[chris]

HIGNFY also has relatively low-cost production. The Last Leg have a lot of stunts, VTs and props, and still need high-quality writing.

I used to really enjoy it - its height was having Clegg / Corbyn as guests. But you’re right, it has been lacking lately and I found myself not watching.

[Andrew]

Whenever I’ve caught The Last Leg, they tend to have Lorraine Kelly or David Tenant on saying how awful the Tories are. It’s hardly biting satire. It very rarely goes beyond its own bubble like HIGNFY does. Late Night Lycett is arguably guilty of the same.

It will be interesting to see if the predicted change of government will help or hinder The Last Leg

Rather than the tired predictable stuff every year, they’ll have to work harder and look wider at material to cover, or alternatively they will really struggle and they’ll decide to bring the show to an end

There is always lots of funny stories in the news, but years ago they doubled down on politics. I look forward to a ‘Dick of the Year’ that isn’t the most obvious figure from the government that year

[VMPhil]

Richard Osman made the point excellently on The Rest is Entertainment when talking about Mock The Week’s axing, in that it’s expensive as they only record a single episode a week and has little repeat value and isn’t understood well outside of the UK given its topics are highly political. Where as something like Would I Lie To You? can be recorded in bulk, it can be repeated and can be sold internationally very well.

I would argue this is more indicative of the current risk averse, creatively barren TV industry than the fault of the programme but hey ho…

[Brekkie]

Great to see that Big Boys has been recommissioned for it's third, and presumably final, series as despite the critical success the ratings weren't that spectacular.

www.channel4.com 

Jack Rooke's award-winning Big Boys returns to Channel 4 for a third series…
Fresh from Jack Rooke’s BAFTA and RTS wins for Comedy Writer, Big Boys produced …
  Source: www.channel4.com

[Spencer]

Great to see that Big Boys has been recommissioned for it's third, and presumably final, series as despite the critical success the ratings weren't that spectacular.

www.channel4.com 

Did those ratings include streaming views? As someone who’s loved Big Boys, I ended up watching the last series ahead of broadcast, and I presume I’m not the only one.

[Brekkie]

As did I and I suspect most viewers but it was still sub-700k with streaming viewing included. Worth noting the first series landed on Netflix last week and went into their UK top 10, so quite possible it'll get as many viewers on Netflix as it did on C4.

Perhaps just as importantly nowadays the second series has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes

[what]

I definitely think there's an image issue there to be tackled. Evidently they're making shows people want to watch, but they need to make sure they're shouting about them so loudly that people watch on the original network/on demand service, rather than Netflix taking all the credit and the UK PSBs being dismissed.

[Spencer]

Either way, I’m glad to see Channel 4 commission the third series. It’s exactly the sort of programming for which Channel 4 exists.

[Brekkie]

I definitely think there's an image issue there to be tackled. Evidently they're making shows people want to watch, but they need to make sure they're shouting about them so loudly that people watch on the original network/on demand service, rather than Netflix taking all the credit and the UK PSBs being dismissed.

Yes, we've seen this before with End of the F***ing World and for the BBC Peaky Blinders.

Something I have said before it how C4 are pretty poor at rerunning their comedies now to give them a fairly prominent second window, something that can often boost the audience for the next series, but I guess appearing on another streaming service such as Netflix can effectively do the same thing.


In other news today Celebrity Hunted is reported to have been shelved for now due to the questions surrounding Giovanni Pernice, who took part alongside fellow Strictly pro Kai Widdrington. They probably weren't going to show it till the autumn anyway given the civilian series has only just finished.

[tellyblues]

Peaky Blinders was at least successful enough for the BBC and had a sizeable audience to start with that made people think it was a hit. It also got hyped partly because of initially being on BBC2 and was given more time to build an audience, just like Line of Duty, Bake Off, Race Across The World etc, but in truth it wasn't much different or for another audience altogether compared to the rest of the BBC output whereas most C4 comedy and drama tends to be.

Stick something out of the ordinary on BBC1 and it would underperform, as has been seen with Champion, Ralph and Katie, and more recently, Lost Boys and Fairies, but the BBC are likely to be commended for making these shows and putting them on the main channel while C4 commissioning them would be seen as a done thing. Understandable given C4's more highly publicised and analysed remit but there isn't going to be the same clamour for journos to push C4 shows when they're preaching to the converted and there's no incentive for them to be associated with flop shows, which ultimately happens because the crossover for Countdown and Big Boys is tiny.