But it’s not quite bad news either.
Apparently, at present, Sky does not hold the rights to series/season 7 of Cold Case. There is no news as to whether they will, or intend to, acquire them.
Sorry I can’t bring better news at the moment. I will, of course, update this site with any further developments.
Season 6 will be broadcast in December though, which makes it a repeat because it only quite recently finished on Sky 1.
Thanks to Helen @ Sky for her assistance.
That’s very sad news, I hope the UK fans will be able to see season seven.
I’m not assuming it is bad news. I would have been surprised if season 7 was broadcast before the New Year anyway.
In the UK Sky shows many of the big US shows like Bones, House (a recent acquisition from another channel), Lost & 24. As in the US Cold Case is not a show that gets a lot of publicity here. But Sky does show an episode (they are back to season 2 at the moment) every afternoon on it’s main Sky1 satellite channel, with the same ones a day later on sister channel Sky2. Season 5 recently started on the more widely available digital terrestrial channel Sky3.
The fact that they are so widely shown suggests that they have reasonable audience figures. And this website gets a lot of hits from people clearly searching for information about Sky showing season 7.
If I had to guess I’d say that we will get season 7 in the first quarter of next year.
How popular is Cold Case in the UK? It’s a shame if they can’t get to air over there..
Difficult to say. It’s not a show that gets talked about much or advertised regularly. We don’t really get the audience figures published, or made such a big deal of, as they are in the US. I’ve managed to find a few figures though.
Cold Case in the US is one of the big networks. An equivalent channel here in Blighty, ITV, gets around 10m for the biggest prime time soap operas. It wasn’t so long ago that 20m would not have been uncommon though. The increase big in the number of channels, Internet usage and computer games has really hit the audience numbers.
In the UK new seasons of Cold Case are on a subscriber only satellite channel, Sky1 (and 2). Even the likes of Lost and Bones on that channel only get around 1 million viewers. In some top 30 lists I’ve found from this year Cold Case does not figure. The lowest rating shows in that top 30 are getting around 650,000 viewers. In that 30 from earlier this year only 5 shows (Lost, Bones, 24, The Simpsons and Fringe (which took CC’s normal slot) are from Sky1. That gives an idea of the relatively small audience the channel gets.
So, to answer your question LII2: I don’t know. I’d be surprised if the show gets more than 300,000 viewers. Sounds small, tiny even, but it would still be way ahead of hundreds of other shows.
I must confess to not knowing how much CC is promoted across the various Sky channels (general entertainment, movies, sports and news). I rarely watch the one Sky channel I do have access to these days, Sky3, which is ‘free to air’.
Sky adverts on other non-Sky channels tend to focus on the major sports (Premiership football), Hollywood movies and the big US TV shows like 24 and Lost. Sky has a habit of poaching such shows from other networks after they been found to be popular.
When CC first hit the UK I did see quite a lot of promotion on the Sky1 channel itself (I had acces to it back then). I decided to give it ago but completely forgot to watch it. I only just remembered the second episode. Clearly certain aspects, cute blonde aspects, had quite an impact. The rest as they say… well it resulted in this very site.
Is there any new news about series 7 being shown in the u.k.
Hi Harry. My 2nd new British commenter this week!
I last posted about this at the end of January (here). Since then I’ve been keeping an eye on Sky’s regular releases for news.
Sadly there has been no sign of Cold Case series 7. My best guess was they were waiting for the other shows (Bones, Lost, 24, Fringe etc.) to finish before using CC to fill in over the summer. Plus, if CC was not renewed in the US they may be able to get a better deal on it.
Repeats of CC make up quite a lot of the Sky (1, 2 & 3) schedule still so it is not as though they have abandoned it completely.
Do you guys at least have reruns, it’s sad that you can’t see Season 7.
Yes we do, see my “repeats of CC…” sentence above.
How exactly big is Cold Case over in the UK? I’m just wondering
That’s difficult to say. The channel that carrie(s/d) Cold Case, Sky One, is primarily available via satellite, and requires a subscription. Not everyone has access to it. Sky One has most of the big American shows like Bones, House and 24.
I’ve managed to find a few audience figures for Cold Case on Sky One from November 2008 which put it around the 400,000 viewer mark. Even the biggest shows on the channel only get around 1m viewers. The lists were only top 10s so it doesn’t take much to put Cold Case outside that.
In Cold Case’s early days, when it probably had the largest audience (by percentage of those with access) fewer people had the required dish. In recent years the channel has become more popular.
Sky One has a sister channel, Sky Two, which is largely a rerun channel, often showing repeats a day after the original broadcast on Sky One. Cold Case is regularly on that.
A step-sister channel, Sky Three, also has Cold Case, albeit older ones, on a regular basis. The channel mostly carries repeats of older Sky One shows. Sky Three is a free-to-air channel available via an aerial and digital set-top box. These are available very cheaply these days and everyone without cable or satellite will need one in the next year or two to continue to get TV at all. Their popularity is increasing rapidly. Even the top watched shows on Sky Three only get around 200,000 viewers.
So to answer your question: not very, in real terms. Though it’s put in some reasonable viewing figures over the years.
I have been addicted to Cold Case since it started on Sky One and have been desparate to see series 7. I have watched all the episodes from series 1-6 twice over. Please please tell me that Sky One will show the final series and keep reruns of the old episodes on. Cold Case knocks all the other detective programmes into touch.
Hi Andrea,
This post is over a year old now and Sky have still shown no signs of broadcasting series 7.
I’ve posted a few other articles about it since, you can see them by clicking on the Sky category (or click HERE).
Currently Sky do seem to be showing series 6.