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ATV Reports: 2009 In Television: Axed Shows

ATV Reports: 2009 In Television: Axed Shows

We continue our review of television in 2009 with a look at some of the high profile shows that disappeared from our screens in 2009 with editor Shaun Linden in this issue of ATV Reports.

Broadcasters were forced to cut back budgets in light of the recession and this resulted in shows from across all genre’s being axed to save costs. Channel Four announced the end of Big Brother, Wipe Swap and How Clean is Your House while ITV announced the 60’s were well and truly over for Heartbeat and The Royal. Stateside and unsurprisingly Fox finally put Dollhouse out of its misery while CBS decided to cancel Guiding Light and As the World Turns despite their many years on air.

In a year where broadcasters were forced to cut costs and jobs because of the recession it was only natural that some of those cuts would result in shows from all genres being axed. Some of these shows had been dying a slow death as dwindling ratings for several years sealed their fate [Dollhouse, Guiding Light] while others were somewhat more surprising [Heartbeat and The Royal]. In this feature we look back at some of the more high profile casualties of the last year.

Guiding Light: CBS

We start our look at axed programmes with the longest running soap in the world – The Guiding Light. The series originally started life on radio in the 1930s before transferring over to television in the 1950s and ran for an incredible 72 years. The soap had its good times and bad times, ratings highs and rating lows, but all of that came to an end this year when broadcaster CBS announced the axe had fallen. Guiding Light like its fellow daytime soaps in America had been suffering from declining ratings from years now – from the 1990s after their heyday in the 1980s – but in the end CBS decided enough was enough and despite its history the soap must come to an end. In April they announced their decision and in September the soap aired for the final time. Fans of soaps in America fear it’s the first of several casualties to come with Days of our Lives and One Life to Live also reportedly close to cancellation. 2010 could be a year where more daytime soaps disappear from screens in America.

Heartbeat/The Royal: ITV

1960s police-drama, rural series, Heartbeat launched on ITV in 1992 and 18 years later is still firmly stuck in the 1960s as is its medical spin-off, The Royal. The two drama’s once enjoyed audiences of over eight million viewers every Sunday but then very suddenly that all changed thanks to somewhat chaotic scheduling from ITV. Ratings fell to under five million and ITV decided to pull the plug on both shows and announced production would be suspended once the previously ordered episodes had been filmed. The broadcaster said it would then have enough episodes to last until the end of 2010 when it would decide whether to commission more. In all likelihood though the difficulty of resurrecting both dramas at that point, after the cast and crew have moved onto new projects, would likely be too difficult and so it’s best to consider both axed.

Dollhouse: Fox

Joss Whedon’s latest science fiction series has never exactly set the ratings or critics ablaze and its troubled road to air – production shutdowns and episode rewrites – probably haven’t helped it either. However, despite poor ratings Fox took a chance with the series and commissioned a second season in the hope the show would develop a buzz around it and increase ratings. Unfortunately the second season of Dollhouse merely continued its trend of poor performance in the ratings and speculation was rife once more the axed would swing. Fox pledged to air all 13 episodes it had ordered before yanking the series off-air during November for the sweeps and this folks was the final nail in Dollhouse’ coffin. It quickly emerged that while Fox would air all the remaining episodes it had indeed cancelled the show.

The Green Green Grass: BBC One

Comedy spin-off from Only Fools and Horses which focused on Boycie [John Challis] and Marlene [Sue Holderness] after they move out of London and into the countryside. The spin-off launched in 2005 but never enjoyed the kind of success its parent show had enjoyed but four seasons were produced by the BBC until this year. Ratings for the fourth series were lower than previous ones due to it airing against tough competition on ITV1. The series was cancelled in a cull of comedies by the BBC.

Not Going Out: BBC One

BBC One comedy series revolving around three several friends who live in the same block of flats, the series starred Lee Mack [who also co-wrote the series] along with Tim Vine, Miranda Hart and Sally Bretton. Despite a loyal following and strong ratings the series was cancelled by the BBC at the end of its third year much to the surprise of fans of the comedy. Miranda Hart has since gone onto to star in her own sitcom on the BBC. On 17th December the BBC announced they had changed their minds and ordered another season of the comedy. However, although Not Going Out would return in 2010 for a fourth season it will be a later slot than previous years.

Wife Swap/How Clean is Your House/Big Brother: Channel Four

Once millions tuned in to see squabbling families of Wife Swap, dirty homes on How Clean Is Your House and desperate-fame hungry, attention seeking freaks in Big Brother but those days are long gone. Now all three shows struggle in the ratings and Channel Four has decided to pull the plug. Wife Swap would see two families swap partners for roughly ten days with each partner living by the set house rules for a few days before being allowed to introduce their own rules. Often the rule changes and clashes of personalities and cultures resulted in fiery confrontations so it’s hardly surprising a celebrity version quickly emerged. The celebrity version saw memorable swaps from the likes of Edwina Curry, Debbie McGee and Pete Burns!

Meanwhile Aggie and Kim would invade homes and berate people for how dirty and rank they had allowed their homes to become while in the Big Brother house a new batch of desperate wannabes would do their upmost to be nasty, vile and bitchy to everyone in the hope of being noticed by the tabloid press. A celebrity version also followed which will forever be remembered for the Jade Goody race row. Big Brother was culled by Channel Four to make way for new and hopefully better programming. It’s just a shame we never saw a celebrity version of How Clean Is Your House…now that might have been interesting.

Kingdom: ITV1

Stephen Fry drama set in rural Norfolk about a firm of lawyers of which Fry is one. The series was a hit with Sunday night audiences with ratings of over 6 million viewers. The gentle drama fitted perfectly into Sunday nights and with a cast along the lines of Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie and Hermione Norris it’s not hard to see why audiences were keen on Kingdom. Unfortunately despite its good performance in terms of ratings ITV decided to axe it due to budget issues – yes filming in Norfolk really must be ever so expensive.

Robin Hood: BBC One

The biggest shock of all with the demise of Robin Hood on the BBC was that it didn’t come sooner. Quite why the BBC took three years to axe the historical drama is a little beyond us. We watched the first seven episodes of the first season and quite frankly were not impressed at all. It was awful, clichéd rubbish that had somehow made its way onto BBC One – it’s not the kind of thing we expect from the corporation, more ITV. However, the drama limped on until its third season where it aired against Primeval over on ITV1 and lost as two shows aiming for the same audience airing against each other is a recipe for disaster. Robin Hood saw ratings drop below three million and the BBC decided enough was enough. However, a fourth season would have been Robin Hood free anyway following the news that the lead actor Jonas Armstrong who played the title role was not returning. Keith Allen, the Sherriff of Nottingham, was similarly to be absent from it.

Primeval: ITV1

The curious case of Primeval which was axed by ITV1 only for several months later to be resurrected by the short-sighted channel. The dino-drama about holes in times that allow dinosaurs, and other nasties, to work their way into the present had been something of a hit for ITV and its third season unfortunately aired against Robin Hood on BBC One meaning ratings were somewhat dented but better than its rival. ITV took the decision to axe the series at a time when Primeval was actually on the rise; a big-screen version was in the works and an American television series too. So quite why ITV decided to pull the plug when Primeval was about to go big is anyone’s guess but it certainly came as a shock to us. Imagine our surprise then when several months down the line ITV announced Primeval would be back after all thanks to a deal with several other companies allowing ITV to spread the cost around. Thankfully the BBC weren’t tempted to do the same with Robin Hood.

Eastwick: ABC

Television series inspired by the popular 1980s film The Witches of Eastwick which itself was an adaptation of the book. ABC hoped the legacy of the film would boost its television remake and that audiences would flock to it. Unfortunately tales of three witches have a history of struggling, anyone remember Charmed – hardly a ratings gold mine even if it did limp along for several years. Eastwick launched well enough for ABC to label it a “quiet success” though just weeks later it was being labelled “doomed”. When ratings dropped below 5 million ABC decided the time was right to announce the first major genre casualty of the season. All 13 episodes will however be aired but storyliners were expecting a full 22 episodes so storylines won’t be neatly tied up.

Silver Street: BBC Asian Network

Silver Street originally launched on the BBC Asian Network in 2004 and was dubbed by the press as an “Asian” Archers. When it launched in 2004 the soap aired as daily ten-minute episodes but in 2008 this was scaled back to eight minute episodes and earlier this year was scaled back again to just five minute episodes. In November the BBC announced the soap was being cancelled outright to be replaced instead by a series of one-off plays. The move was criticised by the writers guild as they felt it threatened radio production in Birmingham where Silver Street was recorded – and coincidentally so is The Archers. Amongst the team behind the soap were Sonali Bhattacharyya and Deborah Sathe. Bhattacharyya has written for a range of BBC dramas such as EastEnders, Casualty, Holby City and fellow Birmingham produced soap, Doctors. Sathe is to produce the forthcoming EastEnders web spin-off, EastEnders: E20.

As the World Turns: CBS

Irna Phillips created the soap in 1956 as a sister soap to The Guiding Light so perhaps it’s not entirely surprising that both should fall in the same year. As the World Turns launched in the new soap format of 30 minute editions instead of the standard 15 minutes but such was the popularity of soaps during the 1950s that broadcasters decided to extend their screen-time. Although initially unpopular with audiences the extended editions soon became standard and accepted. As the World Turns is set in the fictional town of Oakdale and has passed 13 thousand episodes.

Long gone are the days when the series enjoyed over 10 million viewers and in recent times the soap had been faced with cancellation. With the departure of parent soap Guiding Light in September its America’s longest running daytime soap but it’s a title it won’t hold for long because next September it too will come to an end. Although it’s been battling declining ratings for some years now As the World Turns enjoyed international recognition thanks to its gay romance story between the characters of Luke Synder and Noah Mayer, dubbed ‘Nuke’ by fans. As scenes of their romance were uploaded to YouTube the pair became popular across the world but not even the might of Nuke it seems could save the series.

Other axed programmes include Medium which was dropped by NBC but quickly picked up by CBS. The series was produced by CBS Studios for NBC and CBS had already stated if the broadcaster didn’t renew it the show would move to CBS itself. Cop-drama Southland was also a casualty of the NBC axe but there’s still some hope it’ll move over to TNT. The future of Scottish detective series Taggart still isn’t clear. The show has been caught up in the war between ITV and Scottish broadcaster, and producer of the series, STV.

STV have pledged to take the show elsewhere if the axe falls – which does look like a strong possibility as ratings have fallen to under five million. The American remake of Life on Mars was cancelled by ABC after one season due to low ratings but the series was allowed to wrap up storylines. Also axed: The Unit, Without a Trace, Kath and Kim, Crusoe, Kings, Life, Lipstick Jungle, My Own Worst Enemy, The Chopping Block, King of the Hill, The Beautiful Life, Privileged.

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