BBC One takes wrong turn in peak time

As far as flops go, they do not come much bigger.

Stranded on Honeymoon Island has attracted some of the lowest peak time ratings ever recorded for BBC One.

And, worse, it straddles the key 9pm slot three nights a week.

If an ITV 1 show was struggling to attract 0.5m viewers, there’s every chance it would be unceremoniously pulled.

Now, of course, the overnights are not everything – the programme’s performance also needs to be judged on its success on iPlayer.

But it is undeniably a flop on BBC One.

This begs two questions.

1. Should this programme have been left to BBC Three and the iPlayer?
2. Should the BBC have commissioned this programme in the first place?

I would argue it had no place on BBC One full stop.

The role of BBC One is to bring wide, disparate groups of people together.

This programme simply feels out of place on One. It is simply – at least on the surface – not what you would expect to see there.

Whether it should have been commissioned at all is a more nuanced matter.

All audiences deserve to be served by the BBC. Everyone should get value from their licence fee.

But surely that means trying to serve all audiences with something of originality and value.

This programme – at least superficially – seemed derivative. If AI was used to suggest formats to cynically attract an audience which is underserved by the BBC, this is the kind of thing it might cook up.

This matters.

The BBC’s charter is up for renewal. 

There needs to be a debate over just what the BBC is for.

I would always defend the need for the BBC to have popular drama and entertainment.

The BBC does not exist just to produce serious and innovative programmes or provide what the market cannot deliver. 

But there need to be no go areas too.

For instance, certain derivative or bought in formats where there is little sense of adding public value. 

Simply serving a demographic which is hard to reach must never mean doing the kind of programme better suited to commercial channels.

Nor must loyal, heartland audiences be alienated in the process. 

Acknowledgements