Mr Bates vs Post Office drama lost £1m, ITV boss says

20 comments

1. I hope they’re privately prosecuting the producers

2. I would imagine higher quality television can make a loss as long as the masses watch The Chase.

3. Great, and? It was never going to do well abroad and did surprisingly well here so why it was given a budget that would require it to do well both domestically and internationally to be cost neutral is something only he can answer.

   There was no real reason this needed to be a drama and not a documentary, something some Youtubers with tiny teams, Adderall and energy drinks manage to crank out high quality versions of in weeks.

4. What we need is a movie on the PPE scandal they basically stole billions

   I’m sure they’ll all mone about it.

5. ITV status went through roof with this; 1m£ loss is nothing.

6. Surely the post office can fiddle the books to cover that for them?

7. I’m not really sure that making money was the point of it.

8. This is a really damning admission. If your business does not make money even with its most successful and popular products, then that’s a structural problem and your business is doomed.

9. In all honesty, they could have made some thing just as powerful for much less money.

   There as a big cast, lots of locations shooting etc..

10. > Last month, ITV said 12 foreign broadcasters had bought the Mr Bates drama. But Mr Lygo said it wasn’t sufficiently appealing to foreign viewers to break even.

    I’d love to know what markets bought it. I know there was interest in Japan due to the Fujitsu angle but I’m not sure that would translate into any channel actually dubbing it. 

11. This was a great eye opener!

    Need one for cladding now!

12. This is understandable, ad space is bought and planned months in advance. A slot between a show highlighting an issue that was ongoing for other ten years would.be a hard sell with unkown data on viewer numbers and age demographics. Exiting long standard shows have this data and are more expensive as low risk when targwtting certain demographics for ads. What this will.mean that the new documentary drama will sell for more as this was a hit.

13. Were they using the Horizon computer system as well?!

    That series was a huge success

14. Given its success with viewers this show was clearly never made with direct profit in mind, it was to raise the profile of the company and bring prestige. It will have easily added a million in unmeasured goodwill.

15. I watched it because it was great. But I won’t go back on the app because it is TERRIBLE.

16. May have lost financially, morally it’s one of the best success stories for British TV ever though

17. ITV hasn’t been in my good books recently as they have messed up Coronation Street massively, the news is more dramatic current affairs rather than actual news… However this series was great! I watched each episode and felt so invested!

18. itvx is second entertainment app on app store so they defo got some exposure boost

19. For point of comparison, the historical standard in the US was that most network shows – of the 22-24 episode a season kind – lost money until they reached four seasons and could be sold into syndication, where the real money was. A show in its third season that was one season away from a sellable-sized package was near-guaranteed a fourth season.

    That’s how *Star Trek* survived in the public consciousness; it was syndicated after cancellation and so re-runs were common. *Star Trek: The Next Generation* for its part was sold directly into syndication on its first run.

20. I think you’re all right, ITV overall made money on this but it’s not the crux of the message.

    The central point is, this was a big gamble. Yes it paid off, yes they’ll definitely recoup that money- but this is the black swan exception.

    Far more risky to do something as worthy as this and lose that money, far less risky to get Michael Macintyre to hit a piñata full of NHS prescriptions every Friday night on Have I Got Pills for You.