Hive mind: The ITC action shows of the 60s & 70s...

[Grant Goggans]

This is an odd question, and there may be individual reasons for each series, but my wife and I have been watching The Saint (got the entire series, 35 DVDs, in one lovely R1 set), as well as Jason King, which I'd heard about for years and had no idea was so incredibly entertaining.  ITC made so many of these shows, but I wondered why, other than The Saint and Danger Man, none of them was ever renewed for a second season.

Sure, there are some that time has forgotten, like The Strange Report, but so many of these old shows were - I thought - really successful at the time in the UK and are very fondly remembered by old fogeys like me.  Jason King is a sequel series to Department S, neither was renewed.  Randall & Hopkirk, The Champions, Man in a Suitcase, The Baron, etc.  Why are there only 26 episodes of each of these shows, and not hundreds?  Were they all actually flops with a really active fan base? 

[Frank]

Lew Grade's entire business model was based on selling those shows to the USA - hence 26 episodes, rather than the 6 or 12 of most UK programmes. The production values of those shows were much higher than other British shows, so if they weren't picked up by a US network there was no financial incentive to continue making them.

[Grant Goggans]

(Putting 2 and 2 together)

Oh, that makes sense.  The Saint and Danger Man (as "Secret Agent") were the only two that got successful network runs in America.  Some of the others did appear on networks here (like The Persuades) but weren't hits.  (And I just remembered Space: 1999, which wasn't on a network, but was one of the most successful direct-to-syndication shows in the seventies.)

But weren't some of the others hits in the UK as well?  Even if Randall & Hopkirk didn't do well in America, if it was a ratings hit on ITV, wouldn't they want more of it?

[Dandontdare]

I think it's simply because they didn't need to - British TV has never had syndication in the way that American TV does, so if they made 26 episodes, those could be profitably repeated for years while they spent their budget on making what they hoped would be their next big international hit.

[Frank]

weren't some of the others hits in the UK as well?  Even if Randall & Hopkirk didn't do well in America, if it was a ratings hit on ITV, wouldn't they want more of it?

70s telly started at 7pm and shut down at 11pm, so ITV didn't need 6 months worth of show to fill up schedules. They didn't need expensive programmes shot on film/location either - the top rated shows were shot on video, in the studio, right into the 90s.

There was also a strong cultural prohibition in British telly against spinning something out too long [1]. Lord Grade wouldn't let that stop him, but 3 channels and a population of 55 million meant less demand for content and less money to be made in the UK.


[1] Hence only two series of Fawlty Towers and The Office. I still lose interest in US shows around week 8-10, which is obviously culturally conditioned.

[Greg M.]

They didn't need expensive programmes shot on film/location either - the top rated shows were shot on video, in the studio, right into the 90s.

This is very much it - continuing to shoot on film would not be sustainable, financially-speaking.

[M.I.K.]

Only having three channels 'til the 1980s is the most important factor here, I think.

[Proudhuff]

Maybe they ran out of white Jaguars to drive of cliffs...?

[sheridan]

There was also a strong cultural prohibition in British telly against spinning something out too long [1]. Lord Grade wouldn't let that stop him, but 3 channels and a population of 55 million meant less demand for content and less money to be made in the UK.
[1] Hence only two series of Fawlty Towers and The Office. I still lose interest in US shows around week 8-10, which is obviously culturally conditioned.

...on a forum for a comic which packs five stories every week into roughly the same amount of pages as US comics use for one story (and a whole bunch of adverts).

[Proudhuff]

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08-faOc-vEE

The original footage of the Jaguar heading off the cliff was shot for the episode of The Baron, 'Something for a Rainy Day'. and was used extensively in other series by the same production company  like The Champions, The Persuaders and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).  Yes, if someone got into a white Jaguar in the late 1960s on British television you knew how it would end!