James Martin

I note that if you stream it, you now get a 5 STAR DOG instead of a Channel 5 one, even on this lunchtime's episode. It is however HD via on demand - at least on Virgin it is.

Yeah but nobody watches 5 Star. It's the main channel you need to promote on, and specifically make it clear how to find 5 Star. Specifically, this needs to be done at the 6pm junction where I imagine the vast majority of people are wondering why Summer Bay has turned into Erinsborough. Channel 5 haven't signposted the changes for Home and Away *at all* on socials (indeed, the last update relates to the Pandemic episode rationing) whereas Neighbours have had plenty of promo for the time change. A lot of this is academic though, 5 Star isn't available to "Freeview Lite" viewers - in rural areas very few channels are carried and rural parts of the UK are notorious for slow broadband, so streaming isn't available either. So if you're in a rural area, it's 1:15pm or bust. Channel 5 have treated the show so badly it's unforgiveable and I still say this could be the beginning of the end for the show as a whole. Say what you like about ITV but they never ever stooped this low.

Do we have any figures since the changes?

Nobody watches 5 Star anyway so I wouldn't worry. ?

They were originally 12:30, when the lunchtime was the repeat. Moved to 2:15/1:15 when Neighbours came over. I see the Christmas finale is going out at 12:30 though.

So the lunchtime airings will be back in sync from 2022. Is the earlier time now permanent?

End of an era today - the last teatime outing for Home and Away, ending a 32 year tradition. Arguably longer if you count the BBC starting it with Neighbours; originally slated for lunchtime only, controller Michael Grade's teenage daughter persuaded him that a teatime repeat was needed as kids were bunking off school to watch it!

Channel 5 have been almost sacrosanct about keeping the timeslots and format they inherited from BBC One until now. Of course, they were lucky they didn't have to wait to pick the series up. I imagine more of the issue is, as always, money. We know Channel 5 are paying far more than the BBC did for Neighbours - Freemantle wanted a big increase and the BBC couldn't justify spending that amount of public money on an import. We also know Channel 5 pay less than ITV did for Home & Away - but have paid for a lifetime deal. So Neighbours is always going to be top dog as they need it to earn its keep more than H&A.

Used to be like that but they changed it to fit around Neighbours, quelle suprise. I mean that's basically how it'll play out with 6:30 the main showing now in effect. The 6pm showing had a point on 5 as that was HD, and so you could get your first look on 5* but SD was the compromise. Before that, not all homes had access to 5*/Life/Fiver etc. But to have an encore screening, against Neighbours, 30 minutes before a new episode, makes no sense.

That's amazing. I genuinely didn't know 5* was picking up that level of audience. I'm not sure of the point of keeping the 6pm encore against Neighbours mind you, I can't see it rating that well with First Look half an hour later. Only thing that bothers me is it's up against Hollyoaks at 6.30. I know they also have First Look on E4 but that must get floored by Emmerdale? To be honest if an evening showing on the main channel isn't an option I'd be looking what what the BBC and ITV did with their soaps during the footy, and dropping the entire block on My5 on a Monday morning. I'll admit I'm a bit of a dinosaur with television; maybe it's because I live on my own but I like the shared experience of watching a linear broadcast knowing lots of other people are watching with me. I find streaming programmes a lonely, isolating experience because nobody else is watching it at that pace, only me.

Is lunchtime really outrating evenings? Aren't people at work, school, college etc? As for streaming, My5 doesn't seem to be talked about as a household brand like BBC iPlayer or ITV Hub are, and a lot of Smart TVs don't carry it (compared to iPlayer which seems to run on absolutely everything.) Do people know it's there is my question? It could be detrimental to the entire show if it loses its UK audience because of this, though I concede Neighbours is more vulnerable in that regard. Without a UK deal, Ten won't make the show.

It's pointless. So unless you can watch at lunchtime you have to find out a random, VHS-quality channel in the depths of the EPG that hardly anyone watches anyway whilst C5's favourite Aussie baby gets all the love and attention in 1080p HD at the same time. Channel 5 should offer to relinquish their lifetime deal to another broadcaster if they don't want it. ITV daytime is too lifestyle/quiz centric now to want it back, Channel 4 have Hollyoaks - maybe the BBC should take it on?

If I wanted to watch in VHS quality I'd record the lunchtime showing on an old VCR. What a load of crap.

The issue is Channel 5 had a requirement to broadcast 30 minutes of news in peak time (6pm-10:30pm) but they've been allowed by Ofcom to change that to a single hour long programme at 5pm. It also gives them a point of difference against the other networks and they can beat the BBC and ITV to the big stories. Increased working from home - here to stay in some form - means there'll be an audience for it. They can also now broadcast an alternative during the ITV and BBC news hours. With the acquisition of Eggheads, there's only room for one of the Aussie shows and Neighbours was always going to win that war. In any case, Neighbours has basically been kept alive by the UK for years now, whereas Home and Away is still popular enough domestically to just about manage without a UK deal. What worries me is what the loss of teatime viewers will mean for the show long term as losing the majority of the UK audience will be seen as a lack of confidence in the programme. And do Channel 5 have a getout clause? Surely they must do as they can't be paying what they were paying 20 years ago, nor can Seven just massively raise their price and C5 can't do anything about it. With enough notice, Viacom must be able to say to Seven, "we want out."

I have to confess I've not watched at Aussie pace since downloads were stopped on here in the late 2000s. The only versions I can find are usually horribly distorted in some way, although with a VPN it's not exactly hard to get the episodes now; alas my supplier (which I mainly use when I go to Eurovision so I can still place bets) doesn't have any Aussie servers.

As for Channel 5, sometimes I think ITV were very careless in losing it despite all the edits. Channel 5 treated the show brilliantly until 2008 but then it was all about Neighbours and we got forgotten. ITV meanwhile failed to fill the slot successfully for years, including two failed soaps. However, the network has invested heavily in daytime since. I certainly don't think ratings would have fallen to the level they have on ITV and I certainly don't think ITV would have pulled the teatime showing.

I believe C5 pay a lot less for H&A than they do Neighbours, which the BBC gave up based on the amount Freemantle were asking for it. Consequently, I think that's why Neighbours gets all the love and attention.

Because of the lifetime deal, no other broadcaster can acquire it from Channel 5. It's obviously a millstone round their neck and all the effort is being put into Neighbours. No broadcaster in their right mind buys a teen soap and sticks it on in the middle of the day when only a handful of people will be watching. What also didn't help is moving the premiere to lunchtime to match Neighbours. That should have never happened. It drew far bigger audiences when the first showing was at teatime. I just really feel this is going to decimate the audience long term. A lot of people who watch at 6pm just won't make the effort to seek it out. It's like when Murray (and I'm sure from next year Radacanu) are playing at Wimbledon when BBC Two are scheduled to do the coverage, they always swop over the two schedules because the tennis gets bigger audiences on BBC One. Yes it's on My5, but do many people really bother with streaming? You do have to be pretty clued up on computers to find what you want to watch on catchup players, that's assuming you have a smart TV and those are often only the main set. I doubt most kids bedroom TVs are smart. It's going to kill the show completely in the UK. The lunchtime showing will shuffle off to 5* in a year or two and it'll quietly die in the UK. A far cry from the 14m it got on ITV. Maybe I'm wrong and it'll clean up on 5* but I don't think people make the effort to wander that far up the EPG. Case in point - Eurovision gets a few hundred thousand on BBC Four in midweek but 8m+ when it moves to BBC One on the Saturday night. A lot of people simply don't know there's three shows, not just one.

Top 6pm showing got 333k, the top 5* showing got 389k. So maybe there's method in the madness.

It's a demotion no two ways about it, in the way Neighbours is on a brand extension channel in Australia. I knew something was up when the teatime showing got junked during the Covid rationing rather than alternating the two shows at 6pm or 5.30pm. Clearly an experiment but with WFH Orders and Furlough over it's different now... A catchup with Australia is off the cards though as has been said, Seven's bizarre scheduling makes that impossible. What would help is if C5 made their spinoff channels HD on premium Sky/Virgin/IPTV packages, where ITV and C4 make their extra channels available in HD (and until recently was the only way to watch C5 in HD!) I can only assume they're betting the farm on the teenage audience streaming it, which they will do. Not sure the 5* ratings will get the boost they're expecting when they're up against Hollyoaks - probably the closest thing to a British H&A.

If 5* is outrating the C5 6pm then I guess it's a no brainer. Furthermore, if you consider the popularity of Love Island as an example, are most of the audience going to be bothered about SD only? I doubt it. I'm at my dad's right now and he's watching the Ryder Cup on a 75in telly... in SD. He doesn't notice the difference when I turn it over for him! I have access to RTÉ Two in HD so I'll personally seek it out there. But for most for HD you either need to be retired or unemployed! Is the My5 version in HD these days?

Very disappointing news but not unexpected, H&A has always been the unloved older sibling since Neighbours arrived. I hope this isn't the end for the show overall... the UK deal has always funded most of Seven's production costs. The argument is yes, you've got 5* but the picture quality is atrocious. All that said, the majority of the audience profile will have access to My5 and watch it there. Some regions dropped the lunchtime showing I believe, but the evening showing stayed until the end.

Australia show episodes when they want. This is how it should work. Episode numbers ending in the following should air on the corresponding days... 1 or 6 MONDAY 2 or 7 TUESDAY 3 or 8 WEDNESDAY 4 or 9 THURSDAY 5 or 0 FRIDAY E.G. 6497 is designed to air on a Tuesday, but 4251 should air on a Monday.

We haven't. We've been one episode out since the death of Prince Phillip. However, because the Olympic Cliffhanger was scheduled for a Thursday in Oz, it'll hit us on a Friday.

Worth noting we're getting the Olympic Cliffhanger on a Friday despite the DoE's passing knocking the blocks out of sync. I'm guessing given the erratic scheduling in Oz, the blocks become less relevant.