BBC1 won Sat primetime comfortably

Another thing I noticed is that despite Warship being moved to Tuesdays, it kept most of its audience from the previous week and I think it boosted CSI:Miami.

Yeah I noticed that aswell. Miami has suffered in recent weeks from a poor lead in and tough competition and Warship is holding steady in the slot change and I think it will be recomissioned again after the ratings for this series.

Five has another series called Ice Patrol which is a docusoap about a navy ship in the Antarctic, I reckon Warship will be recomissioned, I wonder if Police Interceptors is coming back for another series as that rated really well on Fridays.

Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe is a good show. I can see the reason why their isn't alot of games shows on the TV looking at the shows ratings. Shame as I quite like shows about games

BBC confirm Saturday 10th October schedule:

17:45 - Hole in the Wall
18:15 - Merlin
19:00 - Strictly Come Dancing
21:15 - Lottery
21:25 - Casualty

Exactly the same really as the week before. What it does mean is that the last 45 minutes of The X Factor will not clash with Strictly.

Updated the below chart. Updated or new entries in italics:

Top 20 Officials- Most watched programmes of 2009 (up to and including w/e September 20th)
01 - 18.29m - BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT FINAL RESULT (31/05/09) - ITV1
02 - 12.84m - THE X FACTOR (05/09/09) - ITV1
03 - 11.46m - CORONATION STREET (02/02/09) - ITV1
04 - 11.31m - DANCING ON ICE (22/03/09) - ITV1
05 - 10.68m - EASTENDERS (02/04/09) - BBC1

06 - 9.91m - JONATHAN CREEK (01/01/09) - BBC1
07 - 9.84m - COMIC RELIEF (13/03/09) - BBC1
08 - 9.76m - THE APPRENTICE (03/06/09) - BBC1
09 - 9.54m - DOCTOR WHO (11/04/09) - BBC1
10 - 9.26m - WHITECHAPEL (02/02/09) - ITV1

11 - 9.20m - KILIMANJARO: THE BIG RED NOSE CLIMB (12/03/09) - BBC1
12 - 8.92m - STRICTLY COME DANCING (18/09/09) - BBC1
13 - 8.78m - NEW TRICKS (16/07/09) - BBC1
14 - 8.55m - WIMBLEDON 2009 (29/06/09) - BBC1
15 - 8.54m - EMMERDALE (02/02/09) - ITV1

16 - 8.53m - COMIC RELIEF DOES THE APPRENTICE (12/03/09) - BBC1
17 - 8.52m - WILD AT HEART (08/03/09) - ITV1
18 - 8.44m - LET'S DANCE FOR COMIC RELIEF (07/03/09) - BBC1
19 - 8.31m - UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Man United vs Barcelona (27/05/09) - ITV1
20 - 8.30m - DOC MARTIN (20/09/09) - ITV1

BBC1- 11
ITV1- 09

Notes
- duplicates removed, even if in top 20 on BARB (i.e. BGT)
- EastEnders number changed due to the fact show ran for an hour, not half an hour

A lot of big and important timeshifts in that list - eapecially for Merlin up nearly 0.7m but also very good for Waking The Dead and Doc Martin. Strictly cant be displeased with that final rating either.

Risky after the disaster that was "Joey." But I'm sure with Showtime & the BBC on board they will make it work.

Worst mistake Five ever made though that one. £1m per hour wasn't it? Shudder.

I notice Susan Boyle is set to make a November appearance on X Factor, wonder if there will be a "Boyle Bounce" in the ratings.

So I guess we know how the Sunday X Factor will now be padded out, as they are doubling up on the performers :

Alexandra Burke and Robbie Williams will perform the first weekend.

Whitney Houston & Cheryl Cole the second weekend.

It is was £500,000 an episode although I think Five paid £5m for it and they got another series chucked in with it. TBH I don't blame them for paying so much as Friends had just ended and hopes were high for a spin-off, unfortunately it sucked.

ABC:
8pm - Shark Tank - 5.3m (1.5)
9pm - Dancing With The Stars - 12.5m (2.6)
* Ouch! Down 21% from last weeks result show in adults 18-49
* Down 19% overall
10pm - The Forgotten - 7.5m (2.0)
* Not helped by DWTS falling, The Forgotten dropped 2m (21%) and 0.6 (23%) from premiere

CBS:
8pm - NCIS - 20.6m (4.6)
* New series high in viewers, flat in demo from last week
* Not enough to top Big Bang Theory (5.3) or Two and a Half Men (4.8) in demo
9pm - NCIS:LA - 17.4m (4.2)
* Retained 93% of overall premiere audience and demo ratings
* Second half hour dropped to 2nd in slot (18-49's) behind NBC
10pm - The Good Wife - 13.4m (3.1)
* Flat from last weeks premiere

FOX:
8pm - Hells Kitchen - 6.5m (3.2)
9pm - So You Think You Can Dance? - 5.3m (2.4)
* 2nd worst demo performance for the show in 2009

NBC:
8pm - The Biggest Loser - 9.1m (3.6)
* Improving on last week, beat final half hour of NCIS:LA
10pm - The Jay Leno Show - 6.6m (2.3)
* Down just a touch from last week
* Beat The Forgotten in the demo

Overall:
CBS - 17.15m
ABC - 8.42m
NBC - 8.23m
FOX - 5.90m

18-49:
CBS - 4.0
NBC - 3.1
FOX - 2.7
ABC - 2.0

Sources:
Zap2it
Tvbythenumbers

Info on 90210, Melrose Place and late night also in those links.

Re the above debate about programme profitability:

It's important to remember that ITV (and other channels) have a whole host of costs in addition to programming, eg:

- Advertising sales dept
- Transmission costs
- Commissioners, schedulers etc
- Finance dept
- HR dept
- Contracts, legal dept
- General management
- Property costs
- General overheads - eg utilities etc

So if all programming just broke even, the company would overall make a massive loss. Thus programming actually needs to make substantial profits before the company as a whole moves into even a very small overall profit.

BBC Press Office confirms that after Criminal Justice week, Life will be on Mondays and Around The World In 80 Days will air on Tuesdays.

Nothing's put down yet for Wednesday or Thursday 9pm slots.

The Armstrong and Miller Show will be airing at 21:30 on Fridays. 21:00 will probably be Have I Got News For You.

NCIS is a monster and NCIS LA and The Good Wife are doing great as well, not only is a Criminal Minds spin-off in development but I wouldn’t be surprised if another NCIS spin-off is in the works although where they could set it and what division of NCIS is viable for television is beyond me.

Five must be pleased that they have one of the biggest hits in America. The growth of this show is nothing but amazing.

So, considering it'll probably be only an hour, what do we think (in terms of timings) it'll look like. I'm going to suggest:

20:02 to 20:06 - Introduction
20:06 to 20:10 - Phone Number Recap
20:10 to 20:14 - Break
20:14 to 20:19 - 'Why I Should Be Kept In' thing along with Phone Numbers
20:19 to 20:22 - Dermot talks to judges about who they think performed best yesterday
20:22 to 20:26 - 1st 'Guest Performance'
20:26 to 20:30 - Break
20:30 to 20:34 - Dermot announces who is safe and who is in the 'Sing-Off'
20:34 to 20:36 - Judges 'advice' to the bottom two
20:36 to 20:40 - 2nd 'Guest Peformance'
20:40 to 20:44 - Break
20:44 to 20:52 - Bottom 2 perform
20:52 to 20:55 - Judges Decision, Deadlock if Necessary
20:55 to 20:58 - Final Thoughts from Judges, Song from exiting singer
20:58 - Off-Air

So, 4 segments basically:
- Segment 1 = 08 minutes
- Segment 2 = 12 minutes
- Segment 3 = 10 minutes
- Segment 4 = 14 minutes

Wasn't even aware that had started - seen no mention of it at all. Like many though, as much as I love Charlie Brooker's other shows, I had no interest in one on gaming.

The ratings aren't bad at all. 361k is pretty damn good for a niche show like Gameswipe on a digital channel.

IIRC that is roughly in line with what Screenwipe was getting.

Charlie's Twitter says that it got a higher rating than Screenwipe or Newswipe so it's the most successful of his BBC4 shows so far.

Charlie Brooker said on Twitter today that Gameswipe's ratings 'easily outdid' both Screenwipe and Newswipe. No idea if he's exaggerating there or not but it might suggest that it exceeded their expectations.

Considering how huge games are these days, it's surprising that more attempts aren't being made to find a format that can provide games coverage. There's no real reason the subject matter should be less TV-friendly than, say, cars or movies.

EDIT: Missed gottago's post, sorry. I can't read, apparently.

Looking increasingly like Spooks will air on a Thursday opposite the Bill. But, if it's an 8 part series (or have cutbacks forced it down to 6?) then it might be held back for a couple of weeks so that:

a) it runs up to Christmas, and

b) the BBC don't have too many big new shows starting in the same week, cos they appear to like to concentrate promotion on just 3 or 4 programmes at a time.


Gosh! How will the average X Factor viewer cope with having to sit through a whole 14 minutes of television wthout a commercial break to channel-hop in?


Gameswipe is currently number 2 in the BBC iplayer top ten (behind Eastenders).

Thanks for the info guys. Even better than I thought then.

I must confess I haven't got around to watching it yet, but I'm sure it will be great as I haven't not liked anything Charlie has done, just prefer some of his work to others. Wasn't so keen on the C4 show but it improved as it went along.

A bit of America ratings news involving WWE Monday Night RAW:


That is the lowest rating so far this year for WWE Raw. Dunno if it will just be a one week drop due to the MNF game.

ABC put out a press release about premiere week playing up their performance in "upscale high income adults 18-49". In other words, people between 18 and 49 who earn over $100k a year. The numbers relate to ratings points, not viewers and sports shows are not included.

1. Grey's Anatomy - 8.43
2. House - 6.28
3. The Office - 6.23
4. Desperate Housewives - 5.39
5. The Big Bang Theory - 5.36
6. Two and a Half Men - 5.23
7. Cougar Town - 5.05
8. How I Met Your Mother - 5.04
9. FlashForward - 4.92
10. Amazing Race - 4.87
11. Modern Family - 4.70
12. Family Guy - 4.66
13. DWTS - 4.47
14. 60 Minutes - 4.46
15. DWTS - 4.44

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/30...ts-18-49/29053

Amid the success of sitcoms in the US, ITV don't seem to be particularly interested in something similar.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/c...006003.article

Peter Fincham on how following the Primeval deal, broadcasters sharing the cost of drama could be the way forward.

He also says how the BBC are more concerned about ratings than ITV with ITV's main focus being on return on investment.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/c...006271.article