I do love ITV sometimes. They finally pluck up the courage to stump up the cash for a top new US import and stick it front and centre in a prime time slot on Saturday night. It debuts to encouraging ratings. Hurrah! And then ITV has to put their hands up and say “Oops! There are nine episodes of this series, but we’ve only got time to show eight. So we won’t bother airing episode two. Hope that’s okay. Bye!”
Yes, this is the story of Pushing Daises, the quirky US drama starring Lee Pace and Blighty’s very own Anna Friel, the first episode of which formed part of a very strong night, alongside Britain’s Got Talent, in the ratings for ITV last Saturday. The episode pulled in a very healthy 5.7 million, a figure many (most?) ITV shows can only dream about these days. I’ll admit to being surprised by this figure (and I’m glad to be proved wrong, of course). With a target audience of bright young things who should be out having a good time on a Saturday night (after Doctor Who, of course), I felt ITV had misjudged the night and the ratings would be lacklustre at best. Pushing Daisies has a slightly oddball feel, more suited to a mid-week slot a la Desperate Housewives - or so I thought.
But after a reasonably successful launch, only ITV could be stupid enough to then admit they would be culling a whole episode from the run of Pushing Daisies to enable most episodes of the series to be aired before the start of Euro 2008 in June.
“Episode two was the only self-contained episode that did not affect the storyline so the decision was taken not to screen it.”
a spokesperson for ITV has said. ITV has also said it’s possible the offending episode might be shown at a later date as a stand-alone episode. Well I’m glad about it only being “possible” the episode might be shown at a later date. I am well and truly bowled over by ITVs show of commitment on this one.
Shows like Pushing Daisies need a loyal audience to be truly successful, and with such a flagrant lack of respect for that audience, it’s no wonder ITV is hemorrhaging viewers. Does it matter in the long run? Probably not, but I refuse to believe that space couldn’t be found elsewhere in the schedule to show the episode in its natural place. Or am I just an anally retentive daftie who needs things to be shown in the right order. Answers on a postcard will be politely ignored.
This story lends some credence to the results of a recently published survey, carried out internationally by consultants Accenture. It shows that while television remains the world’s favourite platform to consume the mass media, the results, amongst others, indicate that audiences have a loyalty to a particular programme rather than its broadcaster.
So beware ITV - if you mess the audience around even before a show has firmly established that audience, they’ll just go off and wait for the DVDs to come out. It won’t matter if you have another seven episodes to show - if you want loyalty from your audience, you have to show some back.
I don't think TV executives ever watch TV. I get really p*** off with the way they treat us, especailly with dramas. They pull an episode with no warning for sport ; they suddenly change nights part way through a seris,; they decide to show the last 2 episodes twice in a week; they make the last episode a different length to the rest; they pull episodes for no discernable reason. All designed to make us miss part of the story.
For goodness sake, they have been trailering Pushing daisies for month - and then they treat it like this.
Anyone would think they are deliberately trying to kill off TV. DVDs, internet downloads have their place but it can't beat the communal spirit of everyone talking about the programme they saw last night.
BTW: I know the captcha is good for security but couldn't it be a bit easier to read - I can't always decide what the characters are meant to be - this is my third attemp