FORGET the advent of colour telly, the arrival of Channel four, the launch of BskyB or indeed digital television – the biggest thing to rock our increasingly square eyes happens today. At 1.45pm to be precise.
Neighbours moves to Channel 5. Now admittedly, tongue was firmly in cheek when writing the previous paragraph, but there is no doubting that the decision by Channel 5 to bid very highly for Neighbours, the Aussie soap we all grew up with, suggested that they felt the Beeb wasn’t getting the most out of it.
Sadly, they appear to be taking on Neighbours in a bit of a lull. A cast clearout over the last year has left it devoid of really strong characters, and it has swung a bit to far in its focus on the younger characters. Of course, that’s what Neighbours does well, but there needs to be a bit of balance.
All of the above can be solved quite easily – Neighbours has been there before, and come back. Normally, it involves bringing back an old character, Harold Bishop or Paul Robinson. Perhaps Jim Robinson will reappear now his stint in Ugly Betty is now over. Or perhaps Dr Karl Kennedy can return to medicine.
But Channel 5 has obviously twigged it can do much more with Neighbours than the BBC was doing. At first glance, the schedules seem pretty similar – Neighbours is on at 1.45pm and 5.30pm. But then it’s on on Five Life (one of their digital spin-offs) at 7pm. And then there’s the omnibus showing on a Saturday lunchtime on Five itself. So in a stroke, Channel 5 has taken Neighbours from being a cheap schedule filler, which is what the BBC treated it as, and turned it into a gem in its crown of overseas programmes.
Millions watched Neighbours at its peak in the late 80s and 90s. Most stopped because they began working, and, lets be honest, Videoplus was hard enough to work out without having to suss it to record a light-hearted soap, wasn’t it? Now it’s back, at a time when more of us can watch it. Neighbours omnibus on a Saturday morning on Five, Hollyoaks on Four on a Sunday. Need we ever get out of bed before 1pm on a weekend ever again?
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