It was a good night for the North at last night’s BAFTA TV Awards, with ITV drama Mr Bates vs the Post Office taking home the Best Limited Drama Award, BBC Breakfast picking up an award for its adjacent doc about the North Wales/Liverpool Liverpool-led fight against the Post Office and its questionable IT systems, Sophie Willan’s Bolton-set BBC sitcom Alma’s Not Normal picking up Best Scripted Comedy, Scottish black comedy Baby Reindeer landing Best Supporting Actress, and Manchester-based news anchor and celebrity Man City fan Clive Myrie picking up Best Daytime for his Caribbean Adventure.
Mr Bates producer Patrick Spence told the audience while collecting the award: “This story only had the impact it did because the people that watched it stood up and demanded action with rage. May it be a warning to those who are supposed to have our backs. We cannot abide liars and bullies.”
He also thanked audiences for their engagement in the series, which reportedly lost ITV around £1m despite its huge critical success, and indeed its cultural impact which saw the government finally acting on a scandal that had simmered for years and seen postmasters imprisoned, falsely accused of fraud, and in some cases commit suicide, and becoming the most-watched TV show of 2024: “Our show didn’t change the law, the people of this nation did that,” he said.
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The series recorded viewing figures of 13.5m when it aired at the start of 2024, and broke many UK TV records on the way to becoming the biggest drama since S6 of Line of Duty, the biggest new drama since Bodyguard and ITV’s biggest drama since Broadchurch.
However, ITV’;s head of media and entertainment said at the time that the drama had been something of a financial flop for ITV: “Mr Bates has made a loss of something like £1m and we can’t continually do this,” he explained. “Of course, some things are very profitable on the channel, and some things aren’t. But it’s a challenge to be able to fund some of the things that aren’t, obviously, of international appeal.
He added: “We’re hoping this may be, because it caused such a furore here that maybe sales will pick up, but there’s no evidence of it yet.”
The BBC was the big winner on the night, landing 18 BAFTA TV awards, more than any other broadcaster or streamer, out of a total of 27 competitive categories, while Fable Pictures’ BBC One drama Mr Loverman was the only show to pick up two awards this year, with Lennie James and Ariyon Bakare both picking up acting awards, while Scouse comic Chris McCausland picked up the only publicly voted award, for Most Memorable Moment, for his Strictly Come Dancing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ performance with partner Dianne Buswell .
