To laud yourselves for the acquisition of The Wire, then hamstring the potential audience for this by such harebrained scheduling beggars belief. This is a huge show. Why not ten o’clock, I understand you cannot move Newsnight, so why not BBC three or four, plus a later showing on BBC two? Maybe even a catch-up on one of these channels?

Many of us who are unable to pay for DVD box sets or satellite subscriptions (but who do pay a license fee), have been hearing about, then yearning for a chance to see this show. The complex, involved nature of the format means that to miss one episode is to be cast hopelessly adrift. A whole audience in front of their television sets at eleven-twenty every night for sixty episodes? So the BBC has chosen to render their biggest buy-in of one of the biggest TV shows of recent years impotent. Really?

Channel four built a reputation for excellent programming on creative buy-ins, good scheduling. Don’t repeat the same mistake you made with Seinfeld. Given the state of your current out-put, how weak your own drama is these days, should you not think about using resources, like the import of a critically acclaimed show, to bolster your flagging schedules, especially if you consider how thinly you’re spreading weak programming over multi channels? Can you honestly imagine Channel Four buying this show, and then scheduling it this way? Or do you think they might look to achieve sustained attainable ratings? Perhaps the thought of a large audience watching an imported show, is still thought of as being a little crass at the BBC.

As to the fiasco of this show not being available on iplayer, better to have not bought the show than embarrass your implementation of iplayer, with a limitation that cripples the application at exactly the point at which it should have come into it’s own. If you cannot buy something on reasonable terms, please do not waste my money on it. I would find it very unsurprising if the same contract that stops you from streaming the show, forbids repeats and stipulated the ridiculous scheduling of 60 episodes, back to back, as everything here seems contrived to force viewers wishing to see the show to buy the box set. Perhaps the BBC has now taken on advertising, for HBO products.

Ahh… Do you remember when Channel Four bought the Sopranos? Golden days, golden days.

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