Look at the last line in this article.

He also reiterated ITV’s decision not to move The X Factor.


But they did move it - from 7pm to 8pm.

Although an 8pm start on 10th October means much less of a clash than a 7pm start would.

On the other hand, Millionaire is repeated several times (weekend afternoons and on ITV2) so the £180k cost is spread across several viewings. Many ITV shows fail to break before adding in overheads so Millionaire is one of the better performing shows from a return perspective.

You are obsessed with the X Factor start times. Back in August XF started its run at 8pm did it not?

Nope, it was on from 19:00 to 20:15.

They moved nearly every week last year and probably will for most of the rest of this year. There has never been a perfectly fixed slot. When Strictly started last year, X Factor started airing slightly later than it had been so as to avoid a clash and its start times were dictated by the time that Strictly ended. Some weeks around 7pm, others nearer 8pm. Similarly, last year, Strictly would start some weeks at 5.50pm while in others it would be almost an hour later.

I think that's been quite noticeable with many recent drama commissions. Of course the economy and general decline in viewers have played a part, but ITV seemed to have stopped chasing the big audiences for drama with carbon copies of various hits and do seem to have accepted that apart from the odd exception, they are generally dealing with audiences of 4m or so nowadays, rather than double that - and in recommissioning shows like Marple too it shows it's not all about the 16-34s too.

Indeed, in drama at least ITV seem to now be focusing on the viewers they are getting, rather than the viewers they wish they were getting.


It'll be interesting to see how the Primeval deal works out - really I think the BBC's involvement is more about sales overseas than UKTV, but you'd think if Watch felt like they could make a profit out of it, ITV would be thinking they could make it work by premiering it first on ITV2 or something before ITV1.

New sponsorship page up on ITV Media website for 'From Pop Star to Opera Star'. Description is:


It's airing in Q1 2010. 3 x 90 minute episodes and 3 x 60 minute episodes.

And a few more ITV multichannel ratings from yesterday:

ITV2 - Arthur’s Day 2009: 63,000 (0.5%)
ITV3 - Agatha Christie’s Poirot: 523,000 (2.5%), Profiling Ian Rankin: 207,000 (1.0%)
ITV4 - Auf Wiedersehen, Pet: 201,000 (1.0%) and 251,000 (1.7%)

Oh, it sounds awful. It's down there with Baby Ballroom and The One and Only among painful ideas for talent shows in recent years. Maybe not quite as bad as Celebrity Wrestling, though.

It's being made by the TV arm of Universal Music Group (their answer to Syco at Sony) so I'd expect more Katherine Jenkins than Paul Potts. At least there might be something nice to look at.

It's not something I want to see, but if ITV really need a Saturday night talent show for the start of next year, just bring back Stars In Their Eyes.

Going to be a struggle for Harry this autumn then without being the meat in a TXF sandwich.

No 8m audiences for Harry this run then.


Who is she?

He was only in an X Factor sandwich once last year. All other episodes aired in the same slot as it has this year, and they got 6-7m.

Going to struggle?!? Harry Hill only had one X Factor sandwich slot last year. All the others starting before X Factor, and I think all of them got over 5m with many getting over 6m.

This sounds like it something to be be grouped in with Just The Two Of Us, Soapstar Superstar and Reborn In The USA. None of them were massive hits but JTTOU and Soapstart both made it to series 2.

In 2008, SCD started with official ratings of 8.48m (Sat 6.10pm) and 8.61m (Sun 8pm).

In 2009, SCD started with official ratings of 8.92m (Fri) and 8.43m (Sat).

No sleepless nights for BBC execs there then.

However, by running SCD later, they kept TXF's 'post-BGT bounce' ratings in check - 10.57m in 2009 against a similar 10.10m on SCD-debut Saturday in 2008, but well down on the 12.84m TXF 2009 was getting 3 weeks ago.

If the BBC were indeed fighting a "war", George, maybe you should ask what the objectives actually were before assessing their success...

They should. It's a solid format that would do well on Saturday nights. Last I heard it was 'rested' and due a revamp but we never heard anything after that. I don't think it was ever officially 'cancelled'. Maybe even get Matthew Kelly back on board - what's he doing these days?

A quick check of the official ratings reveals 7 of the 10 TV Burp programmes on in Autumn 2008 had more than 6m viewers and many of these were on against Strictly. One episode fell below 5m (4.91m) but that was on against the Strictly final so he had a good excuse. I have every confidence this brilliant comedy will get the ratings it deserves. (Actually, no I don't. If it truly had the ratings it deserved, it would be matching the figures for last year's Wallace & Grommit.)

Ah, ok then. I thought it generally aired after TXF part 1.

I obviously got confused by ITV constantly moving TXF around the schedules...

As for the ratings it deserves, I hope the rest has done it some good. It was pretty tired by the end of the last run. The earlier shows also suffered from fluffing TXF rather than taking the piss out of television shows - the whole raison d'etre of TV Burp when all's said and done.

NCIS:LA's UK broadcaster to be revealed at midnight.

Interesting, I'd assumed Five had already got the rights! It would be the obvious channel due to the NCIS link.

It definitely holds its own against Strictly so it should do comfortably well again this year.

It may well be, to be honest I have no idea who it is yet.

Exactly. In fairness, I think that's why ITV did move it - they expected Strictly to be over by 8 so there was so clash. They gave the BBC the option to avoid a clash, and the BBC didn't take it.

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Poor ratings for ITV1 last night. The Fixer won't get renewed again, which is a shame. What's the point of ITV moving away from crime drama when no one is going to be bothered to watch it? Ironically crime did ok for BBC1 and Five, with Crimewatch and CSI. Jamie held up well for Channel 4 too. Holby City as reliant as ever.

It's Five as they confirmed it in an e-mail I sent them ages ago but I'm guessing there was an embargo preventing them on confirming publicly similar to Glee on E4.

It's Sky1. Interesting...

Surprising news here:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a1799...s-spinoff.html

Maybe Five have spent all their budget or simply didn't have the space for it in their schedule.

Very strange. Especially considering Five picked up FlashForward, which would have been really obvious for Sky 1. How long does Five's deal on the original NCIS run? You would think Sky would want the set.