Broadcasting in the Covid 19 era

Harry Palmr

So far all the attention has fallen on sport and how Sky Sport in particular will fill the void but clearly its going to have a massive effect on all sorts of programming and every channel that makes live shows esp with an audience.

Drama is also hit with filming of several high profile titles like Line of Duty, Peaky Blinders and Silent Witness halted. The various ongoing dramas/soaps will be hit soon (they have a 6-8 week run in as a rule), meanwhile the BBC One schedule is being cleared for the afternoon briefings (typically about two hours in all).

(as I post the EGP hasn't been updated and includes MOTD, FA Cup football etc)

What the gaps will be filled with is open to question but expect repeats of recent audience hits on BBC One and ITV and more films in the afternoons maybe (that said they could repeat Four in a Bed/Cash in the Attic stuff on a loop forever so samey are the editions)

All I know is that TV has been crap the last few days. Trying to encourage us to go out due to boredom

Johnboy1951

Captive eyes and more ad revenue!

lertsnim

MOTD was replaced with Mrs Browns Boys so if that's a sign of things to come the television schedules will be very bleak.

Harry Palmr

Eastenders, Holby City (!!!), Doctors (!), Casualty (!!). All gone. Older actors being written out ASAP. Fair City scaling back.

wally79

As well as broadcasting Netflix et al must be facing an issue

People will have consumed what is there at an increased rate and they will need a huge amount of new content quickly

Harry Palmr

BBC have announced a covid 19 slate of programming with emphasis on aiding home schooling culture and public information.


https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2020/coronavirus-bbc-unveils-virtual-festival-of-the-arts-for-uk-in-isolation/

Harry Palmr

Morning Ireland has dropped the sport feature from thier programme.

Elmo

Wonder how long TLLS can last. I know it would be over kill to have Miriam O’Callaghan present from 8pm until 11pm but was there any good reason to bring in 3 newscasters to the RTÉ studios?

Surely either Sharon or Brian could have take the 9 news with the 8 pm speech, and that desk does look 2 meters apart?

L1011

Whatever the impact on current schedules - and the now known lack of summer sport that usually fills that time; Autumn/Winter '20 is going to be bare because nothing is being filmed. RTE still have loads of shows filmed last year to use as new content, but if little to nothing is filmed this year it'll be a disaster for the next set of seasons.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Captive eyes and more ad revenue!

Advertisers aren't buying. Most retailers aren't open and those that are don't need to advertise!

Elmo

L1011 wrote: »

Whatever the impact on current schedules - and the now known lack of summer sport that usually fills that time; Autumn/Winter '20 is going to be bare because nothing is being filmed. RTE still have loads of shows filmed last year to use as new content, but if little to nothing is filmed this year it'll be a disaster for the next set of seasons

I am guessing Finding Joy 2 & their west of Ireland Drama will be pushed back into the new year.

hotmail.com

L1011 wrote: »

Advertisers aren't buying. Most retailers aren't open and those that are don't need to advertise!

The government ads are a welcome source of revenue for tv and radio at the moment.

Eventually Virgin Media will have to cut back on pay if ad revenue stays low.

Harry Palmr

Fancy that US imports will move from the edges of the schedule on main channels to a more prominent perch. I dunno what the current A Team or Dukes of Hazard is but we could be sat in front of it at teatime soon!

Elmo

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Fancy that US imports will move from the edges of the schedule on main channels to a more prominent perch. I dunno what the current A Team or Dukes of Hazard is but we could be sat in front of it at teatime soon!

That’s on RTÉ, Virgin Media are reliant on repeat ITV programming, they’ve been on lockdown since 2017!

washman3

RTE should be declared a non-essential service and shut down.
Look at the savings it would make.

lertsnim

washman3 wrote: »

RTE should be declared a non-essential service and shut down.
Look at the savings it would make.

What savings would they be?

Elmo

lertsnim wrote: »

What savings would they be?

Very few staff in RTÉ would go, as they be largely wage protected, no ad revenue for a few months. They will save on indo productions.

Independent tv & Radio will start laying people off even the likes of Wireless Ireland, Communicorp & VirginMedia Television, they can rely on playlists.

Though I assume sports rights will not be paid this year so RTÉ will save money there along with not having to pay pundits this year.

All the savings across the board lost if you completely shutdown.

Also bar McDonalds the big advertisers should continue to buy advertising Supermarkets, Sky, Virgin Media, over the counter health care, cleaning products lever brothers, Mars Ireland etc

Really the gov should use this time to spend their public service ads not just on Coronavirus. RSA ads, BMI, Irish Water etc etc

political analyst

I find it hard to believe that the Late Late will be broadcast on Good Friday this year given the current crisis. It would make sense to send the production personnel home early for the Easter weekend so that they can spend more time with their families and also it would save RTÉ money.

Widescreen

Not a great fan of the Late Late myself but a lot of people are.

Under the current lock down what are people going to do for that weekend apart from watch TV, so it should go ahead.

€160 a year for a TV licence and RTE show little else worth watching (apart from political/current affairs stuff) so let it go ahead I say!

dulpit

political analyst wrote: »

I find it hard to believe that the Late Late will be broadcast on Good Friday this year given the current crisis. It would make sense to send the production personnel home early for the Easter weekend so that they can spend more time with their families and also it would save RTÉ money.

At a time like this shows like the Late Late are exactly what is needed, and is public service broadcasting in it's truest sense. There is a captive audience, a lot of whom will not be online, and it's a fabulous way of getting the government's message out, especially for people who are now cocooning.

Between the general election and then this crisis, RTE are showing their worth. Anyone who says otherwise is simply incorrect.

Elmo

Widescreen wrote: »

€160 a year for a TV licence and RTE show little else worth watching (apart from political/current affairs stuff) so let it go ahead I say!

This is the problem with both RTÉ & VirginMedia they air very little outside of the main strands of soaps, news, sport, daytime & chat.

Elmo

dulpit wrote: »

Between the general election and then this crisis, RTE are showing their worth. Anyone who says otherwise is simply incorrect.

Unfortunately that’s all RTÉ hear, aren’t we so good, just look at how we’ve put on primary school each morning, not that we cut children’s content over the last 10 years & brought educational programming down to 0 from 100,000.

Jpmarn

I noticed Home and Away was pulled suddenly from air on both RTÉ channels this week. The last episode was broadcast last Monday March 30th. I understand production has been halted in Australia due to Covid 19.

lertsnim

Jpmarn wrote: »

I noticed Home and Away was pulled suddenly from air on both RTÉ channels this week. The last episode was broadcast last Monday March 30th. I understand production has been halted in Australia due to Covid 19.

It's gone to two episodes a week on RTE and Channel 5. Monday and Friday.

s1ippy

Post edit: I was just pointing out that there was a lot of sensationalist coverage of the redeployment of education staff and attached the email from the union assuring that there was no intention to place SNAs in frontline positions as they repeatedly said on the News on April 1st of all days. Maybe wasn't clear enough, was having a stressful afternoon.

icdg

I’m not entirely sure what the attachment above has to do with Broadcasting tbh, so you can take any debate regarding its substantive contents somewhere else

kazoo106

UTV seems to be having an identity crisis - onscreen DOG says "ITV Britain Get Talking"

dulpit

kazoo106 wrote: »

UTV seems to be having an identity crisis - onscreen DOG says "ITV Britain Get Talking"

https://www.atvtoday.co.uk/152481-utv/

Cost saving/staff reduction measure during the coronas...

icdg

BBC Two Northern Ireland has also been suspended, all regional programmes moved to BBC One NI.

Digifriendly

icdg wrote: »

BBC Two Northern Ireland has also been suspended, all regional programmes moved to BBC One NI.

No bad thing. Good to have all national BBC2 programmes now for N. Ireland viewers even though it is only for a period of time.

mackersdublin

icdg wrote: »

BBC Two Northern Ireland has also been suspended, all regional programmes moved to BBC One NI.

BBC Two Wales is also affected and is a mirror of BBC Two (England)

Harry Palmr

Just announced - Channel 4 has a cash reserve of about 180 million so probably looking to protect that.

Channel 4 will cut its content budget by £150m in a bid to navigate through the coronavirus crisis, it has been announced.

The channel said:

This reflects both the difficulties of producing programmes and films in the current environment, as well as some extremely difficult decisions to delay or cancel some content across Channel 4, E4 and More 4 across the year.

The statement said Channel 4 will maintain its support for the creative sector – continuing to commission and develop content for 2020 and 2021 - with ringfenced funding for nations and regions, and BAME-led independent producers.