I used to love watching Lost, I remember tuning in every week without fail, but when Sky 1 poached it from Channel 4 after Season 2 finished I just tailed away from it. I still think that Channel 4 made a big mistake by letting Lost slip through their finger's like that. I don't think it did the series any good either, when it was first broadcast on 4 it quickly gained millions of viewer's and fast became one of the most popular and talked about show's in the UK. But when Sky 1 took it, they alienated a lot of UK viewer's who (at the time) didn't have Sky or only had Freeview and so they couldn't watch it again (and they still can't). Suddenly the interest in Lost (in the UK) became less so.
This has happenend to another show I like called "Supernatural", season 4 on ITV2 ended with a really good cliff-hanger but by the time season 5 was about to start it was suddenly on Living, and as I've only got Freeview I can't watch it. So the only American-made show (for me) that was left was "Heroes" and that's just been axed.
This will never happen, but if "Doctor Who" was ever taken from the BBC, it would probably be the final nail in the coffin for UK television. With reality show's like "Strictly Come Dancing", "Over (the bloody) rainbow" and The X Factor polluting the airwaves year in year out, not to mention "Katie and Peter", "Big Brother" and yesterday (on here) I read that ITV1 is to remove all Children's programmes from it's schedules. A terrible decision. These people who are responsible for the input on TV really need to wake-up and see how bad it really is. They need to pull their finger's (well and truly) out.
I've just had a look at today's Terrestrial TV listings and it's all repeats mostly of show's like "Bargain Hunt", "Murder She Wrote", "Come Dine with me" and "CSI NY/Miami and NCIS". DW is the only really good thing on Terrestrial tonight.
That's why I watch mostly Freeview channels like Dave and ITV3 and 4 that broadcast old show's that deserve repeats such as "Minder", "Red Dwarf" and "Bottom" etc.
I'm sorry I've rambled a bit during this post. So in answer to your question Elessar? Yes Lost for me was a replacement for KM along with Lord of the Rings, New-Who, The Crystal Maze and Primeval. Also Classic repeats of "Robin of Sherwood" and "Blackadder" and CITV shows like "Zzzap!" and "Jungle Run". I hope that one day will get to see KM on ITV again.
