I don't understand British tabloids.

[mrv3000]

I really really really do not understand British tabloids. Shouldn't they be writing articles about Madonna's alien baby? I don't understand their obsession with Doctor Who. I don't read them to know for sure, but I don't think American tabloids spend their time writing about what "REALLY AND FOR TRUE WILL HAPPEN ON [insert show] OMG!!!"

I'm not going to even cut this, this latest "spoiler" is so ridiculous. The Sun's claiming that in the final eps, Martha and Mickey get married. Which, if you've even watched S4 of DW and S2 of Torchwood, you know is completely impossible.

Prof Docherty: Well dear, apparently you're supposed to marry Mickey.
Tom: Um, my name's Tom. Who's Mickey?? o_O
Martha: The guy I met once on the TARDIS? Bitch, please.

So to sum up in a question, do writing about nutso spoilers for a TV show really sell papers? (Not linking lest they get ad revenue for this nonsense.)

Comments

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure we have a drama that is per capita as popular as Doctor Who. I mean, does anything here get 50% audience shares aside from American Idol and suchlike?

We also don't have tabloids that pretend to be actual newspapers like the UK does. Which I don't get, because supposedly the UK has much stricter libel laws than we do? idgi.

[professor_mirror]

So to sum up in a question, do writing about nutso spoilers for a TV show really sell papers?

Well, yes. I don't know if American tabloids write about show spoilers, BUT at any given supermarket checkout you can find entire digest-sized magazines about nothing but soap opera spoilers, with names like Soap Opera Weekly.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure we have a drama that is per capita as popular as Doctor Who. I mean, does anything here get 50% audience shares aside from American Idol and suchlike?

Hmm. Maybe tabloids over here do write about American Idol. Don't know though.

I guess I'm just not used to being into a show that's so embedded into a national psyche.

We also don't have tabloids that pretend to be actual newspapers like the UK does. Which I don't get, because supposedly the UK has much stricter libel laws than we do? idgi.

British tabloids are very strange, foreign animals. *boggles*

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the tabs have done the usual 'put some element of a statement that's true about a completely different show, add random crap we made up, sprinkle in some characters who are unlikely at best to ever be seen on Who again, blend, and serve!'

I have to wonder if the reason the tabloids spend so much time talking weirdness about Who is because most of the time they're talking about fictional characters, and therefore libel doesn't even enter into it?

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Is that what those things are? :D I've never given them much thought, but I guess I figured they had articles about the actors. Loaded with spoilers, eh? HEH!

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the tabs have done the usual 'put some element of a statement that's true about a completely different show, add random crap we made up, sprinkle in some characters who are unlikely at best to ever be seen on Who again, blend, and serve!'

Betcha they've got a spinny wheel and everything! :D

I have to wonder if the reason the tabloids spend so much time talking weirdness about Who is because most of the time they're talking about fictional characters, and therefore libel doesn't even enter into it?

Good point.

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Maybe tabloids over here do write about American Idol. Don't know though.

Oh, they certainly do. It's a bit different from SPOILERS! because it's a reality show, and live. But they gossip about the contestants and such ad nauseum.

It's just that the UK is such a wee little nation (*pets it*) and something home-grown that is as popular as Doctor Who is, it is in the national psyche in a way that I don't think anything could be in the US. For one thing, we don't have popular "family" shows. That doubles your viewership right there, by broadening the demographic. US TV is all about microdemographics (this show is for males 18-24 and that show is for females 32-40, etc...), but Who is about getting as many different sorts of people as possible to watch. And it's been very successful at it.

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

You're implying there's more important news to cover?

I mean, this basically means we don't have to invent tabloid news articles for Pete's World - we can just lift them wholesale from The Sun! ;-)

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

*nods* There's absolutely nothing like it over here. There might have been a few decades back, when there were only a handful of channels and everyone watched the same things.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

You're implying there's more important news to cover?

Well...

I mean, this basically means we don't have to invent tabloid news articles for Pete's World - we can just lift them wholesale from The Sun! ;-)

OOOOOH!

It's a shame that this particular one would take place in the other universe. Otherwise rose_m_t and alienish_being would probably have a few things to say about it. :D

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

..... FAIL, BRIT PRESS. FAIL.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It's "let's pull names out of a hat" time!

[sunnytyler001.livejournal.com]

Lol! The Sun will never end to amuse me. They should write fanfiction!

[jo-siris.livejournal.com]

Yup.

like the little brat crying to get to the BGT final. That made front page.

Thios is why I stopped reading tabloids years ago

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

It would be the crackiest badfic ever. :D

I think they're really the only thing that can out-crack RTD, and that's saying something.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Oy with the poodles!

[suzvoy.livejournal.com]

Doctor Who is VERY, VERY BIG NEWS here.

When they announced the new COMPANION it was reported in the serious news programs, not the 'entertainment news'.

Don't forget, the BBC had a 45 minute special JUST to announce who the new Doctor was going to be.

[ninamazing.livejournal.com]

...

*remembers alllllllll of the crazy and ill-advised things they have done on Doctor Who*

...

God, I HOPE that's not what's going to happen!!!!!!!!

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

:D

*PETS YOU ALL VERY VERY HARD*

*SQUISH SQUISH*

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's just no WAY. In S4 Martha's already engaged to Tom. See the pretty ring?



While RTD's head is full of crack, he doesn't do silly relationship things, like putting two people together just for sensationalism. He's laid fairly lengthy groundwork on Martha/Tom, and he's not going to suddenly switch that.

This is just the Sun being the Sun.

[ninamazing.livejournal.com]

OKAY GOOD. THAT IS WHAT I THOUGHT, BUT STILL — PEOPLE BREAK ENGAGEMENTS.

:D

[skippity-doo.livejournal.com]

The Sun really is the lowest of the low.

I have a major level of apathy towards newspapers anyway, but I really loathe tabloids.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too. They did get me to talk about them, but no linky for them!

[goldy-dollar.livejournal.com]

I am so utterly entertained by these spoilers, and would hate to live in the world where the Sun wasn't around to provide such amusement. XD

[gowdie.livejournal.com]

I distinctly remember a tabloid-esque paper, can't remember which one, doing a front page, plus multiple pages inside, expose on how Maddie and David were going to get married in the season finale of Moonlighting one year. They had lines of dialogue, and pictures! from filming, and everything.

Of course, it was all lies, lies, lies. To the point where they used models for the pictures. But I was all over that at the time. Bringing it to school. Reading it to friends.

If a show is big enough - it will sell.