[James2001]

Another thing I've remembered is from around 1995, the omnibuses went out in 14:9, but in all the examples I've seen, comparing it to the original weekday airings, it was cropped from 4:3, with the picture shifted upwards so all the cropping was from the bottom of the screen. As opposed to Hollyoaks, which also went out this way (regular episodes 4:3, omnibus either 14:9 or 16:9, it varied), but actually was made in 16:9 from the start. Brookside didn't actually start being made in 16:9 until 1999 (the 16th March episode, or the start of "series 54" going by the episode guide I linked to earlier). Why they did this 14:9 cropping to the omnibus seems strange.

I seem to remember, years back, possibly on the blue place, someone posting photos of the remains of the Brookside petrol station, hidden behind new sets built for Hollyoaks (the rest of the parade had been developed beyond recognition). Space filmed one of their music videos in front of the petrol station at well, presumably showing off their scouse credentials.

I know I've posted a lot in this thread, though it's a show I have fond memories of watching during the mid-late 90s, before I was even watching the other three main soaps regularly. So glad to have a chance to see it from the start.

[gottago]

Why is Brookside on STV Player? Were All4 not interested? It was a Channel 4 show, so you'd think it would go there. The production company (Lime Pictures, formerly called Mersey Television) does still have a relationship with them considering that they also make Hollyoaks. 

STV Player is a comparatively niche streaming service to All4 and I expect C4 knew the number of viewers that would watch this would too low to justify them buying it. STV as a small player that has a tiny archive of shows of national interest, and is never going to be able to compete for big-name acquisitions, is naturally more limited to the number of shows out there they can buy. I expect they were able to get this for a snip and will be much happier with the numbers it will bring in to their service than C4 would have been. 

Also, are STV trying to get viewers outside Scotland to watch their service?

Yes, they've done this for a number of years now and expanded their UK-wide offering to be available on Freeview Play. I've seen a few ads in the past in England for their drama boxsets.

[eyeTV]

Looks like it's going to be 10 episodes for the first week, then 5 a week afterwards, going to take the best part of a decade to get through the show's run at that pace.

I expect someone will lose interest before then (the audience or STV). 

I don't know how successful soap archive is on streaming.  If it had a broadcast airing you might pick up occasional viewers (like with Classic Corrie, Emmerdale & Eastenders) but I don't think you'd get people coming back for this every week on streaming. 

Maybe they should upload some of the big, more iconic episodes rather than attempt the whole thing.

[Andrew]

There is basically too many episodes and people wouldn’t have time to watch them

Ideally you’d have someone at the broadcaster curating a selection, maybe releasing an iconic storyline a week that could be a dozen episodes, or some stand alone iconic episodes

[James2001]

Looks like it's going to be 10 episodes for the first week, then 5 a week afterwards, going to take the best part of a decade to get through the show's run at that pace.

I expect someone will lose interest before then (the audience or STV). 

I don't know how successful soap archive is on streaming.  If it had a broadcast airing you might pick up occasional viewers (like with Classic Corrie, Emmerdale & Eastenders) but I don't think you'd get people coming back for this every week on streaming. 

Maybe they should upload some of the big, more iconic episodes rather than attempt the whole thing.

STV player have been doing the same thing with High Road for years (uploading a few episodes every week, going back to the start when they reach the end), presumably that's done well enough for them to decide to do the same with Brookside.

UKTV Play also put up The Bill from the start in the months leading up to Drama reaching the end and going back to 1998 as well (albeit in much bigger chunks than STV will be doing, around 250 episodes initially followed by around 100 episodes each month, dropping to around 50 when they got to the hour long ones in 1998). Initially UKTV said they were only going up to the end of 1993, but in the end actually kept going (and even went right to the end of the show's run- right now they have nearly 1000 episodes, from 1999 through to the end in 2010), so presumably enough people watched for them to keep sticking with it.

So that's two cases of the entire run of a continuing drama being streamed, Brookside isn't the first. Brookside does have more episodes than the other two though (even though it ran for a shorter amount of time than the others)

[Brekkie]

Interesting news - and although a shame it's not in it's natural home it will do much more for STV Player than All4 and will be as much about bringing an audience to their other content as it is to watching Brookside itself.

Personally having just completed the 35 episodes of Home and Away My5 have made available for the shows 35th anniversary I do prefer a curated approach around key episodes rather than everything but I think the success of the classic soaps on ITV3 and Drama show there is an audience for it. Whether 5 episodes a week is enough to maintain interest I don't know - at least with 10 they can basically cover a year of the 80s every 10 weeks and have things move along a bit quicker, but on the other hand perhaps people are more likely to be able to spare two and a half hours than five hours.

I do find with these things though you only need to watch a bit to get your nostalgia fix - it's too much of a commitment to watch the whole thing.

[James2001]

The brief promo that STV have put up has the 1990-2002 music, I don't know if that possibly suggests STV have already bought a large chunk, if not all, of the show. The visuals in the trailer are from the 1982 titles though.

Looking on google, I found an apparently unused set of Brookside titles:

www.youtube.com 

Not hugely different from the ones that were used, though the lack of a ferry in front of the Liver building looks odd, the shot of Clayton Square from directly above rather than lower down (in fact most of the shots of Liverpool seem slightly different to used in the actual titles- no pedestrians in the distance on the Albert Dock and different traffic driving past St George's Hall, and also from a slightly different angle etc.). The boarded up La Luz presumably dates it to a very short period of time (though the titles were quite frequently updated after the introduction of the parade as busineses changed).

[James2001]

Been looking through some Brookside clips, and I'm amused by the garage on one of the houses that faces onto a garden, so you'd have to drive across the grass to be able to get in and out of it. It was like this for the entirety of the show's run as well, by the time you get into the 90s there's a big tree in the garden so there's no way you'd be able to get a car over it even if you didn't mind ruining the grass.

[Si-Co]

I know the Corkhills converted the garage into an extra bedroom circa 1988, so it would make sense after that to have no driveway. But if the garden was like that prior to 1988, well……

[James2001]

It's certainly like it on the 1987 title sequence (on the shot I posted a few posts up where you can see the security lodge), and even that I think is footage that was filmed in 1982 but didn't make it into the titles until 87.

Yes, that bedroom is where Little Jimmy was beaten to death by drug dealers in 1996, it was a delightful show!

Edit: Actually, a quick look at the original title sequence, and the original end credits wide shot (which first appeared in late 1983), it doesn't look like the garage was there then (but the garden still was), so it was added at some point between the start and 1987. I guess you could sort of understand it if there was a drive there at one point and they decided to grass it over at some later point if they stopped using the garage for keeping a car in, but clearly the garage was built in front of the garden!

Will be interesting to see if it's part of any storyline, or just something that appears, as new buldings and extensions often do in soaps!

In fact, that means the picture where you can see the security lodge comes from a few years into the show's run, so it does seem odd there doesn't seem to be any visible security barrier (unless they removed it to film that shot for the titles). I think some of the houses at the bottom were actually occupied (and some were used for the production).