Well as far as I can recall, ITV announced in September 2000 they were going to move back to ten the following January, and then the Beeb announced they were going to move in October 2000 - because it started on 16th October. It was clearly a last minute move because the news went widescreen at the start of October, so they made a new widescreen version of the Nine O'Clock News titles which they used for two weeks, then had to replace.
And yeah, loads of shows ended up starting at ten past and ten to the hour, and regular shows like Holiday, Watchdog and Top of the Pops would regularly run any time between 25 and 40 minutes depending on what else was coming up later. In fact imagine if this thread was running at the time as in any given week EastEnders could start at 7.25, 7.30 or 7.35.
Thanks. By the sounds of it, BBC One would have moved the news eventually, anyway; it was just a matter of when.
Alison Sharman, Director of Factual and Daytime, is to leave ITV after 7 years in the post. It's the second Director departure from ITV this year following Director of Drama Laura Mackie.
She was probably at her peak within ITV lately - responsible for commissioning hit daytime gameshows Tipping Point and The Chase as well as Paul O'Grady: For The Love of Dogs and recent hit Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald which comes as part of a return to more serious factual for the channel. While some celebrity travelogues did well, many were buried in tough Tuesday slots and returning factual series proved hard to come by with Long Lost Family being a rare hit on that front.
Recent success comes after some bitter disappointment. Sharman was thrust forward as the public face of the Daybreak launch which was later taken off her hands following the very soft launch.
8 years ago, Sharman was head of BBC daytime and the leading candidate for the BBC1 Controller job, only to be pipped by Peter Fincham and be sidelined to run CBBC, including the digital channels. She was later linked with the Sky1 Controller position which went to Stuart Murphy.
No word on whether she is moving to another job or not - Broadcast says she has been discussing moves in recent months. She leaves at the end of the month with ITV apparently "re-structuring" the department in the near future. Quite what that will involve is hard to guess. You'd assume some kind of division - it's quite a broad remit from documentaries to popular factual series and then daytime.
BBC sport going to ITV is like BBC talent going to ITV, it rarely works.
Whereas BBC sport going to CH4 might just work, CH4 have a history of taking sport more seriously than the BBC.
Although I'm thinking more golden age CH4 rather than the turd factory it now is.
Yes, and I think being the only broadcaster of racing isn't doing it any favours. IMO C4 Racing always compared very, very favourably to BBC coverage - it just felt less stuck up and less patronising. I'm not a fan of racing at all really, but could quite easily watch Derek Thompson and co. even though C4 didn't really make any concessions for non racing fans. Now the BBC have dropped it and they're going it alone it does feel like they've had to make concessions and pitch themselves somewhere between where C4 and BBC Racing was - and it's not really working IMO.
What I do agree with is that the Grand National will get a much smaller audience but I think that's because the Grand National is not a race for people who watch it week in week out, it has such a huge casual audience and the BBC coverage worked because it made it seem a special event. Whereas on C4, I think it's always going to come across as just another race. I don't mean the coverage should be dumbed down but it's simply out of the way of the general audience. I think that was actually the reasoning behind The Derby going to the Beeb in 2001, it wasn't seen as enough of an occasion on Channel Four.
Same as the League Cup Final this year is only going to be seen as just another match on Sky Sports, whereas when it was on the BBC, and before that ITV, it was a special event.
That's a very good point - sometimes the BBC not having a great amount of coverage means the few events they do show really do bring in the audience, and C4 Racing coverage of the National could easily get lost in the schedule.
Another poor decision by Itv with their imports. After the flops in america which were Up All Night, Ben and Kate, Animal Practice, 666 Park Avenue, Bionic woman you'd think theyd learn. But its another probable american flop they have on their hands, this time for the main channel.
Alison Sharman, Director of Factual and Daytime, is to leave ITV after 7 years in the post. It's the second Director departure from ITV this year following Director of Drama Laura Mackie.
She was probably at her peak within ITV lately - responsible for commissioning hit daytime gameshows Tipping Point and The Chase as well as Paul O'Grady: For The Love of Dogs and recent hit Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald which comes as part of a return to more serious factual for the channel. While some celebrity travelogues did well, many were buried in tough Tuesday slots and returning factual series proved hard to come by with Long Lost Family being a rare hit on that front.
Recent success comes after some bitter disappointment. Sharman was thrust forward as the public face of the Daybreak launch which was later taken off her hands following the very soft launch.
8 years ago, Sharman was head of BBC daytime and the leading candidate for the BBC1 Controller job, only to be pipped by Peter Fincham and be sidelined to run CBBC, including the digital channels. She was later linked with the Sky1 Controller position which went to Stuart Murphy.
No word on whether she is moving to another job or not - Broadcast says she has been discussing moves in recent months. She leaves at the end of the month with ITV apparently "re-structuring" the department in the near future. Quite what that will involve is hard to guess. You'd assume some kind of division - it's quite a broad remit from documentaries to popular factual series and then daytime.
'The Americans' is no Homeland, it lost a huge 40pct of its viewers for its 2nd episode. Mustve been a very viewer unfriendly pilot!
Not a pretty drop. Just shy of 1.5 million viewers and 0.4 drop in the demo whilst the drop looks bad the raw number doesn't.
It scored 0.8 in the demo. That's only a tenth behind where Justified was for FX on Tuesday night and it handily beat Nessecary Roughness on USA which got just a 0.5 and White Collar on Tuesday which only pulled a 0.6. On a related note USA really are going to have to rethink their expansion into the regular season. The current strategy doesn't appear to be bearing fruit. The Americans though looks fine for a second season at this level. The question will be whether or not it can hold at this level or not. And of course worth remembering it had a full slate of original broadcast competition this week which it didn't have for the debut.
The show itself isn't bad at all. I quite enjoyed the pilot (and the second episode). It has a lot of potential. I think that its following Homeland probably isn't helping it very much but its a good little show.
Another poor decision by Itv with their imports. After the flops in america which were Up All Night, Ben and Kate, Animal Practice, 666 Park Avenue, Bionic woman you'd think theyd learn. But its another probable american flop they have on their hands, this time for the main channel.
In ITV's defence with the exception of Bionic Woman (which they brought because it had a British star and name value) and maybe 666 Park Ave. none of those imports have actually been especially bad quality. Up All Night and Ben & Kate in particular are both good funny sitcoms they just haven't been able to find an audience in the US (and ITV2's scheduling of them was just bizarre). It happens. That's part of the danger of buying in imports, you're at the mercy of the US networks and audiences.
Also I will just repeat that whilst The Americans had a worrying drop in week two its far from a flop at this point. Its raw number is still perfectly fine and enough to get it a second season. Whether it can remain at that level is another matter entirely but we'll see what happens.
Not a pretty drop. Just shy of 1.5 million viewers and 0.4 drop in the demo whilst the drop looks bad the raw number doesn't.
It scored 0.8 in the demo. That's only a tenth behind where Justified was for FX on Tuesday night and it handily beat Nessecary Roughness on USA which got just a 0.5 and White Collar on Tuesday which only pulled a 0.6. On a related note USA really are going to have to rethink their expansion into the regular season. The current strategy doesn't appear to be bearing fruit. The Americans though looks fine for a second season at this level. The question will be whether or not it can hold at this level or not. And of course worth remembering it had a full slate of original broadcast competition this week which it didn't have for the debut.
The show itself isn't bad at all. I quite enjoyed the pilot (and the second episode). It has a lot of potential.
USA are still doing okay but I think they need to broaden their slate and do shows that don't have quirky characters, Graceland does look promising though and it'll interesting how their original comedies do plus the arrival of Modern Family reruns.
TNT aren't doing so hot as Monday Mornings was DOA, they still do well with their original in the summer but apart from Southland which isn't exactly a ratings puller, they're not having luck expanding into the regular season either,
If you look across the past week I think there have only been four cable scripted series to break a 1.0:
Archer on FX (1.0) and Suits on USA (1.0) both last Thursday.
Cougar Town hit a 1.1 on Tuesday for TBS (not bad considering recent ABC comedies on that night!).
And top for the week is Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family on a 1.2.
In season it still seems to be unscripted that's working for cable with the occasional, sometimes very notable, exception like The Walking Dead.
For ITV, I think it's too soon to write off The Americans, particularly being on cable. And generally, picking a hit that's going to suit your own brand AND perform well in its home market is a very very difficult balancing act. Especially when US hits this season have been hard to come by. Sometimes it's just impossible to call - who thought Scandal would have surged like it has in its second season? Channel Five got Person of Interest which is doing well in the US but we've seen its ratings here. For ITV, buying NBC comedies made some sense in a way because NBC have a track record of letting low rating comedies run for a bit.
I know that this is probably going to sound strange. When the football takes up a slot of say Coronation Street or Emmerdale, why can't ITV just drop that one episode. The BBC do this with Casualty. It is not like the soaps are tied down to specific days being mentioned within the storylines.
I am sure that over the space of a year they would gain several episodes that were ordered, and that they could easily show them when they have an especially weak schedule on a particular week - or worse, just order less in anticipation which would save them a bit of money.
BBC says 2013 series of SCD will be made at Elstree on the 15,600 sq ft George Lucas stage which is considerably bigger than TC1. Strictly will return to TV Centre in 2015 when TC1 has been refurbished. New series of Pointless also to be made at Elstree. TC1,2 and 3 are due to be closed shortly for refurbishment so BBC productions will move to two sound stages at the Elstree film studios and Studio D at BBC Elstree.
Excellent for The Big Reunion to increase week-on-week to 1.1m (1.3m inc +1) and to be infront of BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Its a great show for ITV2 and quite fascinating to watch. The officials will be interesting. Maybe close to 2m with +1.
EE tops the night and Emmerdale posts another underwhelming 8pm rating of just 6.6m. And its massively down on last year now that Corrie has moved back to Wednesdays. As one problem is fixed, another problem arises. I really think the episode needs to be merged but then that would cause an EE clash every week and ideally this is something they don't wanna go back to again. Its a tricky situation for ITV. Not sure what to do with that second Emmerdale for the best because when it was initially introduced by in July 2009 it seemed like a stroke of genius but now its apparent the Corrie episode was supporting it hugely despite the latter struggling somewhat in an awkward 8.30pm slot.
In ITV's defence with the exception of Bionic Woman (which they brought because it had a British star and name value) and maybe 666 Park Ave. none of those imports have actually been especially bad quality. Up All Night and Ben & Kate in particular are both good funny sitcoms they just haven't been able to find an audience in the US (and ITV2's scheduling of them was just bizarre). It happens. That's part of the danger of buying in imports, you're at the mercy of the US networks and audiences.
Speaking of Ben & Kate and Up All Night, has anybody seen the ratings from this Monday night?
I commented on how bad last weeks figures were (144k and 90k respectively), and speculated as to how long they could stay in their present timeslots with those numbers, just wondering if they'd fell any further.
the bbc planning to show things way before broadcast on television...
does this mean more people not paying a tv licence will be able to watch more bbc content online for free, and before a fan of the good old bbc says everyone has a licence the fact is they dont many at uni i went to watched loads of bbc stuff and never had a licence and never will.
also...
that will lose Television Viewers in the process if they're watching it online and wont don't bother watching it on Transmission?
Comments
Thanks.
She was probably at her peak within ITV lately - responsible for commissioning hit daytime gameshows Tipping Point and The Chase as well as Paul O'Grady: For The Love of Dogs and recent hit Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald which comes as part of a return to more serious factual for the channel. While some celebrity travelogues did well, many were buried in tough Tuesday slots and returning factual series proved hard to come by with Long Lost Family being a rare hit on that front.
Recent success comes after some bitter disappointment. Sharman was thrust forward as the public face of the Daybreak launch which was later taken off her hands following the very soft launch.
8 years ago, Sharman was head of BBC daytime and the leading candidate for the BBC1 Controller job, only to be pipped by Peter Fincham and be sidelined to run CBBC, including the digital channels. She was later linked with the Sky1 Controller position which went to Stuart Murphy.
No word on whether she is moving to another job or not - Broadcast says she has been discussing moves in recent months. She leaves at the end of the month with ITV apparently "re-structuring" the department in the near future. Quite what that will involve is hard to guess. You'd assume some kind of division - it's quite a broad remit from documentaries to popular factual series and then daytime.
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/people/alison-sharman-to-exit-itv/5051619.article?blocktitle=LATEST-NEWS&contentID=870
Yes, and I think being the only broadcaster of racing isn't doing it any favours. IMO C4 Racing always compared very, very favourably to BBC coverage - it just felt less stuck up and less patronising. I'm not a fan of racing at all really, but could quite easily watch Derek Thompson and co. even though C4 didn't really make any concessions for non racing fans. Now the BBC have dropped it and they're going it alone it does feel like they've had to make concessions and pitch themselves somewhere between where C4 and BBC Racing was - and it's not really working IMO.
That's a very good point - sometimes the BBC not having a great amount of coverage means the few events they do show really do bring in the audience, and C4 Racing coverage of the National could easily get lost in the schedule.
I think she'll be snapped up in no time, I'm sure she'd be good at somewhere like Channel 4 or BBC Two.
It scored 0.8 in the demo. That's only a tenth behind where Justified was for FX on Tuesday night and it handily beat Nessecary Roughness on USA which got just a 0.5 and White Collar on Tuesday which only pulled a 0.6. On a related note USA really are going to have to rethink their expansion into the regular season. The current strategy doesn't appear to be bearing fruit. The Americans though looks fine for a second season at this level. The question will be whether or not it can hold at this level or not. And of course worth remembering it had a full slate of original broadcast competition this week which it didn't have for the debut.
The show itself isn't bad at all. I quite enjoyed the pilot (and the second episode). It has a lot of potential. I think that its following Homeland probably isn't helping it very much but its a good little show.
In ITV's defence with the exception of Bionic Woman (which they brought because it had a British star and name value) and maybe 666 Park Ave. none of those imports have actually been especially bad quality. Up All Night and Ben & Kate in particular are both good funny sitcoms they just haven't been able to find an audience in the US (and ITV2's scheduling of them was just bizarre). It happens. That's part of the danger of buying in imports, you're at the mercy of the US networks and audiences.
Also I will just repeat that whilst The Americans had a worrying drop in week two its far from a flop at this point. Its raw number is still perfectly fine and enough to get it a second season. Whether it can remain at that level is another matter entirely but we'll see what happens.
USA are still doing okay but I think they need to broaden their slate and do shows that don't have quirky characters, Graceland does look promising though and it'll interesting how their original comedies do plus the arrival of Modern Family reruns.
TNT aren't doing so hot as Monday Mornings was DOA, they still do well with their original in the summer but apart from Southland which isn't exactly a ratings puller, they're not having luck expanding into the regular season either,
Archer on FX (1.0) and Suits on USA (1.0) both last Thursday.
Cougar Town hit a 1.1 on Tuesday for TBS (not bad considering recent ABC comedies on that night!).
And top for the week is Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family on a 1.2.
In season it still seems to be unscripted that's working for cable with the occasional, sometimes very notable, exception like The Walking Dead.
For ITV, I think it's too soon to write off The Americans, particularly being on cable. And generally, picking a hit that's going to suit your own brand AND perform well in its home market is a very very difficult balancing act. Especially when US hits this season have been hard to come by. Sometimes it's just impossible to call - who thought Scandal would have surged like it has in its second season? Channel Five got Person of Interest which is doing well in the US but we've seen its ratings here. For ITV, buying NBC comedies made some sense in a way because NBC have a track record of letting low rating comedies run for a bit.
She may have commissioned Tipping Point, The Chase, For the Love of Dogs, but she will always have the black mark of Daybreak against her.
I am sure that over the space of a year they would gain several episodes that were ordered, and that they could easily show them when they have an especially weak schedule on a particular week - or worse, just order less in anticipation which would save them a bit of money.
Thursday top rated: EastEnders 8.19m; Emmerdale 7.06m/6.57m; BBC Reg News 6.02m; Silent Witness 5.14m; BBC News (6pm) 5.06m; One Show 4.93m.
On BBC3 Junior Doctors (621k; 613k last wk) and Way to Go (411k; 405k last wk) were both up for the second week running, albeit marginally.
8pm Thursday: Waterloo Road 3.82m; The Planners 1.42m; Nursing the Nation 3.03m; Location 2.01m; Dangerous Drivers 1.08m.
#TheBigReunion on ITV2 beat BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5 across the 9pm hour, with 1.124m (4.87%).
On BBC3 Junior Doctors (621k; 613k last wk) and Way to Go (411k; 405k last wk) were both up for the second week running, albeit marginally.
Thursday top rated: EastEnders 8.19m; Emmerdale 7.06m/6.57m; BBC Reg News 6.02m; Silent Witness 5.14m; BBC News (6pm) 5.06m; One Show 4.93m.
#TheBigReunion on ITV2 beat BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5 across the 9pm hour, with 1.124m (4.87%).
9pm Thursday: Silent Witness 5.14m; Genius of Invention 918k; Heavy Horsepower 3.86m; Build a Bionic Man 1.02m; Winter Road Rescue 1.12m.
Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe continued last night on BBC2 with an under-par 836k (4.5%), down on last week's 1.11m. @charltonbrooker
ITV2's #BigReunion is building into a big hit for the channel with 1.12m (4.9%) last night, up on last week's 957k. Both excluding +1
Martin Clunes: Heavy Horsepower last night averaged 3.86m (16.7%) on ITV. It was beaten by Silent Witness with 5.14m (22.3%; last week 5.71)
Pointless - 3.7m
So, Pointless 200k ahead of The Chase even when you add the +1 figure.
It's about time ITV did a primetime cooking show.
Any figures for Good Wife/Nashville on More4?
And yet it did far better than anyone expected.
Must be with horses being flavour of the month at the moment.
So to speak...
Quite. Findus missed a great sponsorship opportunity there ...
Talking of horses, I see Clare Balding returns tomorrow with Britain's Dullest Quizshow...
EE tops the night and Emmerdale posts another underwhelming 8pm rating of just 6.6m. And its massively down on last year now that Corrie has moved back to Wednesdays. As one problem is fixed, another problem arises. I really think the episode needs to be merged but then that would cause an EE clash every week and ideally this is something they don't wanna go back to again. Its a tricky situation for ITV. Not sure what to do with that second Emmerdale for the best because when it was initially introduced by in July 2009 it seemed like a stroke of genius but now its apparent the Corrie episode was supporting it hugely despite the latter struggling somewhat in an awkward 8.30pm slot.
Speaking of Ben & Kate and Up All Night, has anybody seen the ratings from this Monday night?
I commented on how bad last weeks figures were (144k and 90k respectively), and speculated as to how long they could stay in their present timeslots with those numbers, just wondering if they'd fell any further.
does this mean more people not paying a tv licence will be able to watch more bbc content online for free, and before a fan of the good old bbc says everyone has a licence the fact is they dont many at uni i went to watched loads of bbc stuff and never had a licence and never will.
also...
that will lose Television Viewers in the process if they're watching it online and wont don't bother watching it on Transmission?