For those of you not familiar with the trials and tribulations of the programme, the show – which looks at a team investigating rips in time through which past and future creators enter our era – was cancelled after the third series and only saved by a global deal that saw ITV show series four first followed by digital station Watch, with Watch getting the premiere for series five. Finally, almost a year after series five debuted ITV start showing it on Saturday.
Now I’m not going to say ITV have an easy sell with Primeval series five. It was shown on television last year and has been on DVD and Blu-Ray for nearly as long. But they’ve not exactly gone out of their way to promote it to the not-unsubstantial audience already out there that have yet to see the series, which in my opinion is the strongest one behind series three.
I’m not going to be naive and say that ITV must be champing at the bit to re-commission Primeval due to their financial troubles, but with an audience of 4.6m on average for last year’s series it’s not a small audience and it’s the closest thing they have at the moment to Saturday teatime drama. Though we are getting a series follow-up in Canadian spin-off ‘Primeval New World’ I don’t think I’m the only one who would like a UK-based sixth series, promoting British actors and actresses and set here in Blighty. The UK doesn’t have enough home-based drama that can be sold abroad – Primeval and Doctor Who stand very much alone in this field – and the loss of Primeval will be a great shame. Though nearly eighteen months since the cameras last rolled on the series it’s still not too late to get everyone back together for a sixth series.
But I don’t see it happening. Why? Well, aside from the focus now moved to the North American version, ITV are certainly proving either incompetent at marketing the show or intent on letting it fail to justify not renewing it.
Television adverts promoting its return have only started airing within ten days of its return. Itv.com/primeval remains down since series four ended. @itvprimeval hasn’t been updated since the 9th March last year; their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ITVprimeval deathly quiet. If you go to itv.com there’s nothing on the front page: no publicity for the returning which is now only six days away.
Contrast this to Watch’s marketing for series five when it debuted on their channel last year. Granted, they had to make the effort to promote the series on a minority channel but, especially considering their lesser budget compared to ITV, did one of the best marketing campaigns for a series ever with specially filmed on-air promos featuring the cast, a strong website and a month-long Facebook fan page which gave its members a special treat each and every day to whet their appetite. If they can manage it, why can’t ITV?
I would love a sixth series of Primeval to see more storylines and how the characters develop and have a credible alternative to Doctor Who, which is treated with far more respect by the BBC than Primeval ever has been ITV. Unfortunately I don’t think we’re going to get it through a combination of factors from the unavoidable, such as the financial issues faced by drama creators, but also by the things that have been done badly or could have been done better, such as the disappointingly poor promotion by ITV. Even their publicity last year for series four was hardly earth-shattering, but at least they had information on the website, a Twitter handler and a generally bigger buzz, all things that don’t cost many pounds to undertake.
As ITV are promoting the fifth series with ‘The beginning of the end’ I hardly think the future of the show looks rosy, poorly marketed and hidden away in the schedules amongst the buzz of Euro 2012 and against a month, June, that’s typically one where people would rather go out than stay in and watch television (though the typical British weather is putting paid to that at the moment).
ITV, you disappoint me.
(But, you know, if you’d like someone to update the online pages over the next week for free I would happily do it to help boost the viewing figures – message me!)
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