Gerard

I agree with many of the sentiments here. Home and Away is pretty unrecognisable compared to the show it was for the first 30 years and worlds apart from where it was in the "classic days" (pre-2000) of "warm family drama". It's great we still have the strong "legacy characters" (Alf, Marilyn, Irene, Roo, Leah), but these should be the backbone of the series rather than siloed off in the Diner for much of their time. The series needs to "move with the times" of course, but it's sad they have thrown away the whole "family" aspect of the series, where the adults looked after the younger cast, gave out advice and you had all the drama and humour that came from the natural friction between different generations. You also had incredibly well defined and complex characters, like Don Fisher, Alf, Ailsa, Pippa and Irene. Might just be nostalgia and remembering things are better than they really were, but H&A when it was on top form, particularly in the early '90s, was so so very good. I really miss a lot of the old humour in H&A. It feels like the series (for some time now) takes itself too seriously with endless plot after plot involving crime/police or hospital drama. H&A can do drama very well, but I think it was more effective when you had a major drama plot every few months, rather than it being a weekly thing. Endless drama either becomes ineffective or exhausting to watch. Aside from the "drama", the series feels top heavy with 20- and 30- something characters, and many of the storylines around romantic relationships which all becomes a bit stale after a while. Getting rid of the teens and the school would have been unthinkable once. It's just now about random loosely-connected "young" adults living in a town by the beach. Lyrik started out as a decent idea of connecting unrelated characters, but even it feels a bit tired now. Given the longevity of Roo, Leah and Justin, seems like a real missed opportunity not to have them in a parent role to teens. Home and Away used to do such stories so well. Also, Marilyn and John could have so easily continued as foster parents. I can't even remember now why Marilyn and John split up, but neither character has benefitted from it, they could have so easily been as central as Alf and Ailsa or Pippa and Michael. What would H&A be like now if it centred around families led by Leah/Justin, John/Marilyn and Roo/Partner? It's disappointing that a series with such strong characters and history is not making the best of it. It's rare even to get a mention of a past character these days. H&A is still watchable but not "unmissable". It's been off air in the UK for about 7 weeks, I can't say I've missed it much. It's back next week and I will tune in (as I have done since the 80's), but if the series ended soon, I wouldn't be upset about it.

I am not sure if Neighbours’ disappearance and Home and Away’s new lunchtime timeslot will make much of a difference to the show’s ratings. I’m sure there will be a few new viewers seeking a replacement for Neighbours, but it’s just as likely that some viewers may just have watched H&A as a lead-in for Neighbours. if H&A ratings do receive a boost, it would be interesting to see if it holds onto those viewers in 2 or 3 months time.

I wonder if this will affect the ratings? I'm personally disappointed by the timeslot change as I always was able to watch H&A during my lunchtime. This won't be possible in the later timeslot. I will of course record it and watch it later, but I would have been happier if it had stayed where it was. Channel 5 are probably stuck with it now, thanks to the "lifetime of the series" deal. I bet they regret that now. I can't see any of the mainstream UK channels picking up H&A if somehow Channel 5 could terminate the contract. If no one was willing to buy Neighbours, I think it's even less likely someone would buy H&A. However as the cost of buying the series is much less than Neighbours was, it is possible it could be picked up by another channel or streaming service if the price was right. Indeed if it was cheap enough Ch5 may be happy to have it in a graveyard slot on 5Star. Plus if viewing figures fall further, Ch5 may be able to renegotiate a cheaper deal, since the series would be providing smaller returns.

I think the main reason that Home and Away hasn't been dropped by Channel 5 is because of this "lifetime deal" contract. The fact it lost its "primetime" showing on the main channel makes it clear that the series is not the jewel in the crown in the schedule. I guess it means that H&A could end up airing on 5Star only, or perhaps exclusively on My5 catchup. If the schedulers find a series which costs less than H&A to buy or make, but brings in just as much, or more, advertising revenue, H&A would be replaced in a heartbeat. I suppose 20+ years ago when the "lifetime deal" was done, the TV landscape was very different, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm sure someone regrets that the deal wasn't up for review every 10 years. You would like to hope there would be an option to renegotiate if Channel 5 were making a loss out of the deal. (I admit, I don't know if H&A is making or costing Channel 5 money). I'm not sure that Channel 5 "must air" the show for as long as its made, but presumably they are legally contracted to buy the series. I would imagine there must be some kind of get-out-clause though, possibly having to pay massive compensation to terminate the contract, otherwise in hindsight it was a bad deal for Channel 5, as they could be obliged to pay for H&A for decades to come, and running at a loss. Clearly there was no sentimentality over the decision to axe Neighbours, so H&A would likely follow, unless the contract is so watertight it's impossible to renegotiate.

I'm sure TPTB would hope Ray stays for as long as possible, since I imagine a certain portion of the audience only watch because he's still there. But I'm sure it has crossed the minds of TPTB that if he decided to call it a day during the 30th anniversary year, it would (conveniently) provide the opportunity for a massive storyline to mark the milestone.

There is a new article on Digital Spy indicating that C5's owner company Viacom "allegedly aren't keen on renegotiating for the soap". Whether that means they just don't want the series, or they don't want to pay any more money for the series isn't clear to me. Pure speculation that they might want to free up the budget and the schedule for their own home-grown content. I wonder how keen they are to keep H&A on, and whether or not that's negotiable? If Neighbours left Channel 5, surely it would be the beginning of the end for H&A on Channel 5 too? As for whether another TV company in the UK would pick the series up, it's possible, but I can't see BBC or ITV being interested, but it could go on Netflix or Amazon, or maybe Sky1. I'd be surprised if no one at all was interested.

News is doing the rounds today that the future of Neighbours on Channel 5 is in question as Viacom (the owner) have failed to reach agreement over the transmission deal. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4328060/Neighbours-disappear-screens.html Not wanting to turn this into a discussion about Neighbours, but if the series did disappear from Channel 5 would this have any long term impact on the future of H&A too? We know H&A is supposed to be on a "lifetime of the series" deal with means Channel 5 can (or must?) air H&A until it ends in Australia. But given that Neighbours and H&A are paired together in the Channel 5 schedule, and Neighbours is the more popular series in the UK, if it did go from Ch5 would this have any negative effect on H&A, or possibly even a positive effect in sending some former Neighbours viewers over to H&A? I know H&A aired on the channel for years before it acquired Neighbours. Another possibility is that Neighbours could be aired by another channel. I think it's unlikely now that it would be picked up by a mainstream channel, but imagine if ITV picked it up and aired in direct competiton to H&A. All wild speculation, and hopefully it won't happen, but it does seem there is at least some possibiliy that Neighbours might not be on Channel 5 for much longer. Also, if the owners of Channel 5 are reluctant to spend the cash on Neighbours, what chance has H&A got, as its ratings are lower? Is it possible Viacom could try to negotiate an even lower price for H&A, and is it possible that deal could stall somehow?

Just read an interesting post on the "TV Forum" site: "From what I was told by an old source, the contract to Home and Away was renegotiated to cut costs during the start of the Richard Desmond years [probably 6 or 7 years ago] which included a clause where the programme needed to be aired a minimum of 6 weeks behind the Australian airings." If this is indeed true, I guess that explains why Channel 5 are forced to maintain such a large transmission gap. So effectively they are paying less for the show and as a consequence they are forced to show it weeks behind Australia. It sounds plausible as you would think they would narrow the gap as much as they could to maximise ratings. I guess they think the series isn't worth paying the extra cash for in order to show it more up to date, and I would speculate that they probably could acquire same day transmission rights, but they don't think it's worth the extra expense.

Seems strange Channel 5 would chose to run weeks behind though. There's certainly no logistical reason why they need to have the gap. But yes, I had forgotten about the erratic scheduling of double and triple episodes etc, but if they were to run one week behind Australia, that would smooth out any potential issues. Maybe Channel 5 aren't that bothered about H&A, It is there, but they don't seem to go out of their way to promote it very much. Most of their energies seem to go into Neighbours, and I suppose they think having the shows back-to-back is enough for the audience to remain loyal (but past viewing figures have shown that generally a small number of people actually switch away at 6pm). The series still has to go off air for 6-8 weeks (whatever the Austrailan season break is), I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one who would be OK if they aligned the break with Australia, as during December there is plenty to do besides watching TV. On the other hand I don't mind a mid-year gap either, when the weather is good and there are things to do outside. I wouldn't mind if Channel 5 repeated some episodes pre-2000. There are certainly spells of the show in recent years I wouldn't want to revisit.

It's crazy in this day and age that Channel 5 are running 5 weeks behind. Even in the final years of ITV, it was running 4 weeks or less behind, and when it finished, it was only 4 episodes behind. I'm sure it's not Channel 5's choice to run that far behind. I am sure they would like to show it the same day, as with Neighbours. Are they really contractually blocked from closing the gap? Maybe to get "same day" rights they would need to pay more money and don't think it's worth it? But aren't Channel 5 paying a substantial amount of H&A's production costs anyway? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Even if they wanted to avoid a long Christmas break, they could still show the first half of the year as "same day". Perhaps the audience is so low these days that Channel 5 don't really care any more? I know I don't care that much. Gone are the days when I'd read ahead in the spoilers. Perhaps it's because I could be about 90% certain that in the next few months: someone will end up in hospital, probably due to some violent crime incident involving guns and/or explosives and a hostage situation, and someone will end up pregnant and think the father is one of three people, and someone will discover their entire life is a lie. (*any similiarities with what really happens is entirely predictable co-incidental).

I was just thinking there that Alf is underused, but he still does appear quite often and is at the centre of Summer Bay House, where he should be. At least he hasn't been pushed into the background, like Irene has been for quite a while. I guess Alf is mellowing a bit in his latter years. I miss the fiery Alf from the first 10 years of the show. Given how H&A has been over the past few years, I would be tempted to give up watching once Alf leaves (hopefully not for a long time yet though), unless the series radically improves.

When H&A first started on ITV in 1989 it aired once a day at 5:10pm. The following year (I think it was) during the school holidays, they started to show a repeat episode in the morning during Children's ITV. Later this became a lunchtime repeat which aired in various slots including at around 12:30. This was either a new episode, or a repeat of the previous day. Then, a matter of weeks before H&A disappeared from ITV altogether they dropped the lunchtime episode. I haven't seen any sources other than the forum post link above mentioning dropping the lunchime episode on C5, however it got less than 200K viewers (2.3% share) yesterday when adjacent to a much-anticipated episode of Neighbours, but yet got its highest episode of the year in the 6pm slot, no doubt boosted by a special extra episode of Neighbours.H&A has consistently rated lower than Neighbours on C5, despite receiving probably at least as much promotion and being in a later timeslot. WIth the two shows being side by side, it seems obvious that e.g. in the evening, some viewers are actually turning over from C5 before H&A starts. If H&A can't build on a ready-made audience at 6pm, it's doing something wrong. I wonder if C5 are obliged to continue to show H&A until it ends, and are they happy or not with its current performance? In any case, if they are dropping the lunchtime episode, it will be interesting to see if the ratings for the evening episode rise or fall...not to mention whether the series can retain viewers over this May break.