New UKTV Channel "Drama"

I never got that, when it UKTV Drama was an evening only channel it stuck to Drama, but when they went all day they had UKTV Drama Daytime as a sub-brand and inherited comedies no longer shown from UKTV Gold, at this point Gold was going through an identitiy crisis, as they were showing new US shows, programmes also like Dancing with the Stars and random dramas, although some may dislike the 2008 rebranding at least at this point Gold stuck to Comedy only and Alibi showing Dramas only, albeit crime ones.

It'll be interesting to see how it'll affect Yesterday, as they've shown Auf Wiedersehen Pet in full, and they're showing Ballykissangel (which was on ITV3 at one point IIRC) along with Bergerac too.

It was definitely after the new series had bedded in, and it was definitely on UKTV Gold. I only watched it once, so it wouldn't have needed to be regular.

It does seem a good move for UKTV, even if it is somewhat correcting previous mistakes. It should allow Yesterday to be a bit more focused too - that's a bit of a mess since rebranding from UKTV History IMO.

One thing though I think I'd like to see now is a rule similar to Australia which forces channels to spend at least 10% of their budget on original homegrown productions, so a channel like this would have to add a little bit of Drama of it's own to it's line up, even if it's just a series or two per year.

Why? It's a repeat channel. There's nothing wrong with a repeat channel. I can't think of a single [UK[TV]] Gold production which has been at all worthwhile.

To me, it's like suggesting that DVD box sets must come with at least 1 episode exclusive to DVD.

Indeed, the only worthy programme UKTV has made is Red Dwarf, and that is a BBC programme originally. UKTV was set up to show BBC programmes commercially, it has expanded, it still does that whilst showing some American, ITV or Channel 4 shows, the last place I want to see a new show is on UKTV.

Not entirely fair there have been a few commissions for Dave, such as Argumental, Dave's One Night Stand and Alexandra's Big Ask that are of a decent.

Watch's programme featuring that young magician has seemed to have done well as well.

I think some new content from UKTV is positive. I can see Drama commissioning the odd thing, but it'll probably be something that is linked to an established brand.

Pardon my ignorance sir, I forgot they made those shows. But they didn't have the greatest track record in the past, Richard & Judy's New Position, Jim'll Fix It Rides Again, granted the latter wasn't UKTV's fault, but R&J felt very very cheap in comparison to their Channel 4 show.

Dave's a different kettle of fish; it's not so much archive as general entertainment.

The user I was replying to was referring to UKTV rather than just Gold.

Anybody else get the impression that they'll run out of shows to broadcast and opt for comedy dramas that already air on Gold and Dave?

Depends how far back they go and how much of the BBC (and ITV?) archive's they can afford to buy shows from to broadcast.

There are hours and hours of 70s and 80s dramas (particularly the old Sunday evening stuff) that would probably fit their demographic (Poldark, Onedin Line, Dickens and Trollope serialisations at the costume drama end of the spectrum, and then more contemporary-for-the-time stuff like The Brothers, Boys from the Blackstuff, Nice Work, Life and Loves of a She Devil, Rockliffe's Babies, King of the Ghetto etc. at the other?)

I don't think they'll run out of content, I think they'll choose to air whatever draws in ratings and it's for that reason why I don't think Yesterday will be losing all the classic comedy and drama and going back to only history docs when Drama launches given how they dominate that channel's weekly top ten.