BBC Three axed as a TV channel

It's fairer to only consider one airing of each show in a top ten, but Family Guy is a beast. Also beyond that the ratings aren't bad either - for a digital channel to have it's 10th most watch programme (or episode of a programme) consistently over around 650,000 is very good going - many are lucky to hit that mark more than once or twice a week.

Does anybody know what the carriage deal with Family Guy is at the moment? It came up for renewal last year, although the (previous?) director of the channel indicated they wouldn't be willing to pay silly money for it (as they did previously when bidding against E4): http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a337340/family-guy-future-debatable-says-bbc-three-controller.html

Ah it's like non-stop 'Two Pints Of Lager...' all over again...

Yes, it's easy to look at the chart and say, oh it's full of Family Guy, but Family Guy's ratings are exceptional because it airs at a time when most other channels have completely given up so the competition is microscopic. So that's always going to give a boost to the ratings. It's the same as how in the nineties Countdown used to often have all five of its episodes in the C4 Top Ten because at 4.30 its only opposition was kids shows and adult education on BBC2. But nobody said C4 was only good for Countdown.

In fact here's the ITV top ten for the week ending 2nd March from Broadcast...

1) Coronation Street (Monday 7.30) 8.51m
2) Coronation Street (Friday 7.30) 8.34m
3) Coronation Street (Monday 8.30) 7.57m
4) Coronation Street (Wednesday 7.30) 7.92m
5) Coronation Street (Friday 8.30) 7.15m
6) Emmerdale (Monday 7.00) 7.00m
7) Saturday Night Takeaway 9.87m
8 ) Emmerdale (Friday 7.00) 6.72m
9) Emmerdale (Wednesday 7.00) 6.60m
10) Emmerdale (Tuesday 7.00) 6.26m

That tells us about as much about the current health of ITV as that Family Guy-stuffed chart tells us about the health of BBC3.

The difference being that all of those episodes were:
a) not repeats and
b) produced for ITV[1].

And made in the UK.

They must've got an extension then. Strange that there wasn't a bidding war!

The series as a whole as past it prime, and it on a downward spiral, I dare say the other freeview channel didn't wish to waste the money.

Didn't stop Channel 4 bidding over the odds for The Simpsons.

Ten years down the line and its still on the air, I doubt Family guy will last that long..

What commercial operators are willing to pay for imported content is up to them - it shouldn't be something the BBC are getting involved in though (unless the rights are going cheap and the content is worthy of it; e.g. Parks & Recreation).


I can't remember the finer points of the Channel 4 deal but they've had 7-10 shows a week out of it for 10 years with fairly stable (if not earthshattering) ratings. I'm sure it's delivered well enough for them.

You could make an argument for it on PSB grounds in my opinion, especially if an alternative is the programme going behind a paywall.
So you'd like to see the BBC pay more money for programmes of lower value to the target audience simply because it's made here?

If these were the only things BBC Three show I could maybe get the argument, but it's part of much wider range of programming and it shouldn't be penalised for it's popularity. It may also act as a shop window for the rest of the channel meaning more young people see more of those worthy home produced shows than would have otherwise.