"Blue Peter," BBC1's twice-weekly school-aged kids magazine show, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week. Considering that the show has probably been a common ground for Brits for two generations now, one would think that the Beeb would run a big, celebrity-and-clip- filled prime time special and watch the ratings go off the wall. Instead, the series' anniversary show aired yesterday just out of the One's daily CBBC kids block, at 5:15 p.m., pre-empting "The Weakest Link" (which moved from BBC2 earlier this year after the Aussie soap "Neighbours" moved to Channel 5). The show came in fourth out of the five terrestrial networks, only beating C5's usually cellar-dwelling movie and 5:30 p.m. news and topped by a cooking show on ITV, Paul O'Grady on Channel 4 and a home property show on BBC2 (and Anne Robinson had better ratings in that time slot on the One on Wednesday):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/17/tvratings-television I'm guessing one of two things: Either the Brits are not as in thrall of their childhood pop culture as we are (although that would not explain the success of the original "Life on Mars") or "Blue Peter"'s involvement in alleged fraudulent on-air contests a few years ago has really hurt the show's reputation. (The title, BTW, refers to a ship that is the show's logo--you dirty minds.) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Like TV only smarter. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
