Victoria’s writer is unhappy to say the least.
Daisy Goodwin has blasted ITV’s schedulers for not putting her costume drama out in January, when it aired in the US.
Instead, she claims, the channel used it as a “line of sandbags” against the BBC’s juggernaut Line of Duty.
On Sunday night, the BBC secured 7.1 million viewers for that series, while Victoria’s ratings reached three million.
Daisy believes fans will have watched the series on the internet “in ways that are possibly illegal but easy to master”.
She complains: “These Machiavellian types don’t care about the patriotic right of British Victoria fans to see their heroine first.
Coronation Street's Rana 'back from the dead' in 'sick' controversial twist
“It’s a dark art, scheduling, and it can be very demoralising for people who have dedicated themselves to making something special to realise that, for the scheduler, your carefully honed drama is nothing more than a line of sandbags against Bodyguard 2 or, in Victoria’s case, Line of Duty.”
She would rather everyone watched the series, starring Jenna Coleman, collectively on ITV “the old-fashioned way”, she writes in the Radio Times.
Daisy is hoping next year’s fourth and possibly final series will be moved.
“The next series of Victoria will be the darkest yet,” she says.
“I hope that the gods of scheduling look favourably upon it and decide to put it out simultaneously with the US broadcast.”
Similarly, the second series of BBC America’s Killing Eve aired in the US over the weekend, while British audiences were still waiting to find out when it would be shown in the UK.
