I heard an interview with Cat Deeley on The Chris Moyles Show last Thursday morning and she said that it would be main performance show, phonelines open and then a live results show later on the same night, all Saturday night.

Cheryl Cole to pre-record her performance on the X Factor this Sunday

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/xfactor/...rformance.html

So that's how they'll fill the extra fifteen minutes - with the out-takes.



Boo, hiss! How dare you make horrid remarks against the gorgeous Cheryl.

Great result for Life on BBC One last night - proved some of the sceptics wrong. Always good to see high quality stuff get the numbers it deserves. Doesn't always happen.

Blue Murder is holding at a steadily average audience, but I don't think thats going to be enough to save it. Theres plenty of other similar fish in the sea for ITV - I don't think they need to keep hold of it.

Emmerdale and EastEnders continue to do well, with the former over 7 million and the latter level with the strongest Corrie.

Another great performance for FlashForward on Five. To stick over 3 million for the third week against stiff opposition is fantastic for them. Its held up much better here than in the US where last weeks drop was a little troubling.

Solid audience for FlashForward once again. Impressive that the audience for the third episode is exactly the same as the first one. ABC has today announced the show's getting a full season run, so Five will be having a lot of good Monday nights until May next year.

Terrible night for Channel 4. A 3.3% primetime average is pathetic. Ugly Betty's rating was way down from the 1.6m average it was getting on Wednesday nights in recent months, so the move has gone badly.

Life did very well and will give BBC1 strong Monday 9pm ratings for the next 10 weeks. Blue Murder finished off alright, with the series averaging 4.8m in the overnights. Tough call for ITV on whether to recomission it or not. It's definitely capable of 5m+ against average competition. But other drama with that sort of average have been axed/"rested" such as: Heartbeat, Kingdom and Taggart.

Depends what the audience profile is for Blue Murder versus Heartbeat, etc

What a terrible evening Channel 4 had !!!

Terrific for Life and thorougly deserved. Programming of that calibre is what we pay our licence fee for. Noel Edmonds doesn't know what he's missing.

As noted by rzt, FlashForward held up very well indeed. I was sure it would slip last night with the increased pressure from BBC One, but yet again it performed strongly matching its launch figure. It's going to be a tough cookie to crack on Monday nights I think as its audience is proving very loyal and Five are continuing to promote it extensively across its channels.

However, the downside of airing so close to US transmission means there will have to be breaks before too long. These will provide Five with a bit of a headache. What do they run in its place and will the viewers come back when it eventually does return with new episodes?

Two ITV daytime ratings from Broadcast:

14:00 - 60 Minute Makeover: 1.2m (20%)
* highest audience in a year
15:00 - The Alan Titchmarsh Show: 1.2m (20%)
* highest ever rating

ITV's daytime share was 19.1% - the second highest across weekdays this year.

I'm quite surprised that FF is holding up so well. I'm not really feeling this show but clearly people are sticking with it.

There's info on the BBC Press Office about the new series of Waterloo Road:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pre...waterloo.shtml

The Radio Times have it down for Sunday 25 October in Scotland (AR moved to 6pm) which would lead me to think that it'll start nationwide on Wednesday 28 October. The 20-part run will take it to 10 March 2010. I'm presuming that they wouldn't run the series back to back, so might then rest it to allow for Masterchef to air (I really don't see how BBC One are going to fit it into the schedule - I'm guessing Watchdog will take some kind of rest though).

Surely BBC Scotland could have put it in a better slot than up against The X Factor. Why didn't they move Countryfile back to 6pm and put Waterloo Road at 7pm?

I think as long as Five continue to promote it the way they have been doing, and it's obviously been working looking at the figures so far, having a break may not prove too detrimental.

--------------------

Great figures for Life. I completely underestimated it on the RPG. They have always done well in the past, but I've always seen this type of programming more fitting for a Sunday night.

Emmerdale is really on the up at the moment. I really hope they can sustain these figures.

ITV2
10pm Benidorm 679,000 4.4%

ITV3
10pm Taggart 421,000 2.7%

ITV4
8.15pm Sanctuary 301,000 1.9%
10pm The Scorpion King 212,000 0.9%

============
Benidorm still doing well on ITV2

I think the breaks will be fine as long as they are done properly, Sky1 do it with their shows, BBC Two did with Heroes
and Channel 4 did with Desperate Housewives. I think when CSI was forced to go on an break during the writer's strike, it hurt ratings but they recovered.

I'd say maybe avoid the Sky1 approach, where they would air new episodes on their own, rather than waiting until they had a stock of them.

Once it finishes for the Christmas break in late November/early December, I think they should hold it back until mid-February when they can be guaranteed an uninterupted run until it finishes.

Brilliant ratings for Life. The BBC's natural history shows are always ratings bankers, and given that Monday night is always a big night for TV watching, it should do well throughout it's run there.

Will be interesting to see how Murderland fairs against it. Does Robbie Coltrane still have big ratings appeal ?

Blue Murder is capable of better, it's more of a 6m show than a 4.5m show. But Waking the Dead limited it's appeal this year.

C4 seem to be rather weak this autumn with very few big hitters. In hindsight Ugly Betty would have been better left on Wednesday with True Blood on Mondays - and I still think Generation Kill should have got a 10pm slot, as even if it got less than 1m, it probably still perform better than a lot of shows C4 have had at 10pm in recent weeks.


Quick question - if C4 showing the same series of Without a Trace on Thursdays as More4 is on Mondays, as C4 seems to be jumping ahead with double bills.

Top 5 Adults 18-49
1. House - 5.0
2. The Big Bang Theory - 4.8
3. Two and a Half Men - 4.6
4. CSI: Miami - 4.0
5. How I Met Your Mother - 3.5

DWTS had a 3.5, Heroes finished 4th at 8pm with a 2.4. That is rubbish, but it looks good when you consider that Trauma at 9pm had 1.8 and Jay Leno at 10pm had 1.5.

Top 5 Total Viewers
1. Dancing With The Stars - 16.5m
2. Two and a Half Men - 13.9m
3. CSI: Miami - 12.9m
4. House - 12.9m
5. The Big Bang Theory - 12.8m

CBS won in the demo, ABC won in total viewers.

Full Details

Mondays are definetly CBS' strongest night in the demo, DWTS does well in viewers but skews pretty old. House is still doing well for FOX and NBC was awful all round.

The current series of Watchdog only has nine episodes, so perhaps there will only be another short Watchdog run early next year, then nothing more until the autumn?

No. More4 is the only place to catch brand new episodes. (Season 7)

Channel 4 are running through Season 6 which is new to C4 but was shown first on More4 last year.

Australian Ratings: Monday 12th October

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.44m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.4m
19:00 Home and Away 1.2m
19:30 Highway Patrol 1.37m
20:00 Destroyed in Seconds 1.39m
20:30 FlashForward 1.51m
21:30 Mercy 0.78m

Nine
19:00 Two and a Half Men (R) 1.23m
19:30 Two and a Half Men (R) 1.21m
20:00 The Big Bang Theory 1.04m
20:30 The Mentalist 1.01m
21:30 The Apprentice Australia 0.82m

Ten
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.79m
19:30 Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? 0.74m
20:30 Good News Week 0.82m
22:00 Little Britain USA 0.58m

ABC
20:00 Australian Story 0.93m
20:30 Four Corners 1.09m

SBS
19:30 Top Gear 0.87m
20:30 Man vs Wild 0.36m

Seven win primetime with a 27.9% share.

Apparently, this week's 'All About Soap Magazine' confirms that Spooks will return to BBC One on Thursday, October 29th, which confirms what many here suspected - that it will go against The Bill.

Is it just a matter of time before ITV pull the axe down once and for all on The Bill? It really can't survive all year between 3.5m and 4m, can it?

Life is part of an immense and stunning body of work that goes right back to Life On Earth in 1979. Film techniques and Science may have moved on since then but Life On Earth is still compelling and the book a fabulous read. And to think Sir David Attenborough was already 50 when that was made(and had already had a formidable career)-a dozen or so epic series since then is truly inspiring.
No-one can replace Sir David-his involvement in this kind of production, even if its just narration these days, sets it apart from anything else.

Here's a quote from the new issue of the Radio Times that some on this thread may find, er, interesting.

"Next on You Ask The Questions: Liam Keelan, controller BBC Daytime. He's in charge of everything on BBC1 and 2 before 7pm, plus weekend mornings and THE ONE SHOW

Since when has Spooks been a soap?