Why was Britannia High not as successful as it should have been?

It was cringingly bad rubbish. I gave it a go and lasted about 20 mins. I'm having trouble accepting it got made - and after ITV flopped with the last thing with Cindy out of Eastenders. Will they never learn.
 
I think its part fate with BH. Another time it would have taken off, the cast would have been all over the papers attending premieres etc. As it was the audience was miniscule. Personally I think BH is a victim of the X Factor-where teenage wannabees try and make it too-X Factor casts a long shadow and I think if you look hard enough you would find Brittania High in it.
 
I think the show was slightly rushed. According to Gary Barlow, the reason there were so many songwriters on board was because there was so little time to write the songs. If the song writers were a small, select team, the songs would have flowed better and there wouldn't be so many good songs bogged down with a load of average ones which did let the show down slightly. I've read that the casting was quite late for some characters as well. Everything had to be done pretty quickly, when the project first started they had nothing, just a very basic concept and I think this showed in the programme. Some episodes were very hit and miss.

As people have mentioned, it wasn't a very good timeslot for the show. Although they did it with good intentions, having a show in a slot which is usually occupied by shows for older audiences, it was definitely a hinderance. Putting it between the X Factor would have gelled well with the music theme and would have attracted a huge audience just for being in between the X Factor. I don't see why the couldn't have moved their other shows to a Sunday like Family Fortunes as they already had an established audience who would have watched regardless of the time it was on.

The promotion of the show wasn't very good. They made it look like something aimed at a much younger audience than it was. It had storylines about multiple sclerosis and teacher/student relationships which is definitely more adult than anything in High School Musical.

The show had the potential to be very successful because is it just the type of show that is very 'now' but ITV messed up big time. It's a shame if Britannia High doesn't get recommissioned because I think these mistakes are easily corrected.
 
In television there are so many executives giving notes and dictating direction that writers are often forced into places they really don't want to go. So, you know, don't always blame the monkey at the keyboard...
 
Because they wanted to trick older portions of the TV audience into watching it. But with like most trickery, the deception was spotted and people didn't fall for it. ITV really underestimate TV viewers, to such extremes that it's insulting.
 
I didn't watch the show and I'm probably not its target audience so what do I know; but it was (over) trailed in such a way that it was obviously a HSM type knockoff (and we've been told that knockoRAB are bad by the adverts).

I got the feeling it was trying to be a bit edgier so was probably going for a teen audience rather than the tweens who HSM is aimed at. As such it needed to compete with the storylines on Hollyoaks and Home and Away and the like which I don't expect it did. That feeling of edginess probably kept away some of the 'family' viewers with younger children too.

Charlie Brookers summation of it on screenwipe seemed to tie up with what i was expecting it to be.
 
My household loved Britannia High, but I agree with the above summary. Any show which is essentially a musical is NEVER going to be edgy, but I do think there was an attempt to try and make BH seem cool.

The show itself was wonderfully feel-good, but should have been marketed squarely at the under twelves, and placed in an earlier time-slot on Saturdays. I think more families would have then watched.

It was well made, and highly entertaining but completely un-cool, and the biggest error they made was pretending it was. Instead they should have revelled much more in the camp, unashamedly cheesy nature of this fabulous product, which HSM does so brilliantly. It knows what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything else. :)
 
ITV don't have a lot of 16-34 year olRAB as viewers, definitely not enough to break the 4m barrier. It was always destined for a fail unless it was on ITV2- where it could have pulled in around 1m every episode and been considered a hit.
 
Characters weren't very likeable and the storylines were very predictable and boring. Its allright if they aimed the show at young kiRAB but teenagers want something with a bit more realism.
 
I think the songs are actually the best part of the whole thing - they're pretty damn catchy and a lot of the vocals (from two in particular) are really good.

It's the script/storylines that I take issue with - some of them just weren't realistic enough IMO.

I can probably quantify this by saying the last episode, with the live performances (and the least dialogue!) was the best in my opinion - it was really fun and lively.
 
I really, really wanted this show to work, but gave up after episode 3. The first ep was okay, and probably had the most decent story, with the new girl joining the 'talented' people and feeling left out, if that had been developed over the whole season rather than finished in the first ep, it probably would have been better.

Two of the lead actors let the whole thing down, and the script was silly a lot of the time.

They also made the mistake of taking themselves far too seriously at times.

I also agree that it needed to find it's market properly. Mitch Hewer (one of the bad actors) said the show was 'edgier than High School Musical'.

Edgier?
 
I expected it to be bad, so was surprised that I liked it. Cheesy, yes. Predictable, yes. But good fun, with good songs. I hope it comes on again, at a time when more younger people would watch.
 
LOL I agree and I can't believe I am being defensive so sorry everyone :rolleyes:, just believe if people gave it more time then they might have enjoyed it more, some of the songs were great, listen to 'Proud' and 'The Things that we Don't Say' for a start, both excellent with great vocals. It was just cheesy harmless fun :)
 
Trying to make BH "edgier" is what killed it, I reckon. People love HSM because of its innocence. HSM is cliche, predicable and very childish but it works because the people in charge of it all know exactly what they're doing and exactly how to approach their target audience.

BH failed because those making it seemed to want it to be a number of things combined. There was no clear direction and so instead of being complex, it just failed to connect to the audience.
 
Honestly, the show was rubbish. There was only one likeable character and that was Lauren, WHO COULD ACTUALLY ACT!!! But then again it's not the casts fault. It's t fault of Arlene Phillips who is more interested by her idiot metaphors and similes than producing a show which could have been, potentially, a ratings winner. I think if this show is to stay the course, ditch that witch and let someone with talent produce the show.
 
The scheduling was wrong and I don't think they knew who the target audience actually was.
But the main reason was probably advertising. With a show like Britannia High it is always going to lose a lot of its audience from the first episode so it neeRAB to bring in a high audience for the first episode. It failed to bring in a high enough audience for the first episode presumably because of advertising so it was never going to do well
 
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