Neighbours - unmissable drama
- Thread starter Tribal Spaceman
- Start date
On Sky it would only get a fraction of its current audience though. I doubt they’d get the financial return to justify it. Would someone really take out a Sky/Now subscription just to watch Neighbours?
And 10 had no choice really. Ratings had been terminal for years. Blame the government - if the Australian drama quota was weighted towards main channels rather than digital multi channels then 10 probably would’ve worked harder to turn the ratings decline around as they would’ve needed it to work on the main channel.
I'm under no illusion that Sky/NOW would work out, but out of all options, it would be the most viable, and likely only feasible option.
H&A had been beating Neighbours for years prior to the switch to 10 Peach (and I believe a news show was beating it in the slot, as well as Neighbours not being able to increase more adult content due to it's timeslot), but I don't believe it was that seriously poor at the time that the switch seemed justified. Especially given that it was the longest running, and they have to have some sort of commitment to original home programming.
It was performing much better during the initial Izzy/Karl affair plot, but it went a bit bat shit crazy at some point and then further ruined things by the 'back to basics' approach.
Does Home And Away still get decent ratings in Australia? I can't remember the last time I met anyone who watches it.
I agree with the sentiment but I couldn’t help but laugh
I think it does so much better, but even then it's dropped to about 750,000 viewers an episode from over a million in the last few years.
But neighbours is much worse. It's down to about 100,000 in Australia.
In the UK Neighbours is much higher rated and with the 2 showings is one of the better rated shows on Five but they contribute significantly towards the production cost which they don't with Home and Away.
Home and Away got around a million average viewers per episode in Australia in 2021 according to this -
Really bad way to treat the cast and crew like this. I've not watched it in years but have very fond memories of it. Someone posted a clip of an old episode on another site where Julie Martin accused her Chinese? neighbour of killing and cooking her cat...! Couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous and awful it was. Also this... Hahahah!
Yeah I think they dropped the ball a bit in the late 00’s, having lost brilliant characters like Sky, Izzy & the Timmins clan they then brought in Bridget and the dreary Parker family.
I hope they can find a way forward - this show has been my easy comfort viewing for years.
Latest ratings are 450,000-550,000
Which still makes it one of the highest rating shows on 7 in Australia.
Neighbours has been flopping even in the UK recently. People have been giving a 1 million viewers per episode statistic for it, but in reality it's 350k. It's not worth the cost.
Personally I haven't watched either regularly in years. I loved Home & Away back when it was about cults, murderous stalkers, and natural disasters. Things like Angie getting killed off, and the same actress returning a few months later as Angie's identical cousin Josie. That was iconic. I tuned in recently and it feels like a boring police drama now.
Latest Think Box figures give it 1m for lunchtime and 400-600k for teatime.
https://www.thinkbox.tv/research/barb-data/top-programmes-report/?tag=Channel5
That's 1 million across all avenues, but its live audience is most often in the 300-370k mark. By far the higher ad revenue for Channel 5 comes from live TV viewing rather than VOD. A figure of around 350k live viewers would be great if Channel 5 were merely licensing the show, but they fund most of the 20 million AUD it costs annually to make it. Neighbours isn't a hit with any of the audience demographics on Thinkbox.
When Channel 5 is able to pull in 1 million live viewers with something super cheap like Dogs Behaving Badly, Neighbours is no longer sustainable.
Island
Staff member
Irish network RTE is in talks to acqire the show.
Also, for those who haven’t watched in years and maybe think the show isn’t worth watching, it’s actually been consistently good for awhile. Ever since the Andrea/Dee plotline, the show has been embracing its ridiculousness such as Paul’s ex wives, Robert Robinson breaking out of prison, Scarlett the psychotic stalker (an icon who didn’t deserve the fan hate), Endgame, and the legendary Nicolette. And it still manages to bring back legacy characters like Jane, Amy Greenwood, Glen, and Mel. Like… it’s still good y’all.
Now get the episodes on YouTube again because they haven’t been up since the beginning of the year and I’m only at the episode after Kyle and Roxy’s wedding.
Also, for those who haven’t watched in years and maybe think the show isn’t worth watching, it’s actually been consistently good for awhile. Ever since the Andrea/Dee plotline, the show has been embracing its ridiculousness such as Paul’s ex wives, Robert Robinson breaking out of prison, Scarlett the psychotic stalker (an icon who didn’t deserve the fan hate), Endgame, and the legendary Nicolette. And it still manages to bring back legacy characters like Jane, Amy Greenwood, Glen, and Mel. Like… it’s still good y’all.
Now get the episodes on YouTube again because they haven’t been up since the beginning of the year and I’m only at the episode after Kyle and Roxy’s wedding.
It takes another big upswing in quality from that episode IMO. It's currently on fire.
I did until I left the UK and know a few people who do. As others has said, it’s much more popular than Neighbours in Australia and Ireland.
RTE have said they're in talks with Fremantle in relation to Neighbours. As in, they're wondering if they need to fill those timeslots with something else. Neighbours gets around 100k viewers per episode in Ireland. RTE's domestic soap Fair City is cheaper to produce than Neighbours and gets 600-700k viewers.