Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 09:39:22 PM

Login with username, password and session length

why could UK TV shows succeed on a Friday night?

Started by willbo, June 30, 2022, 11:53:11 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

willbo

I've just read that in the US "Friends" was shown on a thursday evening, cause that was the big evening for shows because it was cool/young people's last evening in before the weekend. I've also read that 60s Star Trek was killed off by being shown on a Friday eve in the US. But we in the UK had Friends and a lot of other big shows on Friday eves in the 90s. Is that cause we as a population didn't go out as much, or other demographics watched TV?

sevendaughters


dissolute ocelot

As someone who was around at the time, Channel 4 in the 90s did have a Friday evening that some people would have stayed in for, and many more would have caught some of it before or after going out (there was also the concept of post-pub TV like The Word later on Friday nights). A lot of kids would have watched, with later weekend bedtimes. And many people videoed it. Saturday night has always been a big night for TV here too, despite people going out, although that's maybe for the slightly older audience.

But Thursdays weren't invariably must-see TV night in the US. It depends on having multiple consistently good shows, and encouraging an audience. For a while NBC managed to create a consistent Thursday night with Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld, and Will & Grace but that didn't last forever and it was replaced with cops and reality TV. ABC had a lot of success over decades with family friendly Friday night comedy from the Flintstones to Full House. Tuesdays have also been big at some points. In the US they also do a lot of sport on Friday nights and show football on Monday nights, which isn't as big a tradition here (though now you get English Premiership games every night).

In Ireland in late 90s, Monday night was the home of comedy, including Friends.

Des Wigwam

Between about '88 and '92 Thursday night was the night I looked forward to mainly for that 9pm slot. Meant there was something to talk about at school on the Friday and also it was almost Friday so pretty much the weekend. That Thursday night concept has always stuck with me even though I've not really stayed in for TV since the early 90s. Friday night TV has never had the same draw for me - the post-pub TV was on at best in the background.

petril

in the US, Friday seems to have been more of a doing stuff night. American Football since about the 50s was always segregated(not like that) as High School on Friday, College on Saturday, Pros on Sunday/Monday to avoid fighting each other for attendance.

plus the other sports tended to run on every night of the week, almost

it always interested me in the divergence across the Atlantic of a Saturday morning - they had just cartoons flung out in chunks, we had a mix of cartoons and Public Service Broadcasting commitments that made way to "give them 2-3 hours live in a studio to piss about"

Friday was always one to look forward to for me, telly wise. Get through the iffy chunk of 7-9 and I was sorted. I have so many memories of catching the last five minutes of gardening programmes before the good stuff arrived at 9

oggyraiding

In the mid-late-noughties, BBC's Friday line up usually had Have I Got News For You and then something else I didn't care about; while Channel 4 had high profile comedies like Peep Show, The IT Crowd, Star Stories, Balls Of Steel, The Friday Night Project. Then there's the Big Brother eviction nights. Lots of stuff, of variable quality, making being sat in front of the telly the place to be on a Friday night.