A 36 Year Media Failure | 177 comments (177 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (4.00 / 2)

That's not as simple an explanation as it seems. It's partly the language issue - it's much easier to buy media from the US - and partly because there's never been a good push in the media for suggesting that they might want to, or explaining why they should. It may also be down to marketing - I'm not sure how close the connections are between Euro TV and UK TV, and how much of an effort is made to sell to the UK.

And yes, Euro-soaps, or soap operas with European connections, would go a long way to helping solve that.

Those of us with towering ET intellects will of course find the idea endearingly chucklesome, but in fact soaps have a long and global history of being used deliberately as mild - and sometimes not so mild - public education and propaganda.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 04:29:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (4.00 / 7)

I do see your point. From my understanding talking to people in the "industry" though, the pan-European problem here is that programming executives are such total cowards.

They might steal a format if it's successful in another country, and they're happy to put foreign productions in post-prime slots and niche broadcasters, but the very thought of putting foreign content into a high-profile slot is enough to make them mess themselves.

Certainly in Germany, the public broadcasters are as risk-averse as the private-sector ones.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 04:55:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (4.00 / 3)

dvx:

the very thought of putting foreign content into a high-profile slot is enough to make them mess themselves

Unless it's American content.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 04:57:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (none / 1)

The wiles and failings of media execs are a whole other diary.

But I still have a suspicion that if Euro content was perceived to be as sexy as US content, subtitles wouldn't be an insurmountable problem.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 05:06:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (none / 0)

For a country of 60 million people it's not outrageously expensive to dub programmes.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 05:08:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (4.00 / 2)

Still more expensive than just buying US content.

What's the share of non-US, non-Spanish movies in Spain theaters ?

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 07:32:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (none / 1)

Sufficiently high - there is a dedicated foreign film circuit which has grown from very small to now being sizeable.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buitler

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 07:40:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: A 36 Year Media Failure (none / 1)

Not necessarily-the marginal cost to the European programmer of supplying the Eurosoap to the British market is effectively zero, so there's a generous amount of room for negotiating down the price to share the cost of dubbing.

by Sassafras on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 05:26:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Going by the Ozzie soapies that do well in ... (none / 1)

... pommieland, it'd be Spain or Italy, with frequent swimming cossies for cute starlets and hunklets in the midst of teenage angst.

And a grumbly bumbly old pub keeper wif a heart of gold, I reckon they were put in entirely to nail down the pommie export trade.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 05:02:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Going by the Ozzie soapies that do well in ... (4.00 / 7)

Hmmm, I've got an idea we might be able to pitch:

Rich, reclusive Ricardo Montelban clone media magnate (his friends call him "Sly", his juvenile friends call him "Papi") lives on a large estate on a fashionable Mediterranean island. At the beginning of very episode, an a large government aircraft flies in an assortment of sexy starlets, sophisticated international criminals, brutal mafia killers and naive photographers, their arrival being announced by the magnate's pet dwarf ("Boss, boss, de plane, de plane!").

In the first episode, Sly organizes an 18th birthday party for "Tina", but Sly's wife misunderstands... scope for both drama and comedy there.

Or is that too far-fetched for suspension of belief?

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 07:12:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Going by the Ozzie soapies that do well in ... (none / 1)

Why, that is clearly the kind of silly fluff that only ze Europeans could produce. Its sounds like it would be as bad as Eurovision, or possibly worse.

8-)#

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Mon Jun 8th, 2009 at 07:36:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

A 36 Year Media Failure | 177 comments (177 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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