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With so much wonderful material in the BBC archive that could be shown, why churn out the same programmes over & over - I love Only Fools and Horses & Keeping Up Appearences etc, but PLEASE give them a rest!

When UKGOLD first started I remember watching such programmes as:

It's A Knockout (Stuart Hall era)
The Good Old Days
Generation Game (early Brucie & Larry shows)
The Bob Monkhouse Show
Rosie
Ken Dodd
(thank goodness I taped some of them - ssssshhhh!)

How about showing some of those again, along with

This Is Your Life,
early Parkinson shows

and before I die are they going to show the Shirley Bassey shows once more - from the golden days in the 70's on a Saturday night on BBC1, when ITV used to turn off the lights and go home because they just couldn't compete!

I live in hope....

your thoughts are my thoughts but uk gold dont seem to listen. Who needs a vidoe recorder when you have uk gold. There could be great scope to develop this channel and increase its audience but its the same old tired management that churns out the same programmes. It is like the film groundhog day.

Personally I'm not too sure those programmes listed above would rate well with a wide-ranging audience.

We try to schedule programmes that will rate well with a large number of people and game shows like those listed have a tendency to age very badly. Whilst there is a novelty value in seeing these shows again the ratings for these shows do not sustain over a longer period of time.

Richard
UKTV

Richard I don't know how you can justify saying that showing repeats of recently aired BBC shows can possibly do better with audiences than repeats of classic shows from the 70's 80's & 90's that haven't been seen for years. Why doesn't UKTV listen to what people are saying here?
You do not cater for a wide ranging audience, your programming is targeted for 12-16 year olds with the attention span of a flea. I am so dispointed by UK gold these days it infuriates me and now UKTVG2 has started showing Top Gear, Airport & Life of Grime I have come to the conclusion that you have in fact run out of programmes!
Why don't you rebrand like ITV, you could have one mainstream channel, something for the kids, another one for those with more than one brain cell and maybe even a genuine vintage channel! Just a thought.
PS - Bring back Dallas, Cell Block H, vintage Eastenders & Neighbours & some quality drama series, put them on at a decent time and you could actually increase your viewing figures.

Bringing back older episodes of Neighbours and Eastenders would mean that we would have to take off the series that we are currently screening. This would annoy a lot of viewers as the storylines and characters would be disrupted.

If there's no pressing need for us to show alternative eras of soaps then we don't do it. Regarding putting Dallas & Cell Block H into the schedules I, personally, feel there is enough soap drama on Gold and would worry about the variety offered by the channel if we were to increase the number of soap opera being shown but I will pass your comments onto our planners for their consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Richard
UKTV Gold

No you wouldnt have to take it off the air, as I have said before show them alongside each other. what are you going to do when it catches up with current eastenders just show a daily episode like BBC1? Do you not pay attention to the requests posted on this website, your viewers would rather watch vintage programmes than relatively recent ones that we have just seen on terrestrial TV. I swear I cannot take another episode of 2 pints of larger, my family or catherine tate and I find your excuses rather feeble. The truth is these shows are too expensive to run and you would rather save money and show endless repeats of truly dire tv shows that should never have been commissioned in the first place. The soap drama on gold at the moment is stale and boring how about something different for a change? Perhaps now you have new channel head things might get better, if not you will see a huge drop in veiwing figures as there are many other channels out there offering the same programmes as UKGold.

Showing two separate eras of soaps would require us to obtain two separate licences which would double the cost of running certain series (eg Neighbours/Eastenders)

I see what your saying richard but I'm sure you could place Prisoner: Cell Block H in UKTVGold or UKTVDrama's line ups.

also can't you show Casualty from Episode 1 and then keep it running though out insted of showing series 1 - series 6 then skipping through to series 14

As I know Casualty has a good period in Series 7 onwards not let a lone the Holby Hospital Fire at the end of series 7.

Fair point Richard, and thank you for replying. I only want to bring to your attention that there are so many good programmes that your channels could show and I feel it is a lost opportunity to use your 4 Gold channels in such a way that only emphisises how cheap, nasty and clumsly thought out the UKTV programming is. Good programmes shown in series order with minimum repeats per month would keep it fresh and interesting. How hard can it be?

Richard - you keep asking the viewers what programmes they would like to see on UKTVGold, but all suggestions have been shot down in flames.

Can you please tell us what programmes you are able to show and I don't mean the current ones, i.e. Only Fools and Horses, My Family, My Hero, Last of the Summer Wine, etc. etc. etc.

I've just stopped watching the Gold channels because of the dire programmes which are being screened.

I agree with Stormcat, when you start showing some decent programmes, please show them in series and episode order.

We have access to the BBC archive so any programmes screened there could potentially be shown on Gold. We are also able to approach independent production companies with regards to their programming (as we currently do with "THe Bill").

New programming on Gold could include such dramas as "Life on Mars", "Bleak House", "Rome", "Blackpool", "Hotel Babylon" etc

Hallo Richard............do you have access to the series "Travelling Man" formerly shown on ITV, and "Sapphire and Steel"?...a great "escapist" tongue in cheek fantasy series. I really want to see them again.

Showing two separate eras of soaps would require us to obtain two separate licences which would double the cost of running certain series (eg Neighbours/Eastenders)

well u can aford to give away plasma screen tvs all the time as you keep telling us (every 10 minutes)
why not bung in a few £1.00 a minute quizzes in between the adverts as well

Dont listen to remarks saying put soaps on at peak times they are shown at peak times on terrestial tv and repeated on ITV2 and BBC3 in the evening. People watch UK gold to get away from all the cheap soaps

I don't mean to be rude, but I've just come across this discussion and after reading all of the comments posted that are ranting about UK Gold scheduling, I'm just wondering if any of you (apart from the guy from UKTV) are actually involved in television at all?

I'm presuming not as your "why can't you do this? why can't you do that? why can't the sky be green?" comments seem a little naive to say the least. I have no idea about UK Gold's finances or stratgey etc, but it strikes me that they must be a successful business as they've been going for ages and they keep on starting new UK channels. Don't you think they must give an awful lot of thought into which programmes are going to be successful on their channels or do you honestly believe that when one person posts a message on their website saying something like:

"I like the last three episodes of series 3 of The Fall Guy and if you don't do want I want UK Gold and show them endlessly on a loop on Tuesday evenings then you obviously don't know how to run a business and I predict you'll go bust before I finish this sentence"

they're going to think - well we better abandon all the expertese and knowledge of our staff and all that expensive market research that we do and listen to Jim from Ipswich because he obviously knows his stuff.

Give them a break!! I don't want to come across as a UK Gold suck-up but I like some of the stuff they show, and I don't like some of the stuff they show, but I can take it or leave it. If I wanted to make a criticism, I'd probably post a message here and if they had the courtesy to answer I WOULD NOT be rude enough to shout them down and make fun of them and gernerally resort to being childish and unreasonable.

I visited the UK Gold messageboards cos I thought that people might be wanting to chat about classic TV - instead I find that the majority of posts and discussion is people moaning and moaning and moaning and whingeing (and it tends to be the same few as well).

Get a life!!!!!!

Hi Damien,
Yes I do work in the media, first in broadcast and now in advertising, so I have a very good understanding of how the media works and that is precisily why I am so angry at UKTV for what they have done to their channels. Unfortunately the media industry is run by fresh out of uni kids with a degree in media studies and not much else by way of intelligence, they are just clones with no individualism and you are over the hill by the time you reach 25, UKTV is dumbed down like everything else available to the British public these days.
As much as I love some of the shows aired I would like a bit of variety on occaision I spend alot of money on cable tv and would like to see it being spent on proper vintage shows rather than something that has just been on terrestrial tv only weeks before. I have asked for many good shows only to be told that there isnt a market for them, so how come most posts on this website are requesting the same thing? Take Dallas for example, not high brow BBC4 stuff but a classic of its time and very entertaining it was aired on UKTV for years, now its trendy again they are making a movie version and you can get some episodes on DVD, clearly this is a popular show so why is it not on Gold now? It makes no sense to me to air repeats of My Family and Two Pints (Awful) that have just been on BBC 1 & 3, who is going to watch it?
I understand the problems that UKTV has and that they have survive in a competitive and changing media industry, but they won't if they continue churning out the repetitive rubbish that they are subjecting us to, I used to watch UKGold all the time but now only very occasionally, when there are true classics on.
I also wish that we could all have a good discussion about classic TV, but if there isn't any being shown then how can we talk about it?

Good on you STORMCAT. I am a an avid UKtv GOLD viewer and I am very 'dis-chuffed' with the way we are being treated by UKtv.

They tell us that they are giving viewers what they want because they have surveyed people. I say which people have they surveyed, certainly not me. Has anyone out there been surveyed?

UKtv note, this message board is your survey, not some person standing on a street corner asking well written questions which will give a positive answer. The management of UKtv have a dual responsibility firstly to the share holders but mainly to their customers, us the viewers.

Reading most of the comments on this message board the trend seems to be the same - stop repeating continuously. How many more times are we going to see Basil Fawlty goose stepping around his hotel, or Vicky Pollard having a pee before she gets out of the swimming pool. It was funny the first dozen times but not now.

Freshen up the channel with new old programmes Where is The Sweeney, Minder, Casualty, Holby City, Dallas, and why is The Bill only shown during the day?

I am sure that your system has captured every Email address of people who correspond with you on this message board. Let us be your survey community, send us your questionnaire let us tell you what we really think.

UKtv you need to clean up your act SIT UP & TAKE SERIOUS NOTE.

Hi all - we have recently canvassed opinions about which programmes we could show on UKTV Drama on the Drama messageboards and we hope to do more of that kind of thing in the future. I take your point about the number of repeats. With new shows - we really do have to be careful about which shows we invest in.

Stormcat - one man's Two Pints is another man's poison, but the show has proved very popular on UKTV.

By the way Stormcat - I'm not speaking about the industry as a whole but your description:

"the media industry is run by fresh out of uni kids with a degree in media studies and not much else by way of intelligence, they are just clones with no individualism and you are over the hill by the time you reach 25"

definitely does NOT apply to UKTV staff!!!!

Magicd - Casualty and Holby City are on UKTV Gold at the moment. Sweeny and Minder aren't BBC shows so it's not so easy for us to show them - I believe Paramount currently have the rights for Minder, or at least they did recently.

Magicd - It's not suprising that you haven't been or known anyone that's been surveyed as research groups only take a relatively small cross-section of the millions of potential viewers that can be canvassed.

cheers

Hi David,
I will have to take your word for that!!!
But seriously please put on some good programmes...every time I look at this forum there seem to large amounts of messages from people begging you not to take certain shows off the air, which you do anyway and then you replace them with Murder she wrote??? Its inexplicable...whats going on, all we ask for is some good GOLD shows. Stick on a nice bit of Dallas and some old Eastenders, not forgeting Dr Who and Baywatch and you might get some really positive posts! (in fact just show all the programmes you used to)

why did uk gold,a few weeks ago,show superheroes,and you have to text which one wins,then hey presto,we get the same shows a week or two later showing ie:fletch and godber versus del and rodney etc,then text again,all these shows are good,but to re-package,re-name,and show the same episodes is taking it a bit too far,what next,del versus rodney fletch versus godber,blackadder versus baldrick,come on uk gold,enough is enough.(frana versus uk gold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!),i`ll give you my bank account number!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I loved some of the old shows but after seeing them for the umteenth time the magic wears off.Please uk gold give some of the shows a rest and ressurect them in a couple of years or so
Richard Bryers said his repeat fees for some of his shows were not worth having,do you get discount the more you repeat the same shows?this would explain a lot! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

The thing what I dislike about UKTV Gold is that they showed the new Doctor Who from 2005 and the Catherine Tate Show and even Little Britain, whilst these might be considered 'good' programmes they are hardly 'TV Gold' yet, they've only just been aired on terrestrial, give them a break, they'd need to wait atleast 3 years before they can be considered TV classics from the past which is what UKTV Gold used to be about.

I recently e-mailed in about EastEnders and it seems that they may just rewind the episodes when they catch up to the ones that are being aired on BBC1 but there's a catch to all of this, they only plan to go back to 1997 not the beginning.

It would make more sense for them to go back to 1985 because they haven't shown those early episodes since 1998 now and it's due another run. 1997 may be nearly a decade ago but people like me want to see the 1980s EastEnders again because UKTV Gold haven't shown it for a long time apart from various episodes on the EastEnders special weekends but that just isn't good enough.

Can anybody at UKTV Gold confirm whether they will be going back to 1997 with EastEnders or 1985 and if it's 1997 can you please tell me why? (

I am really unhappy about UKTV Gold I really want them to rewind The Bill too but no doubt this will end up being rewound to some random year in the 1990s too as opposed to showing the classic archive of the 80s. (

Come on UKTV Gold get your act together.

They could rewind EastEnders now, who really gives a toss about the episodes that they are screening? So there's a few Den and Dennis fans that might be gutted but the episodes were only on BBC1 a matter of a couple of years ago anyways. Don't forget that EastEnders has been through a slump so I have no idea why UKTV Gold want to repeat that slump. (

Bring back Sue, Ali, Lou, Den and Angie for gawd sake!

I am happy to wait until they catch up with the current episodes but only if it's 1985 they go back to so once again can anyone at UKTV Gold confirm this and put me out of my misery once and for all?

Thanks
Tom

It's pretty obvious from the schedules that some time ago UK GOLD decided to move away from being a nostalgia gold channel and is seeking to compete with terrestrial with what are basically repeats of recent (last 2 or 3 years) shows that perhaps viewers heard a lot about at the time but never had time to watch. They get good ratings - they say - with this programme mix - Gimme Gimme Gimme, Vicar of Dibley, The Office, recent EastEnders etc etc - if that's what they're going for you won't get 1970s shows on, they are not going for the nostalgia audience.

The only gripe is that Richard from UKTV should perhaps be a bit more candid about the reality of UK Gold's viewer strategy - lay it directly on the line - rather than ducking the issue saying "we will consider your requests", or making up false reasons why they can't show them. Be honest with people and say that genuine "deep from the vault" archive programmes will simply not be shown again on the channel.

I can't believe this is true why are they going to rewind Eastenders to 1997? From that point onwards the show seriously deteriorated to the useless mess we have to endure today, after watcing it from the first episode on BBC1 I have now stopped because there is no point as the storylines are pathetic. What is wrong with UK Gold why are they treating their viewers so badly, is their reasoning money or is it just that only kids now watch the channel and they woud not be able to watch something so old, I don't know I am baffled! They show endless repeats of the same old episodes packaged under some weekend rubbish, useless channel. Time to switch to ITV3 I think!!
Rewind to 1985 and bring back some good old shows of all kinds!!!

GRRRRR!!!