News Channel 4 buy UK Broadcast rights to DSC

[donners22]

I have heard a rumour that Disco may be picked up by Channel 10 in Australia as well, which is now owned by CBS.

That would make sense. I'm surprised Picard didn't wind up on 10 All Access; it's desperately lacking for content in the absence of Discovery.

 

[Delta Vega]

I think E4 is the channel that airs "The 100" in the UK
I ought to know, I watch it every week.
Its not exactly an obscure channel, its available on freeview, as well as on Virgin and Sky cable packages.

 

[John Clark]

I think E4 is the channel that airs "The 100" in the UK
I ought to know, I watch it every week.
Its not exactly an obscure channel, its available on freeview, as well as on Virgin and Sky cable packages.

Yep. I probably watch more on E4 than any of the other 4s. - My only hope is that they don't treat Discovery like they are Krypton for S2 and sticking it on at midnight.

 

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/news/channel-4-buys-man-a-plan-star-trek-discovery-cbs-1247605

"Britain's Channel 4 has picked up two new U.S. series from CBS Studios International, buying both Star Trek: Discovery and the comedy Man With a Plan, starring Matt LeBlanc, for their digital channel E4."

Looks like you won't need Netflix to (eventually) see Discovery in the UK.

This is a pretty big endorsement for the show, actually. ENT was not treated well by free-to-view broadcasters in the UK.

Except ENT was also broadcast on free-to-air TV by Channel 4. They were the ones that bounced it round the schedule, beginning with a 6pm weekday showing (on Thursdays I think), trying to replicate the success BBC2 had with weekday evening TOS/TNG/DS9, eventually settling on playing out seasons 3 and 4 on a Sunday afternoon in the teen programming slot alongside SG-1 and Smallville.

I imagine E4 will give it a regular timeslot, but not sure when that will be. 9pm on a weekday maybe.

 

[thribs]

Odd show to buy. Must have been cheap

 

[Delta Vega]

I think E4 will see it as a big show and use it in the 9.00pm slot

 

[DaveyNY]

Odd show to buy. Must have been cheap

Heh ...
This is CBS we're talking about, I very much doubt it was "cheap".

 

[Reyman]

Audience share for E4 is at around 1.5% whilst Channel 4 is at around 5.5%.

CBS do have a bunch of their own channels on free to air Uk TV and they do show Trek, so I guess the fact that they were able to sell Discovery is a good sign.

 

[DaveyNY]

Audience share for E4 is at around 1.5% whilst Channel 4 is at around 5.5%.

CBS do have a bunch of their own channels on free to air Uk TV and they do show Trek, so I guess the fact that they were able to sell Discovery is a good sign.

It's much more telling that someone else felt that it was good enough to pay syndication rights for and show.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Running time/editing might be a problem though since Discovery episodes have varying runtimes and Channel 4 has commercial breaks so I wouldn't be surprised if editing was done to get them to fit into a hour long timeslot (unless they're willing to have odd slots).

The channel it airs on in Canada already has commercial breaks, so unless the commercial allotment is drastically different, I doubt much work will have to be done, and it will be more money in the bag for CBS. The fact that it's already been done has probably paved the way to make this happen.