Well yesterday it was strongly speculated but today it's been confirmed! We now know that viewers over in Britain will not be getting their daily fix of Neighbours as the channel that broadcasts the show - Channel 5 - have declared that the soap will not be shown 'beyond summer'.
I don't know how everyone else feels about it but I for one am speechless! As someone who'd grown up with Neighbours and remembers the soap in it's hey day very well, I really can't believe that it will definitely be taken off air in the UK where it still has a very strong fanbase. Of course the show will still be made in Australia and shown to audiences there but British viewers will be missing out. I understand that Channel 5 want to concentrate on broadcasting British made dramas but for us lifelong fans of the show, it really does feel like the end of an era.
What does everyone else think?
Well it looks as though the impossible is happening and Scott and Charlene are returning to Ramsay Street! These days I find Neighbours to be quite hit and miss but in the 80s and 90s you couldn't prise me away from the telly when Neighbours was on. I really hope that it's true and that Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan will be back. They both made that show what it was as far as I'm concerned.
I’m probably being too cynical, and I haven’t watched Home & Away or Neighbours for many years, and I don’t know how many episodes each show has racked-up, but I wouldn’t mind having a small wager (not that I’m a betting man) that Home & Away will pull-the-plug sometime after they pass the total amount of episodes Neighbours has. But as H&A started about two to three years after Neighbours, it could be a while.
Hey everyone.
A dumb American here! LOL!
I've been reading the comments here with interest but I have to say I really don't know this show your talking about. I understand that it's some kind of Australian TV show like a drama or something, and now it's not being shown in England any more.
I'm not totally clear why everyone in England is so upset about it but the Australians are not. Or maybe they are, I don't know. And also why won't they show it in England any more.
Sorry if this sounds dumb. But this show Neighbors was never on here in America. At least I don't think it was.
Just a final word on the subject of Neighbours’ longevity (and other serials for that matter, like Coronation Street, for instance).
I do recall an Australian television executive being quoted as saying that “mediocrity sells.” He wasn’t referring to Neighbours, it was actually a certain travel and lifestyle show he was talking about, but perhaps he had a point. Perhaps serials/soaps that don’t rely too heavily on sensationalism are the ones likely to have longevity, as opposed to ones that try to shock and stun the audience at every turn.
There was a well-known and notorious serial (well-known in Australia at least) called Number 96 that ran from 1972 to 1977 in Australia and was very popular, but it relied very much on sensationalism, especially sex and nudity, but after a few years its ratings went downhill and one of the reasons was – and even the show’s creator said this – that once they couldn’t shock the audience anymore and they became blasé about the show, that was the basically the end of it.
I think the bottom line is though, regardless of plots and storylines, is that the producers of serials/soaps have to find interesting and popular people to play the characters, that’s the big challenge. The storylines (even mediocre storylines) will take care of themselves as long as they're portrayed by people the audience likes and find interesting and/or intriguing.
Like some of you here, I also remember the eighties and nineties when Neighbours' popularity was at it's peak. In Britain where I'm from it was huge!!! Neighbours actors used to appear on all our talk shows, and you couldn't pick up a newspaper or magazine without some feature on the new hottest actor or actress on Neighbours. Even though a lot of the others have pretty much said the same thing, I don't think I can really put into words how much of a big deal it was at the time. I don't know if there has ever been another TV phenomenon like it. I don't think that was the case even with our own home grown soaps.
The news that the soap will most definitely be cancelled is such a shame especially for those who remember watching Neighbours in the early years. We wish it could be different, and while we're all getting very nostalgic about it, we have to accept, even if it is begrudgingly, that it is a business and not just a TV show. And like all businesses, the demand has to be there, as well as a healthy profit and those involved with producing and distributing the show need to make sure that there's a good return on their investment. Otherwise for them it's pointless.
That doesn't at all mean that I'm pleased about it. It's the end of an era and I wish things could have been different, but this sadly is what it's come down to.
I was only a baby when Neighbours was first broadcast in Britain so I've grown up with it, and during the show's glory days it was something that everything stopped for. I'd say it's popularity continued until about the late nineties but I think after that it started to wane a little before steadily declining. But during the years where Neighbours was no longer the hottest thing on television but still quite watchable, there were some epic storylines such as the Susan-Karl-Izzy love triangle, Mark Brennan going into witness protection, the plane crash, Lassiters explosion etc.
I do feel quite saddened by the news that Neighbours will most definitely be cancelled as they were unable to find a distributor, even though I think a lot of us already knew that it was on the cards. The show holds a lot of memories for me and certain storylines remind me of things that were going on in my own life at the time. Neighbours will most definitely be missed.
So That's all folks! 😌
It's been confirmed that Neighbours will indeed stop being made as they have exhausted all avenues. Even if you're not a fan of the show any more, it is quite a sad day, and it really does feel like the end of an era. 😪
For what it’s worth, I think Neighbours is/was a fairly accurate portrayal of suburban life in suburban Australia, or as accurate as “dramatic licence” would allow it to be. At least it was circa 1985-2000, as I haven’t watched it for a long time. It’s just that I could never see what the British found so fascinating about it. Perhaps it’s because I live in Australian suburbia. Maybe it was the Kylie and Jason thing which got people in early in the piece and it just continued on from there. Soaps are generally about human relations anyway; the background and environment tend to be secondary, so perhaps that was the key to its success, it had the right mix of characters.
Home & Away I guess has that slight ‘exotic’ advantage of being set in a beachside suburb or town. But for all intents and purposes it’s just Neighbours on the coast, instead of a suburban Melbourne cul-de-sac.
Just out of interest, has anyone signed the online petition to save Neighbours? I did. Why not it's for old times sake.
As an Australian, I’ve never quite understood the popularity and subsequent longevity of both Neighbours and Home & Away, although I was a regular watcher of both shows in the late-80s to mid-90s period. I’m not having a dig at either show, both are pretty good shows, in fact I have a few DVDs of some early episodes of Neighbours which I quite enjoy, it’s just that there have been many other Australian serials that were just as good (in my view) as those two shows but had only short runs.
Obviously, the fact they were picked up by British television (and became popular there) is one reason for their longevity, but I often wonder why the TV gods smiled on those two shows and not others. It is a little sad that Neighbours is (apparently) coming to an end, but it’s had a good run (37 years) when few Australian serials last more than five years. Not bad for a show that was actually cancelled by one network (Channel 7) after the first year, before being ‘rescued’ by Channel 10.
Oh the days when Neighbours was our everything and then some! I was coming up to my secondary school years when Neighbours was first broadcast (on the BBC in those days.) and like most kids of that age, I do remember rushing back to watch Neighbours because you couldn't go to school the next day if you'd missed Neighbours. You'd have nothing to add to the long Neighbours discussions at lunch time! And of course when Home and Away was introduced to us, we had another reason to get home even earlier!
There's not much that I can add that hasn't already been said here, but whether you love or hate the soap now, it's been a part of our lives for so many years now so if it was axed completely then it'd be a real shame, and I hope it doesn't come to that. I may dip in and out of Neighbours - all soaps to be honest - but I know that there are plenty of others who are still regular viewers so it would be quite sad for them.
I first got into Neighbours in the late nineties when I returned to Britain after years of living overseas. It was without a doubt a very popular show but those who had been watching Neighbours a lot longer than I had explained that between maybe late eighties-early nineties, Neighbours was unmissable and it was one of the most watched TV programmes. I don't really watch a huge amount of Neighbours these days and my kids have no real interest in it. And while it doesn't really affect me personally if the show gets cancelled, I know it will be very sad for those who have watched it from the very beginning so I hope it doesn't happen.
Like those of you who lived in England in the 80's and 90's we remember the days when it was all about Neighbours (and Home And Away.) So when I moved to Australia in the early 2000s, I thought it would be equally as popular here. It doesn't have the same level of popularity in this country, and judging by what I've been told, I'm not sure it ever did, but it's not true to say that nobody out here in Australia watches Neighbours because many do - it's just that it has more viewers back home I'd say. So I'm not surprised that the majority of the funding comes from overseas organizations because who would fork out for a show that doesn't have the desired number of viewers?
I don't watch Neighbours like I used to but I still watch whenever I have the time. But if they did cancel it then that would be very sad as so many of us have grown up with this show.
I was born during a time that would have been when neighbours was at the peak of its popularity. And growing up in the nineties and noughties, I did watch Neighbours as everyone did back then. A lot of people are describing it as classic teatime viewing and it certainly was. It was definitely a show you could watch with your gran without fear of anything making you blush or choke on your shepheard's pie.
But let's face it, in the last decade or so while it hasn't been bad, it's definitely not what it once was. I think that's one of the major issues with such a long running soap and that's maintaining that level of popularity. And when things start to take a dive, how easy is it to get things back up again?
Then you have the added problem of long-time viewers feeling that the show isn't like how it was in the glory days, while the new generation of viewers don't want the writers to take it back to the good old days because it's a time that they don't know or understand. Current TV shows always have to give a representation of life as it is now which is probably why it's still being watched by a younger crowd because the show is depicting life as they know it today. But it probably has lost a lot of the older viewers which might explain why ratings have fallen.
I don't think a lot of my fellow Brits realise how much of a myth it is that Neighbours is massively popular out here in Australia. Just because it's an Australian soap it doesn't mean that everyone in Australia watches it. In fact a lot of the people I know don't like it at all. That's like saying everyone in England watches Eastenders and Coronation Street. They don't! Even when Neighbours was huge in Britain back in the 80's and 90's, it was still far more popular there than in Australia. I know there were talks years ago about axing Neighbours in Australia. My guess is that the deal with Channel 5 may have been one of the things that saved it. Now it looks as though it's the only thing keeping it afloat!
Until all this happened, I didn't realise just how dependent the show was on Channel 5 broadcasting it. When I first heard that Neighbours would no longer be broadcast in the UK, I thought it would still be made and shown in Australia, and figured it would only be a mattered of time before it reappeared on British screens. However that doesn't seem to be the case and without another British channel to broadcast it, that may well be the end of the show altogether!
It's absolutely mindboggling that a long running TV series is dependent on an overseas channel. Clearly a lot of the funding came from Channel 5. I've never heard of a situation like that before.
Well it looks as though the news has got even worse. It seems that Neighbours might be axed completely if they can't find a UK broadcaster. Whether you're a fan or not, you have to feel sorry for all those people who are in danger of losing their jobs through no fault of their own. Especially those who have been part of the cast/crew for many years.
While I don't mind catching up with an episode of Neighbours every so often, it's not exactly something I make time in my schedule for. I was born in the early nineties but I left England when I was very young, but from what I understand Neighbours was massive back then. My mum said it was one of the biggest shows on TV and made huge stars out of some of the cast back then. But it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as popular now so I suppose it's a case of out with the old and in with the new.
And I reckon Rosie B is right. A lot of people of my age group and younger, we're just not into these kind of soap operas and long running shows. I think it's different for people who have been watching it since the show first started, and who are clearly more invested in it. But I think now, people's TV watching habits have altered quite a bit since my mum's day.
I lived through the days when we were all crazy about Neighbours. I think the cast of Neighbours during those days were even bigger stars than a lot of our own soap actors and actresses.
But those days are long gone and while it's sad, it's also inevitable. I don't think people watch soaps in general the way they used to, especially not the more younger crowd.
What can I say? Yes it is a pity because the soap has a long history here among British fans, but it's not a total surprise because even though yes there are Neighbours fans here in Britain, it's not as popular as it once was, and viewers have clearly dwindled to the point where the channel doesn't see it as a worthwhile investment. People may moan about soaps like Eastenders and Corrie but we know those are still being watched. When was the last time anyone here so much as mentioned Neighbours or Home and Away, and as we know back in the 80's and 90's they used to be massive!
I do still watch those soaps occasionally but they don't rate high on my list of viewing priorities, so if neighbours gets taken off air I won't be losing much sleep over it.