15 years of Home and Away on Channel 5!

[dan]

Yep 15 years ago today (16th July) Channel 5 began broadcasting Home and Away for the first time following the acquisition of the rights previously belonging to ITV. At the time there was an extended hiatus of over a year for legal reasons (Ep 2840 on 8th June 2000 on ITV, Ep 2841 on 16th July 2001), and a general feeling of unease about how a (then) relatively new and inexperienced network would handle the show. Would their Mr Snippy be more relaxed, as bad, or even worse, than ITV's? Would they offer more promotion than ITV? Would they get the same viewing figures ITV had got? Would everything carry on as before, just with the bummer of being a year or more behind Oz? Would Channel 5's extra money and different outlook actually move Home and Away into a different direction as a show?

So 15 years later how do we think they did, and was it worth the 13 month wait? Oh and where the heck did the last 15 years go?

[CaptainHulk]

Yes, too a degree because the 2000 season was still pretty spicy and we were awaiting the lead up to Sal's (Non) Wedding and wanting to see the resolution of Irene being menaced by Eve Smith w/ a cricket bat.

C5 was drawing like 3m an ep in the early going as it was the perfect lead in to Family Affairs (Unfairly cancelled when it just began to WORK). Plus the Omnibus was doing rather well until about 2004. Mr Snippy all but went into retirement. Also there was a bit of a stigma at the time about Channel 5 (which hasn't quite washed away).

Their promotion made ITV's look like s***. TBF, It was s*** after a while, after about 1996 they stopped promoting H&A.

I think the thing that ended up sinking the ratings was the first look. Around 2007-08, I think 5 Life/Fiver/5*/5Star actually broke a mil with it (Impressive for a digi channel that few people got at the time).

 

[Gerard]

ITV really ran H&A into the ground in the late 90's, so it came a a bit of mixed relief that they lost the show. At the time we had high hopes the snippery would end, and it seemed to, along with re-instating the closing credits, but back in those days Channel 5 was still seen as a bit of a backwater with a niche audience.

H&A certainly brought new viewers to the channel and helped them into the mainstream. But viewing figures fell noticably, due to many factors, not just the channel move and year off-air.

The biggest change for me though was that with months of the series moving to Channel 5, it was barely recognisable as the same show. We had that massive turnover of cast in 2000. I have to wonder if the "revamp" just happened to be co-incidental with the channel move, or there was more to it? But overall Channel 5 have treated the series a lot better than ITV ever did.

The trouble these days is that the show is spread across multiple channels with many showings per day, not to mention "On Demand", so who knows how many people actually would see any episode these days, but it would be a lot less than it used to be. It doesn't help that for whatever reason, Channel 5 are for some reason running 7 weeks behind, which is quite a gap in this day and age, when you think that ITV was only 4 episodes behind when it ended there. I think the transmission gap does the series in the UK no favours.

[dan]

11 minutes ago, Gerard said:

 

 

12 minutes ago, Gerard said:

when you think that ITV was only 4 episodes behind when it ended there.

Actually ITV had been messing with the scheduling in the last few weeks (mostly dropping Fridays I think), and we had dropped to 9 episodes behind on ITV's last day (Thurs 8th June 2000), or 10 if you count from the end of ITV's last week (given they dropped that final Friday). When Channel 5 finally showed 2841, 15 years ago today, we had plummeted to 250 eps behind, ten further behind than even ITV were when they showed episode one! I think RTE in Ireland were actually the first to air eps after Seven during this time (and actually went ahead of Seven for a few days if memory serves).

[Gerard]

I think you're right there. ITV started the 2000 season 4 episodes behind Australia, and RTE started it one episode in front of Australia (oops!). RTE did this for a number of weeks until they had to drop a couple of episodes, Then RTE took H&A off air at some point in July 2006 for what was supposed to be a short break. Meanwhile if I remember correctly ITV dropped one of H&A's daily episodes - I can't remember now if it was the lunchtime or evening episode, and you're probably right about them dropping it on Fridays (I know they did this at some stage).

Fun fact - the final episode that ITV showed was the only ever episode that aired on ITV before RTE. That episode did not air on RTE for several months, if memory serves. There was some story at the time that Channel 5 believed they had premiere rights which meant RTE could not broadcast any more episodes until they started on Ch5. But H&A did return on RTE several months later. Eventually Channel 5 did catch up with RTE and I think have always stayed ahead or on the same day.

It is amazing to think when it started on Channel 5, it was further behind than ever before. I assume Channel 5 would like to air episodes on the same day as Australia, like Neighbours. I think this would be a win-win for everyone, but who knows if it will ever happen. The downside of this is that H&A usually takes quite a long break over Christmas which would coincide with a time when Channel 5 would probably be looking to pull in most viewers.

[dan]

I think that on the occasion you were thinking of ITV showed a lunchtime episode one day without a teatime repeat due to a sporting event, then showed a teatime repeat the next day without showing anything at lunchtime. I was thinking this was due to Euro 2000 matches, but looking it up now that didn't start until after ITV's contract was up so maybe I'm thinking back to World Cup 98? I believe one of the reasons for ITV dropping some potential broadcasts near the end of its run was that some of the minor ITV regions (Tyne Tees and STV possibly if memory serves?) had got slightly further behind than the Central-networked run due to having opted out once or twice in the past for local programming, so Central (who managed H&A rights for the network) had to ensure they could catch up during the same timeframe and all got to that specific episode (2840) by the end of the last week. Of course all the regions chose their own timeslots for H&A so it's entirely possible some had only one showing. I think Central had three showings at one point, lunchtime, teatime and then abt 4/5am, but I could be remembering wrong. Somewhere I still have all my notes about broadcast dates etc covering about 96-00 so I might have to dig it out.

[Jeremai]

It was absolutely worth the wait at the time as the show was on a high point with the cool new opening titles and theme tune (even if the sliding smiley faces did grow old pretty quickly), a great mix of drama (cliffhangers like Gypsy seeing Natalie kiss Glen AND then having a car crash right afterwards) and nostalgia (the returns of Celia, Greg and Lance who hadn't been seen for years). As CaptainHulk said, we had the impending Sally's non-wedding and all the nostalgia around the Pippa, Floss, Frank, Steven, Sally and Jack's last night at Summer Bay House. It was great to see Home and Away billboards and multi-page catch up articles in the soap magazines. C5 did so much promotion, it was obvious they were going to treat the show well. And we weren't disappointed when those closing credits played in full. And then I left the UK two weeks later!

[cadyctslover]

It seems like it was a great move. Increased funding from the UK channel has resulted in improved production quality. There has been better promotion and C5 have spent less time hacking the show to pieces in the editing room - perhaps too little time. I remember the word 'tosser' being cut out in 2010 but the scene was later left in for the recap in a later episode.

I do think the huge 7 week gap in transmission between Network 7 and C5 is more likely interference from Network 7. Why would C5 have episodes of Neighbours running on the same day but not H&A? Neighbours takes a Christmas break too.

[Little bean]

I remember the move with sadness. I lived in an area with no access to channel 5 so I had to stop watching. I can't remember how many years I missed but it was a massive chunk. I sometimes wish they would show earlier episodes on 5* or something. 

[Red Ranger 1]

It's slightly scary to think it's been so long, especially when the show seemed to be winding down even then.I remember when someone first pointed out the show had been on Channel 5 longer than ITV and I felt very old.I think the change was a mixed bag.The UK audience dropped off considerably, no-one but the most dedicated knew the show was even still being made, they thought that was the end.(Despite publicity making the situation clear and a memorable farewell tribute on Teletext pointing out all the unresolved plot points.)To this day, I meet people who think the show ended in the 90s and don't know it's still on.Putting the show on Channel 5, a channel that some of the country couldn't receive at the time, was not going to give it a high profile.

Still, yes, the editing hasn't been as bad (although there've still been a few incidents in recent years, like the snipping of all the shots of Tank's knife last year) and we got the closing titles back (we get them and Australia doesn't now!).And there was a huge wave of publicity with mini documentaries and catch-ups in the lead-up to its return.I remember them running those trailers with the Family Affairs characters discussing Home and Away coming back and a marvellous one of one word clips from the series saying the theme song, which I sadly only saw once.(Main memory is they included a clip of Simone Harris.Maybe she was the only person they could find saying "Emotion".)Publicity's dropped off in recent years but they did heavily trail the explosion episodes.It was an odd time to be joining, I remember the increasingly long list in Inside Soap of characters who'd left in Australia, I think we knew about Will and Gypsy getting married before the show even came back (so no point getting too invested in Will and Dani...).And that rather bizarre publicity stunt of filming in London to mark the return to UK screens even though UK viewers wouldn't see those episodes for about a year...

I agree the First Look has split the audience, it feels like a relic of the early days of digital television when they were trying to get people watching the new channels.I doubt it's something they'd start now and it's another barrier to near-simultaneous broadcast.I can't remember ITV showing an episode twice over two days.I remember, I think during Wimbledon, the tea-time showing of Neighbours on the BBC got pulled because it overran so they showed the episode the next day, lunchtime and tea-time, and everything dropped back a day.To me it seemed eminently fair and sensible and I don't think it was even unprecedented but Points of View was full of "Why are the BBC showing this episode three times in two days?" so it never happened again.I remember there was one episode of HA around the time of the helicopter crash where Channel 5 didn't even schedule a tea-time showing and I didn't see it until years later.