Harry Hill to leave ITV?

[Bob The Skutter]

Looks like the rumours are circulating again. Sky are after TV Burp and have apparently offered Harry Hill £3m a year to bring it to Sky 1.

From Digital Spy
Harry Hill is "weeks away" from agreeing a deal to move TV Burp from ITV to Sky, a report has claimed.
According to The Sun, the comedian is seriously considering accepting an £80,000-per-episode contract with the satellite broadcaster.
It is thought that the new deal would see Hill securing an annual pay packet of more than £3 million, as Sky is hoping for a larger number of episodes and also considering him for other projects.
An insider said: "Sky is very confident of getting Harry. He's very tempted by their offer. They want him to do TV Burp and have other ideas for him. A deal could be just weeks away now.
"ITV is trying really hard to keep him but is under serious pressure to reduce costs."
Representatives for Sky and ITV refused to comment on the rumours.

 

[Deckerd]

It would be a mistake, career-wise. Look what happened to Barry Norman. He became an irrelevant has-been.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Barry who?

I've never really liked Harry Hill, so I don't really care on that score. But I do think it's a shame when free to air TV loses any popular show to pay TV.

 

[Deckerd]

I think Burp is going past its sell-by date anyway. The format might keep getting awards ad nauseam but it's same phenomenon as Ant & Dec: candyfloss TV. I suspect HH is getting bored with it. It's interesting but he has no personality when he doesn't have a script. He was on The One Show a couple of weeks ago and was monosyllabic aside from a couple of not funny jokes.

 

[Captain Shaw]

I am not surprise i read a interview last year where he said he would not take a pay cut because he thought things where not that bad it was just TV company's trying to save money.

 

[wamdue]

this has been rumoured before, cant say I would be surprised if ITV let there one good show, that is watched by people who dont normally watch ITV go, they are that in incompetent.

Would like to see the BBC put a bid in, save the show for FTA viewers, maybe even a joint bid between ITV & BBCWW, repeat it ons Dave or G.O.L.D. like they have done with Primeval.

 

[JoeZhang]

It would be a mistake, career-wise. Look what happened to Barry Norman. He became an irrelevant has-been.

But you make money while the sun is shining - £3 million is a lot of money and if the format is going to the end of it's life anyway, it's sensible to cash in.

 

[Piper]

The interesting thing about Harry Hill is that that character is very much a persona. The "real" Harry is very, very different, much quieter and more introspective, as well as surprisingly cynical about the way the media, and specifically that area in which he is based, works.

Working on Burp is actually very tough - despite what is often said, he really does do the lion's share of the writing and TV watching, and given the number of episodes he did last year, the fact the quality has dropped somewhat is not so surprising.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if he went to Sky, if that's where the money was, especially if the workload wasn't so heavy for the same paycheck.