location.

That definitely used to be the case but these days H&A is every bit as limited in location as Neighbours was. If anything. Neighbours has more locations now.

H&A have stopped filming at all the wonderful little beaches, inlets and bays they used to frequent. Now if it's not the beach directly in front of the surf club (not even any other part of that beach lol, just the Surf Club part), it's the Pier Diner beach. And that's literally it. They're just not interested in making any effort. Unless it's big CGI stunts, sure.

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1 hour ago, Sally Keating said:

That definitely used to be the case but these days H&A is every bit as limited in location as Neighbours was. If anything. Neighbours has more locations now.

H&A have stopped filming at all the wonderful little beaches, inlets and bays they used to frequent. Now if it's not the beach directly in front of the surf club (not even any other part of that beach lol, just the Surf Club part), it's the Pier Diner beach. And that's literally it. They're just not interested in making any effort. Unless it's big CGI stunts, sure.

We do see house exteriors much more now on Home and Away, probably more than Neighbours these days. Not seeing the High School makes it all seem smaller though.

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9 hours ago, James Martin said:

 

I always got the impression ITV were slightly embarrassed that an import did so well.

When ITV started showing Prisoner: cell block h they stuck it on at midnight or some stupid time and different regions were airing different era's of the show. They obviously weren't expecting it to be a hit but it is claimed that the show was attracting up to 10 million viewers which, if that is true, then that's pretty impressive for a show which was being aired so late at night. You would think maybe they would have moved it to a prime time slot to see if it did even better, but nope they left it in the graveyard slot. Very odd i think,  if a show is a hit you'd think it wouldn't matter if its an import or not. They obviously didn't want an Australian show to get higher ratings than Coronation Street or something. 

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On 05/11/2021 at 13:31, James Martin said:

I know the death of Meg was a big deal in the UK, but I wasn't aware it was that big.

Bear in mind also the show got virtually zero promotion by ITV.  I don't remember seeing a single trail for it.

I'd heard 15m was the record, but I didn't know it went higher than that.  However I do remember the Fun Run episode going out.

Quite a few regions had moved it to 5:10pm at that point too in order to accommodate an hour of regional news at 6pm.  Things change, things stay the same! ?

I always got the impression ITV were slightly embarrassed that an import did so well.

Wonder why ITV would show the series but not market and promote it? Were they worried that an Australian show would do so well? I think H&A would have got even more figures than 15 million had ITV not tried to keep it down, perhaps to protect their precious Coronation Street. Apparently ITV were embarrassed by Crossroads success. Perhaps they cannot admit that Crossroads and H&A could have toppled Corrie if they had their way?

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  • 8 months later...
On 08/11/2021 at 15:00, Homeandawayfan. said:

Wonder why ITV would show the series but not market and promote it? Were they worried that an Australian show would do so well? I think H&A would have got even more figures than 15 million had ITV not tried to keep it down, perhaps to protect their precious Coronation Street. Apparently ITV were embarrassed by Crossroads success. Perhaps they cannot admit that Crossroads and H&A could have toppled Corrie if they had their way?

I wonder if it was something to do with the fact that it wasn't ITV as such, and more a collection of regions. So who would promote it? Thames, TVS, Central, Yorkshire? 

Trying to remember back, was there much of an import culture at that time? Most of ITV scheduling would have been regional production, especially during prime time (The Bill, World in Action, Aspel, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Barrymore). 

I guess that H&A was seen as fluff that the bigger advertisers weren't bothered about? I seem to remember lots of furniture adverts and insurance adverts during the ad breaks, which seems strange considering the audience was made up of 12 year olds.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Looking at viewing figures, usually H&A was only about 2 million or so behind Neighbours, so not a huge amount. At times it was a bit more, other times it was less. Looking at viewing figures for UK for November and December 1992, H&A was getting 15 and 16 million viewers several times during late 1992. It got about 16.6 million viewers for one episode on Friday 27 November 1992, and that same Friday night, H&A whipped Neighbours in the ratings as that night, Neighbours got 16.3 million viewers.

Late 1992 and into 1993 H&A was certainly stealing Neighbours thunder.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There was an import culture but that depended on your region.  Central in particular loved their Aussie soaps, particularly the two Grundy productions, Sons & Daughters and The Young Doctors.  I'm pretty sure they completed both fairly quickly, with S&D definitely completing by 1989 in the Midlands.  Some regions were running S&D well into the mid-90's.

Central were always pretty good with H&A, giving it a 6pm timeslot right up until 1999.  In Border it got 6:30pm through most of the 90's, which is virtually peak time.  A lot of regions however parked it at 5:10pm straight after CITV.

Home & Away was obviously an attempt to get a piece of the action BBC One were enjoying with Neighbours.  Worth noting of course that H&A's UK debut came about off the back of the absolute peak of Kylie & Jason mania in the UK (the wedding aired October 1988.)

Interestingly, I don't think H&A had a lunchtime showing to begin with, but this didn't last long.

Finally, the ratings of those heady days of both soaps will be combined figures for both showings.  So whilst 16m is an insane figure for daytime, even back then, you had two sets of audiences tuning in.

Nowadays you see the highest single showing quoted which doesn't take into account the full picture, nor of course does it take into account PVR and streaming.  EastEnders for example gets very low headline BARB figures, as an increasing number of viewers are watching it on iPlayer.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I always had the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Neighbours was the Aussie soap that was more loved in the UK. Maybe it's because Neighbours was the first one to come along and it quickly spawned some big stars. If you think back to the early Neighbours cast it wasn't just Kylie and Jason who became big stars. Craig McLachlan and Stefan Dennis released singles. Peter O'Brien was a bit of a star too. I can't remember when Guy Pearce's star began to rise but still, you can add him to that list. That's impressive innings for a soap. Did anybody from Home and Away ever cross over culturally in that way? 

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On 09/09/2022 at 20:41, cymbaline said:

I always had the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Neighbours was the Aussie soap that was more loved in the UK. Maybe it's because Neighbours was the first one to come along and it quickly spawned some big stars. If you think back to the early Neighbours cast it wasn't just Kylie and Jason who became big stars. Craig McLachlan and Stefan Dennis released singles. Peter O'Brien was a bit of a star too. I can't remember when Guy Pearce's star began to rise but still, you can add him to that list. That's impressive innings for a soap. Did anybody from Home and Away ever cross over culturally in that way? 

Natalie Bassingthwaithe did as well. As well as Stephanie McIntosh. I think Natalie did well internationally but I think Stephanie was mostly Australia but still did well.

Also how could you forget the fabulous Natalie Imbruglia !?:D

From H&A we did have Dani Monigue, Bec Hewitt did ok... can we count Sia and Ed Sheeran ?

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