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AMC Networks Acquires 49.9% Stake in BBC America for $200M

I say, old boy. Perhaps we'll see Rick, Daryl and the rest travel across the pond!
 
Good deal overall; at least the garbage purveyors over at A&E Networks didn't grab them. AMC has pretty good programmers and at least they have a reputation in the industry that might also get BBCA much better advertisers; under Discovery's control the network felt like a great source of British content which had terrible DRTV ads even the lowest-tier networks would reject.
 
Seriously, I wish BBCA would revert to showing regular British shows. Back when they had several nights of Britcoms, it was one of my favorite channels. I first got hooked on Britcoms on the secondary PBS channel back when I lived in Pittsburgh and there were two PBS channels. On WQEX Channel 16, PBS stood for "Primarily British Shows". But then BBCA had newer Britcoms like "My Family", "Coupling", "Butterflies", "The Thin Blue Line", "2point4 Children", and others.
 
I wish they'd bring back Monty Python. (Wasn't that on IFC at one time?) I'd also like to see them carry Fawlty Towers and Mr. Bean.
 
AMC has "pretty good programmers?" No, I agree they have "mucked up" their current channels. And, I agree with Avid, the Beeb has a lot of great shows that BBCA doesn't touch. They seem to show the dreck, along with US shows with some weak Brit connection (like Star Trek: The Next Generation, a US show with two Brits in the principal cast).

AMC, on the other hand, had a great BBC show: Hu$tle and almost destroyed it. They insisted on "Americanizing" its fourth season. The lead actor quit. The season was terrible. AMC dropped the show. The lead actor came back and they did four more seasons, which AMC kept anybody else from showing (and they did not show it either).

AMC was a great movie channel. OK, Ted Turner locked up Warner Brothers and MGM but AMC still had the rest. What did AMC do to compete? They started cutting the movies and sticking in commercials. TCM showed movies uncut and commercial free.

Cablevision has a history of screwing up their channels. Can we expect them to actually do better with BBCA?
 
Yeah, well...not that many people want to watch old movies anymore. Those recent original series produced for AMC and other basic cable channels are much more popular, and most of them are very high quality.

These are the shows that bring in big ratings, and are talked about "over the water cooler" at work and on social media. If I'm not mistaken, The Walking Dead gets higher ratings on Sunday night that the competing shows on the Big 4 networks. That wouldn't be happening for the 435th broadcast of Strangers on a Train.

While I agree that BBCA should show some of the old British series, Orphan Black (a Candian production) is one of the best new series on cable.

Some things change for the better (IMO).
 
I'm disappointed too that BBCA has so few British produced shows anymore. I don't get the point of airing so many American reruns. It's not like BBC Canada (which must show Canadian content) - we have no such rule here. There is more British content on many PBS stations, as well as (for example) Amazon or Acorn.

I am hoping that WETA will launch a national version of their local "WETA UK" service that offers British programming. It'd beat BBCA any day.
 
jegrant said:
I'm disappointed too that BBCA has so few British produced shows anymore. I don't get the point of airing so many American reruns. It's not like BBC Canada (which must show Canadian content) - we have no such rule here. There is more British content on many PBS stations, as well as (for example) Amazon or Acorn.
Click to expand...

It's definitely on Amazon, Acorn and Netflix as to why we see less British content on BBCA (along with under current management, quad-pumping anything Gordon Ramsey), and I have to make the argument that's a good thing. Besides, better that they air the best of British content they can get rather than most of what ITV actually produces these days; reality rubbish like The Only Way is Essex and a whole lot of terrible Z-list celebrity panel shows.
 
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