Victoria Beckham: Coming to America
Encyclopedia
Victoria Beckham: Coming to America was a one-hour American TV special that featured British former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham
moving to the United States
where her husband, David Beckham
, begins his career playing football for LA Galaxy
of the MLS
.
on documentaries such as Being Victoria Beckham and other shows featuring the Beckhams. Parts of the spoof element featured Victoria being mean to her personal assistant, played by Renee Gauthier. While a hit in the UK, the spoof element was not grasped by the US viewers. Originally meant to serve as the pilot to a serialized reality show, the show drew in only 4.9 million viewers in the US.
Produced by 19 Entertainment
(Simon Fuller
's company that handles the careers of David and Victoria Beckham), what eventually ended up as a one-hour show on NBC was originally supposed to be six half-hour episodes shown weekly as agreed upon by Fuller and NBC months before the scheduled arrival of the Beckhams to the US. However, NBC soon cooled on the idea and unilaterally decided to move the episodes to its lower-profile sister network Bravo on basic cable
. The move made Fuller irate, but he only succeeded in getting NBC to reach a compromise: the show would air as a one-hour, stand-alone broadcast on NBC on July 16, 2007 and if it managed to pull in good enough ratings, more episodes would follow. Though it won its time slot on Monday in the usually slow summer TV season, the show got a tepid 2.2 rating in the US, falling well short of the numbers required to make NBC interested in ordering additional episodes.
In addition to NBC, the show also aired the same day on CTV
in Canada
. It premiered in the UK on ITV1
on July 17, 2007, and in Australia
on the Nine Network
on July 17, 2007.
Victoria Beckham
Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, actress, fashion designer and businesswoman. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls and was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British pop music magazine Top of the Pops...
moving to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
where her husband, David Beckham
David Beckham
David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...
, begins his career playing football for LA Galaxy
Los Angeles Galaxy
The Los Angeles Galaxy are an American professional soccer team, based in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California, which competes in Major League Soccer , the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, and the league's second...
of the MLS
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer is a professional soccer league based in the United States and sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation . The league is composed of 19 teams — 16 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada...
.
Summary
The programme was part factual and part a scripted spoofParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
on documentaries such as Being Victoria Beckham and other shows featuring the Beckhams. Parts of the spoof element featured Victoria being mean to her personal assistant, played by Renee Gauthier. While a hit in the UK, the spoof element was not grasped by the US viewers. Originally meant to serve as the pilot to a serialized reality show, the show drew in only 4.9 million viewers in the US.
Produced by 19 Entertainment
19 Entertainment
19 Entertainment, based in Los Angeles, United States, is a creator and producer of entertainment properties based around the areas of Music and Television / Film, including American Idol in the United States, Pop Idol in the United Kingdom as well as versions of the Idol series in more than...
(Simon Fuller
Simon Fuller
Simon Fuller is a British artist manager, television producer and creator of the Idol franchise, first seen as Pop Idol in the UK. Fuller is also the co-creator and executive producer of the Fox TV reality show So You Think You Can Dance and other U.S...
's company that handles the careers of David and Victoria Beckham), what eventually ended up as a one-hour show on NBC was originally supposed to be six half-hour episodes shown weekly as agreed upon by Fuller and NBC months before the scheduled arrival of the Beckhams to the US. However, NBC soon cooled on the idea and unilaterally decided to move the episodes to its lower-profile sister network Bravo on basic cable
Cable television in the United States
Cable television in the United States is a common form of television delivery, generally by subscription. Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948, with subscription services in 1949. Data by SNL Kagan shows that as of 2006 about 58.4% of all American homes subscribe to...
. The move made Fuller irate, but he only succeeded in getting NBC to reach a compromise: the show would air as a one-hour, stand-alone broadcast on NBC on July 16, 2007 and if it managed to pull in good enough ratings, more episodes would follow. Though it won its time slot on Monday in the usually slow summer TV season, the show got a tepid 2.2 rating in the US, falling well short of the numbers required to make NBC interested in ordering additional episodes.
In addition to NBC, the show also aired the same day on CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. It premiered in the UK on ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
on July 17, 2007, and in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
on the Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...
on July 17, 2007.