Everybody needs good neighbours, as the song goes – though not British broadcaster Channel 5, it seems, as the long-running Australian soap is to be dropped later this year
Why?
In a statement accompanying the devastating news, Channel 5 stated that its current focus is on “increasing our investment in original UK drama, which has strong appeal for our UK viewers”. The assumption, then, is that dramas set in rainy, dreary Britain are more of a sell than a show which allows viewers to vicariously enjoy a sunshine lifestyle currently unavailable to them.
Is this a salad cream play?
You mean where a company or organisation announces they’re shelving a product of distinguished vintage because sales have dropped only they’re not really shelving it, they just want the free publicity the inevitable outcry will produce? So named because Heinz, manufacturers of the much-loved condiment, threatened to stop making it in 1999 and then in 2018 announced they would change its name to Sandwich Cream, resulting in acres of newspaper headlines/publicity on both occasions?
Well, yes
It’s possible, though as things stand it does look as if Channel 5’s decision means the end for the soap. Considered to be more popular in the UK than in its native Australia, the show is produced by Fremantle Media for broadcaster Network 10 but it’s the partnership with Channel 5 which makes the production costs viable and have done since 2008. Without a UK broadcast partner, it seems production will stop on June 10. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that negotiations between Fremantle and Channel 5 have broken down and that production staff were informed of the impending end credits rolling on the show at the weekend. “It is our intention to continue our association with Neighbours if another broadcast partner comes forward,” a Network Ten spokesperson told the paper. “Network Ten has an ongoing commitment to the show, the cast and crew and is hopeful that Fremantle will find a new production partner.”
Will tears be shed if they don’t?
They will. Neighbours, which has aired on British television since 1986, currently pulls in just under one million viewers per episode, putting it marginally ahead of Channel 4’s Gogglebox and (though it’s hard to believe) well ahead of the same channel’s Party Island: Summer In Zante. It also has a long list of stella alumni to call upon to mount a defence. Chief among them is Kylie Minogue, of course, fast approaching National Treasure status in these northern latitudes. But among the other heavy-hitters who have appeared on the soap at one time or another are Hollywood stars Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce and Liam Hemsworth. Even Russell Crowe appeared in four episodes in 1987 (he played Kenny Larkin and looked like a cross between Ray Winstone and A-ha’s Morten Harket).
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