Bye Bye (The) Bill

[Patrick]

The Bill, one of the UK's longest-running TV dramas, is to be dropped by ITV in the autumn after 27 years, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

ITV has taken the decision to axe the police drama after last year's revamp and switch to a new 9pm slot failed to halt a long-term ratings decline.

The Bill was moved last year from being aired twice a week at 8pm on ITV1 to a single slot on Thursdays at 9pm. The show's storylines were tweaked to take account of the new post-watershed slot.

However, ratings for the show have failed to pick up. In 2002 the show averaged more that 7 million viewers, while more recently audiences been about 3.5 million.

The broadcaster said that the decision to drop the series was made as part of a creative rethink of its drama schedule, which has seen the development of popular short run shows such as Collision and Above Suspicion, and not on cost-cutting grounds.

Watched one or two in the past, but never really bothered with it much. I think it suffered from the "Casualty" effect and from being a gritty Drama-doc, evolved into just another soap. This part of the article is amusing though:

Whilst The Bill will come to an end in 2010, we will continue to invest more in drama programming than any other commercial broadcaster in the UK and viewers can look forward to a wide range of high quality drama on ITV1."

I wish to take issue with the last sentence.

[rjpageuk]

Harry Hill's TV Burp is the only thing I watch on ITV

I used to watch the Bill when I was younger but havent seen it in ages. It was always pretty rubbish though.

[tarzanontarmazepam]

I've never ever watched it. Ditto Casualty or that other minging nonsense Holby City. I did watch an episode of Kingdom once with my mother, and I thought it was dreadful...like the Darling Buds Of May but with solicitors instead of bumpkins. Even Mr Fry's performance couldn't save it. They've axed that too I believe.

ITV are, in their defence, quite good at the detective drama. Poirot was excellent, as was Morse. Midsomer Murders however was nonsense. All cucumber sandwiches, cricket, the stereotypical weirdo loner in the woods (he's never the killer b tw), and endless village fetes.

If a village saw one murder in 50 years it would be something. Midsomer has four every afternoon.

[Patrick]

Can't abide all the detective jobs - watched a few Morses when it first started, but only the first few. I read that John Nettles is leaving Midsomer and a-la Hearbeat, or Morse he's being replaced by his son or something.

Quite liked the thing with Martin Freeman where he swapped bodies with a woman after a lightening strike, but that's the only thing I watched on there last year.

I think all TV companies should be limited to say five channels each. (Including Murdoch.)

In other news, Virgin are selling off their TV Channels (some to Murdoch) so that's another battle he's won.