Will H&A: The Early Years ever return?

[CaptainHulk]

22 hours ago, cymbaline said:

I'm not disagreeing with you on any of this. It isn't just soaps which take time to bed in. There are lots of TV series which aren't the best at the start and take some time to hit their stride. My point is, if somebody who's not familiar with Home and Away was to log into Prime and start watching, they wouldn't get far. I'd love to know why they only uploaded the first two seasons and no more. Were the viewing figures low? 

Maybe rights were a thing

[cymbaline]

Could be. Or that it wasn't worth their while uploading more. I hate that so many TV shows will never see the light of day again for all sorts of reasons. Rights, royalties, production companies gone bust etc.

[Luigi Severus Fletcher]

I gave up hopes in 2020...

It would have been nice to see it return though.

[James Martin]

If it does, it'll be a 7+ affair.

In the UK, we know Channel 5 have the rights from mid-2000.  That's 23 years' worth of episodes.

And in a really odd move, STV - the Scottish affiliate of ITV (H&A's original UK network between 1989-2000) - are dropping the entire run of Channel 4 soap Brookside on their streaming service.

Brookside ran from 1982 to 2003 and was set in the northwest city of Liverpool - the cul-de-sac it was filmed on still exists; if you saw Eurovision, the dude painting the Ukraine flag on his garage in the opening VT?  That!

So to bring it back on topic, I don't think we'll ever see a rerun on linear.  However, I can see 7+ and My5 doing a joint venture for classic seasons beyond the ones Amazon have picked up.

On 07/12/2022 at 12:43, early years fan said:

Really enjoying the special episodes currently showing on 7plus.  Lovely to reminisce

I had never actually seen the pilot episode so that was great to see.

wish they would show the follow up episodes to the death ones as the incidents happen right at the end and would love to recap the subsequent ones immediately after.

have only watched the ones up to around early 2000s as that is when I originally stopped watching it.

With Channel 5's repeats in 2012 (3 a year; 2 linear, 1 streaming) they did this, notably with Shane. So you got the death in the recap and then the aftermath.

[j.laur5]

If 7two had never stopped the Early Years  in 2017 without any long breaks we'd be up to 2002 by now. 
 

If Early years never stop in 1999 when it first started we be up to 2013 and approaching the  arrival of my all time favourite character Matt Page. 
 

7two did four episodes daily of Sons and Daughter’s last year and wonder if 7two would ever do five episodes of H&A daily form pilot and wonder how long it take to get to present time. 

[CaptainHulk]

Channel 5  probably do have the rights to some pre-2000 stuff but it's in dribs and drabs.

[early years fan]

I have noticed that this morning on seven plus they have started playing all episodes from the pilot onwards in order.  They are up to episode 4 now.  
 

[hapitoby]

11 hours ago, early years fan said:

I have noticed that this morning on seven plus they have started playing all episodes from the pilot onwards in order.  They are up to episode 4 now.  
 

Oh wow just checked it out. That's mad if they do that. I know most of season one is available on Amazon in some countries (UK and US I think)...so imagine in terms of the rights, it wouldn't be too hard for seven to show this season. Though, we may not get any other full seasons..

[early years fan]

Trouble is it’s on the live channel, so can only watch it when home

there is no way of watching the episodes back

[hapitoby]

10 hours ago, early years fan said:

Trouble is it’s on the live channel, so can only watch it when home

there is no way of watching the episodes back

Good news. They've now added it. So on the main Home And Away Profile you can watch EPS from 1988, 2022 and 2023. Great they've finally done that! Hopefully it's permanent. I've no idea why they decided to take away the special EPS on the main channel and only put it on the live ones.