Channel 5’s decision to axe Australian soap opera Neighbours has led to widespread dismay among British people in their thirties and upwards. After 36 years on British screens, the network said it will instead invest more in “original UK drama”.
Although its 1990 heyday of 20 million viewers on BBC One are long behind it, the show still does comparatively good numbers. Its 20% market share makes it the most successful show on Channel 5. Presumably, the soap must be too expensive. But given it has relied on a very visible mannequin in a wig to function as a body double during a car crash, where any big budgets are going is difficult to ascertain.
Business case apart, a lot of the anguish is due to the loss of a communal experience. In the 1990s, Neighbours was a perennial part of young people’s lives, no doubt a product of its repetitive, five-day-a-week transmission. With 83% of 12-15-year-olds claiming to watch the show at its height, there is a generation of British people for whom the surname Kennedy will conjure up Karl and Susan before it does John F. or Bobby.
