Line of Duty’s success suggests not everyone prefers a boxset binge
BBC claims the sense of anticipation in lead-up to weekly instalment is more of a thrill than catch-up
THE SUCCESS of Line of Duty proves that viewers want more than box-set television, the BBC has said, as ratings for the finale look set to hit 12 million.
Charlotte Moore, the corporation’s chief content officer, said the show demonstrated the importance of “appointment-to-view” television that Netflix and Amazon cannot provide.
Interest in Line of Duty has been so strong that it accounted for 20 per cent of all iPlayer viewing last week, with audiences watching this series and catching up on previous ones.
Eleven million people tuned in to the penultimate episode and the figure for tonight’s finale will be higher. The cast have promised that it will wrap up the story that began in 2012.
The BBC plans to make more of its shows available in hybrid form: all episodes available on iPlayer on day one of transmission, but also broadcasting them weekly on the main channel for those who prefer linear television. It was a model that proved successful for The Serpent, the BBC One thriller, and BBC Three’s Normal People. But Ms Moore said there remained a place for entertainment available only in weekly instalments.
“Line of Duty is so beautifully, cleverly, exquisitely written to give you those cliffhanger moments, to make you have that anticipation every Sunday, which is why we didn’t have it as a box-set,” she told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Because the joy of a binge boxset is one thing, but this is all the nation together. We’re all talking about it – the clues, the connections, the characters from the past – and we can’t wait for next week. There’s enormous fun and pleasure in that. That’s the thing that the BBC is uniquely placed to do. In a world of ‘it’s all there whenever you want it’, there’s just the joy and anticipation of Sundays. Jed writes for the weekly appointment and we all love it for that.”
Appointment-to-view also works for entertainment series such as The Apprentice, Ms Moore said.
With every new drama that is delivered, BBC executives now sit down to decide whether they are “binge-able”. The decision is based on a variety of factors, from the likely age of the audience to the familiarity of the source material.
The Pursuit of Love, an adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s novel starring Lily James and Dominic West, begins next Sunday. The three episodes will be screened on consecutive Sundays and available on iPlayer in one package.
Ms Moore said some viewers might choose to watch the “utterly joyful” drama in one go. “But also we’re thinking that, as life gets busier [post-lockdown] and opens up, people will be out and about. They will want to watch it in different ways.” Similarly, The Serpent “wasn’t something that people would know, so we felt it would grow by word of mouth. The Serpent really benefited from that day one ‘drop’”.
Ms Moore said she gasped at the big reveal in tonight’s Line of Duty episode, when the identity of the “fourth man” is revealed.
She would not be drawn on whether the BBC has requested a seventh series.