The difference between those things and Push The Button and the things they did on SMTV and Takeaway is that most of the latter were just messing around. I remember a newspaper comparing SMTV and the last desperate days of Live and Kicking and saying "You could play ten games of Wonkey Donkey in the time it takes to explain the rules of [boring Live and Kicking quiz] Popaholics". The vasy majority of them were also fun to watch.
Wrong...not without a number of people being whisked off for counselling during the next commercial break!
I hope they're not going back to filming it as five episodes because it doesn't work on BBC One, I thought they revamped it to make it work as a hour long format. 90 minute of Masterchef is too much for one episode. It works on BBC Two because they have the slots for it.
Exactly - if they want to make it as a stripped format it should air as a stripped format, either back on BBC2 or perhaps as a summer filler in place of The One Show.
I don't think the revamped format airing one hour a week went down too well last year, but surely it can't be that difficult to revamp into a show that could air on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8pm for eight weeks or so.
ITV makes a big play about its football coverage, but it rarely does the business whether FA Cup, England or Champs League.
That match was never going to pull in a big audience, though, a middling Premier League side at home to a League One club who had their best chance of an upset in the original tie. If the Beeb had the FA Cup and that was the only replay they'd have had to show it in primetime and it would have got an equally low audience. That's the price you pay with the contract, you get Man U and Liverpool but the luck of the draw means occasionally you get matches like that. The Beeb fared far worse with their primetime replays, there was a diabolical Middlesbrough match they had to show on primetime BBC1.
itv rather bizzarely ran highlights of the game just finished at 10.35pm which was rather stange, yet they run highlights of the untelevised game tonight on itv4 at 10.30pm.
Surely it should be the other way around with Chelsea/ Middelsborough on itv and the highlights from Everton/ Oldham on itv4?
Yes, this was completely bizarre, as was Matt Smith having to traipse to Everton to sit in the same seat Adrian Chiles had vacated half an hour ago to introduce the same match. Presumably it's for contractual reasons that they have to do a highlights show on ITV for each round of replays, but there seems to be no logic at all. As you say, they'd have been better off just doing one highlights show tonight with both matches in it.
This whole FA Cup contract is thoroughly odd, though, because ESPN don't get a replay in the fifth round because there's only one, so that now gets carried forward to next season, which was never the case with the Beeb and surely that's the risk you take when you sign the contract. And last season because of this carrying over there were four live replays in the third round, with only six rather dull replays to choose from, but this season only two out of ten replays were televised, both at the same time. And you get highlights of a match half an hour after it finished, but last season they had to wait until Sunday morning for any highlights of the first round. It's demented. God knows what the viewers make of it.
But its not the football which is making the money for Itv, its other parts of the schedule as well as them unemployeeing hundreds of people in costs savings. Football is actually hindering the amount of money Itv is making because of the huge fees for all but one of the tournaments.
Reading the reports, it looks like it's the production division that's making the profits. It generated £100 million more than it did in the previous year. Not sure how much the channels business contributed to the growth, because the company described last year's advertising market as "flat".
ITV plc as a whole is in good health. Archie Norman and Adam Crozier are trying to break the company's over-dependence on ad revenue and they're succeeding. They've brought in some great people like Kevin Lygo who have really driven growth in progranmme creation and distribution. If they could just sort out the broadcasting/channels division the business would really fly.
I think TVbyTN is being too generous with Golden Boy's low numbers last night. It received 1.8 in 18-49 demo. It obviously skews old as it had 10.46m viewers. Normally 1.8 is a pathetic debut, especially for an over-achieving CBS. However, considering almost all new and returning midseason dramas flopped with record-breaking lows, 1.8 seems like a mid-2 range at this point. Really sad.
Alastair Down, who wasn't offered a new contract to join the new team at Channel 4 Racing, is to return after all for Cheltenham according to Charles Sale of the Daily Mail...
Death in Paradise dented CSI which could only muster 1.56m (6.5%) inc. +1. Very low for its high standards, finishing last out of the main five.
It'll bounce back since there is no drama competition from BBC One or ITV after Mayday. I imagine they'll be relieved that its improved the slot average.
Prisoners Wives moving to Thursday (confirmed by the BBC Media Centre, even though BBC1 have today been running trailers saying it returns Tuesday 12th March) will surely help CSI, though it is a franchise in it's twilight years now on both sides of the Atlantic. CSI:NY is tipped for cancellation, and while CSI probably could continue a few more years CBS at the moment at least seem to be in the fairly luxurious position of having to axe a show that otherwise probably wouldn't be axed in order to make room for new shows - so once it's out there on it's own it'll certainly be more vulnerable.
Prisoners Wives moving to Thursday (confirmed by the BBC Media Centre, even though BBC1 have today been running trailers saying it returns Tuesday 12th March) will surely help CSI, though it is a franchise in it's twilight years now on both sides of the Atlantic. CSI:NY is tipped for cancellation, and while CSI probably could continue a few more years CBS at the moment at least seem to be in the fairly luxurious position of having to axe a show that otherwise probably wouldn't be axed in order to make room for new shows - so once it's out there on it's own it'll certainly be more vulnerable.
I think CSI would be granted a final season given it helped CBS become the dominant network along with Survivor plus I'd imagine if they could lure back old cast members to return for a few episodes and the final episode, it would bring it viewers.
hey, just a completely random query- I wanted to ask if BARB includes BBC ONE HD in its listings because I'm confused. I have two channels on my tv- BBC ONE HD (channel 143) and BBC HD (channel 169). So does barb count both channels or just one of them.
Re ITV football contract - need to remember huge cost savings achieved in last negotiations:
ITV FA contract:
2008/12 - £69m per year
2012/14 - £45m per year - for a bit more content - ie includes England home friendlies which they didn't have for 2008/12 ***.
*** I know they bought them later after Setanta collapsed but they weren't in the £69m.
Probably impossible for anyone without access to the detailed books to say whether it's profitable but I doubt ITV can be losing much on this contract now - and broader issues such as cross-promotion to an audience who may never otherwise watch ITV probably justify it.
ITV also made a smaller saving on its new CL contract - precise figures were never reported but generally believed to be approx a 10% reduction.
hey, just a completely random query- I wanted to ask if BARB includes BBC ONE HD in its listings because I'm confused. I have two channels on my tv- BBC ONE HD (channel 143) and BBC HD (channel 169). So does barb count both channels or just one of them.
BBC One HD is counted in with BBC One.
BBC HD is seperate because it was originally a mixed channel although will soon become BBC Two HD so when that happens those ratings will be added to BBC Two
Reading the reports, it looks like it's the production division that's making the profits. It generated £100 million more than it did in the previous year. Not sure how much the channels business contributed to the growth, because the company described last year's advertising market as "flat".
Budget for 2013 = "around £980m" - ie reduction of £16m (slide actually says £15m). Sports savings in 2013 (no major tournament) will be partially reinvested in ITV2 and ITV4.
See 20/49 for 2013 plans and 43/49 for 2012 costs:
im watching it now and its lacking in charm, drama and food, dont think i'll be watching again unless it pulls something out of the bag after the break, I predict mid 3s for this, but deserves to be lower! Interesting to see if hairy bikers rise during the hour. If I wasnt so obsessive about watching shows from the start I woukd of switched over to the hairy bikers by now!!!
Is Cowell actually in it? If so, I thought they would have advertised his presence more.
Everywhere I've heard it mentioned it's been referred to as "Simon Cowell's new show" which is odd when he's not in it and worrying that this is the best angle they can come up with to sell the show to viewers when his last project Red or Black was one of the most dismal primetime shows ever made, especially when taking into account its budget and the hype surrounding it.
Don't understand why there would be any fuss about Food Glorious Food at all as it doesn't look particularly original and there are too many cookery shows on TV already. It'll probably rate okay for what it is but don't see it pulling up any trees, especially in that timeslot.
im watching it now and its lacking in charm, drama and food, dont think i'll be watching again unless it pulls something out of the bag after the break, I predict mid 3s for this, but deserves to be lower! Interesting to see if hairy bikers rise during the hour. If I wasnt so obsessive about watching shows from the start I woukd of switched over to the hairy bikers by now!!!
I gave it 10 minutes before switching over to the Hairy Bikers. I totally agree with your comments, but I have a sneaking suspicion it might still do reasonably due to viewers tuning in out of curiosity and a lack of competition.
It'll bounce back since there is no drama competition from BBC One or ITV after Mayday. I imagine they'll be relieved that its improved the slot average.
It'll be interesting to see if it continues the recent trend of well above normal timeshifts for C5's acquisitions. I suspect it might and we could see a significant shift in the officials.
I wouldn't see this as a good thing, by the way. Too many viewers at the moment are enjoying their quality drama output but skipping the adverts. And oddly they seem to be encouraging this catchup culture with a big push for Demand 5 just now. I'd caution against that really as viewers seem to be having little problem finding Demand 5 and CSI was once a big appointment-to-view show the likes of which they absolutely need in the schedules.
They need to be doing much more to encourage live viewing, like ensuring programmes start at the advertised time and not 3 minutes past the hour. And smarter scheduling is needed, i.e. anticipating that Death in Paradise appealed to a similar audience and would likely cause CSI to underperform. A week or two later and I'm confident the series premiere would have delivered a 2m overnight.
Everywhere I've heard it mentioned it's been referred to as "Simon Cowell's new show" which is odd when he's not in it and worrying that this is the best angle they can come up with to sell the show to viewers when his last project Red or Black was one of the most dismal primetime shows ever made, especially when taking into account its budget and the hype surrounding it.
Don't understand why there would be any fuss about Food Glorious Food at all as it doesn't look particularly original and there are too many cookery shows on TV already. It'll probably rate okay for what it is but don't see it pulling up any trees, especially in that timeslot.
From the trailer it just sounded like Britain's Best Dish. If that is the case, and Cowell has somehow managed to sell ITV their own show, then you have to admire him...even if it's grudgingly.
Food Glorious Food was a mixture of Antiques Road Show, Great British Bake Off and X Factor. It lacked the quaint touch of the road show, the heartwarming quality of the bake off and the drama of X Factor. Essentially what you had was a rather dull affair, which was devoid of tension and packed with sob-stories. I couldn't warm to the judges and quite frankly I don't care who gets their dish into M&S. I predict a solid 5m start this week, which will fall to around 3.9m ish in weeks to come.
On the other hand Child of our Time was once again thoroughly entertaining and very moving. I know the last series of this show rated relatively poorly (or at best averagely). I hope this year the series finds the ratings success it truly deserves. Fascinating.
Comments
Wrong...not without a number of people being whisked off for counselling during the next commercial break!
I don't think the revamped format airing one hour a week went down too well last year, but surely it can't be that difficult to revamp into a show that could air on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8pm for eight weeks or so.
That match was never going to pull in a big audience, though, a middling Premier League side at home to a League One club who had their best chance of an upset in the original tie. If the Beeb had the FA Cup and that was the only replay they'd have had to show it in primetime and it would have got an equally low audience. That's the price you pay with the contract, you get Man U and Liverpool but the luck of the draw means occasionally you get matches like that. The Beeb fared far worse with their primetime replays, there was a diabolical Middlesbrough match they had to show on primetime BBC1.
I don't think My House In Umbria has ever been on primetime networked ITV, has it?
Yes, this was completely bizarre, as was Matt Smith having to traipse to Everton to sit in the same seat Adrian Chiles had vacated half an hour ago to introduce the same match. Presumably it's for contractual reasons that they have to do a highlights show on ITV for each round of replays, but there seems to be no logic at all. As you say, they'd have been better off just doing one highlights show tonight with both matches in it.
This whole FA Cup contract is thoroughly odd, though, because ESPN don't get a replay in the fifth round because there's only one, so that now gets carried forward to next season, which was never the case with the Beeb and surely that's the risk you take when you sign the contract. And last season because of this carrying over there were four live replays in the third round, with only six rather dull replays to choose from, but this season only two out of ten replays were televised, both at the same time. And you get highlights of a match half an hour after it finished, but last season they had to wait until Sunday morning for any highlights of the first round. It's demented. God knows what the viewers make of it.
Reading the reports, it looks like it's the production division that's making the profits. It generated £100 million more than it did in the previous year. Not sure how much the channels business contributed to the growth, because the company described last year's advertising market as "flat".
ITV plc as a whole is in good health. Archie Norman and Adam Crozier are trying to break the company's over-dependence on ad revenue and they're succeeding. They've brought in some great people like Kevin Lygo who have really driven growth in progranmme creation and distribution. If they could just sort out the broadcasting/channels division the business would really fly.
I think TVbyTN is being too generous with Golden Boy's low numbers last night. It received 1.8 in 18-49 demo. It obviously skews old as it had 10.46m viewers. Normally 1.8 is a pathetic debut, especially for an over-achieving CBS. However, considering almost all new and returning midseason dramas flopped with record-breaking lows, 1.8 seems like a mid-2 range at this point. Really sad.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2285040/Paddy-Power-poster-mocking-Fernando-Torres-outside-Stamford-Bridge-angers-Chelsea-Charles-Sale.html
It'll bounce back since there is no drama competition from BBC One or ITV after Mayday. I imagine they'll be relieved that its improved the slot average.
I think CSI would be granted a final season given it helped CBS become the dominant network along with Survivor plus I'd imagine if they could lure back old cast members to return for a few episodes and the final episode, it would bring it viewers.
ITV FA contract:
2008/12 - £69m per year
2012/14 - £45m per year - for a bit more content - ie includes England home friendlies which they didn't have for 2008/12 ***.
*** I know they bought them later after Setanta collapsed but they weren't in the £69m.
Probably impossible for anyone without access to the detailed books to say whether it's profitable but I doubt ITV can be losing much on this contract now - and broader issues such as cross-promotion to an audience who may never otherwise watch ITV probably justify it.
ITV also made a smaller saving on its new CL contract - precise figures were never reported but generally believed to be approx a 10% reduction.
BBC One HD is counted in with BBC One.
BBC HD is seperate because it was originally a mixed channel although will soon become BBC Two HD so when that happens those ratings will be added to BBC Two
Profits by division:
Broadcast / Online - £413m (2011 - £379m)
Studios - £107m (2011 - £83m)
So vast majority of profits continue to come from Broadcast / Online.
Studios profits are up 29% (Broadcast / Online profits up 9%) but still a comparatively small share of overall profits.
NB. Also note some Studios profits are "internal" - ie dependent on internal transfer price paid by ITV Broadcast division.
Studios external supply (ie sales to 3rd parties) still only comprise £362m of revenue - out of total revenue of £2,196m.
http://www.itvplc.com/sites/itvplc/files/Presentation%202012.pdf
Commissions - 522 (2011 - 519)
Sport - 157 (2011 - 160)
Acquired - 45 (2011 - 59)
News and Weather - 45 (2011 - 43)
Other - 0 (2011 - 2)
Sub-total - 769 (2011 - 783)
Regional news and non-news - 71 (2011 - 69)
Breakfast - 42 (2011 - 38)
Total ITV1 - 882 (2011 - 890)
ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV - 114 (2011 -114)
Grand Total ITV Plc - 996 (2011 - 1,004)
Budget for 2013 = "around £980m" - ie reduction of £16m (slide actually says £15m). Sports savings in 2013 (no major tournament) will be partially reinvested in ITV2 and ITV4.
See 20/49 for 2013 plans and 43/49 for 2012 costs:
http://www.itvplc.com/sites/itvplc/files/Presentation%202012.pdf
Is Cowell actually in it? If so, I thought they would have advertised his presence more.
Don't understand why there would be any fuss about Food Glorious Food at all as it doesn't look particularly original and there are too many cookery shows on TV already. It'll probably rate okay for what it is but don't see it pulling up any trees, especially in that timeslot.
I gave it 10 minutes before switching over to the Hairy Bikers. I totally agree with your comments, but I have a sneaking suspicion it might still do reasonably due to viewers tuning in out of curiosity and a lack of competition.
I wouldn't see this as a good thing, by the way. Too many viewers at the moment are enjoying their quality drama output but skipping the adverts. And oddly they seem to be encouraging this catchup culture with a big push for Demand 5 just now. I'd caution against that really as viewers seem to be having little problem finding Demand 5 and CSI was once a big appointment-to-view show the likes of which they absolutely need in the schedules.
They need to be doing much more to encourage live viewing, like ensuring programmes start at the advertised time and not 3 minutes past the hour. And smarter scheduling is needed, i.e. anticipating that Death in Paradise appealed to a similar audience and would likely cause CSI to underperform. A week or two later and I'm confident the series premiere would have delivered a 2m overnight.
From the trailer it just sounded like Britain's Best Dish. If that is the case, and Cowell has somehow managed to sell ITV their own show, then you have to admire him...even if it's grudgingly.
On the other hand Child of our Time was once again thoroughly entertaining and very moving. I know the last series of this show rated relatively poorly (or at best averagely). I hope this year the series finds the ratings success it truly deserves. Fascinating.
Takeover talk downplayed as revenue and profits rise in spite of BBC's Olympics and Jubilee boost
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/27/itv-boosted-by-new-shows