It's Sod's Law for Strictly this year - whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Bless it.

The BBC knew about this problem for an hour before it happened and that it had the potential to happen half the day - people were talking about it in this thread this afternoon.

All they had to do was replaced Autumnwatch with a 15 minute programme at 7pm and then they could switch over without a fuss.

A bit sloppy, but overall it could have been a lot worse.

There are a few exceptions - Eurovision and over-running sporting events for example.

But they do happen - considering how long the BBC have been in broadcasting, you'd think they'd have a cleaner contingency plan in place than they had.

Still, as I said, I don't think it's as bad for BBC1 as some think.


I agree. One problem after another - I think in some ways BBC will be glad to get it out of the way, and they can have another rethink for next year.

What time did the F1 broadcast actually finish on BBC2?

I really hope they do, it needs it. A lot of things wrong with Strictly this year. IMHO

Does anyone have figures for XF and SCD last night?

8.45pm. Leaving everything from Ghandi onwards running 15 minutes late.



Give the country a chance to wake up.

This thought has occurred to me as my mind has its early monring wander.

Could it be that BBC1 have brought Paradox forward and are planning to screen it earlier that originally intended because of the huge success of Five's Flashforward. Cos both programmes have the same synopsis - people see a glimpse of the future and take steps to prevent the less palatable events from happening.

It's on a par with the early 80s when BBC1 allegedly give the go-ahead to working-class Cockney sitcom Only Fools And Horses only when they saw ITV's working-class Cockney comedy-drama become a hit.

This would also explain why Spooks has suddenly disappeared from the schedule despite featuring in the "next week" column in every listings magazine that has a "next week" column - Paradox has replaced Spooks which will now be held over until the New Year. (Please note: this post is theory and not known fact.)

Will be released in an hour.

(I hope )

For those saying "F1 should have been on BBC Two in the first place", can we actually wait for the ratings before jumping to that conclusion?

If the F1 got 4/4.5m, I'd say the gamble paid off. BBC don't control the Brazilian weather, (un)fortunately. In my view, as a scaler:

< 3m: Disaster, should have been on BBC2
3m <> 4m: OK, but not great
4m <> 5m: Good rating, BBC should be pleased.
5m <> 6m: Brilliant rating, the gamble clearly paid off.
6m > : I don't expect it to happen, so no point in writing a description for it.

Fifth Gear has been axed by Five:

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...elevision.html

Not totally surprising news because the ratings for the last few series were consistently under 1m and it must have been an expensive show to make.

Saturday 17th October Overnights
BBC One
16:30- Final Score: 2.4m (20.0%)
17:10- BBC News: 3.4m (25.4%)
17:15- Regional News and Weather: 3.8m (27.6%)
17:20- F1: The Brazilian Grand Prix Qualifying: 4.4m (24.0%)
19:30- Strictly Come Dancing: 7.8m (30.6%)
* 15 minute peak: 8.3m (34.1%) at 19:45
21:40- The National Lottery Draws: 4.8m (19.4%)
21:50- BBC News: 5.2m (23.4%)
22:05- Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow: 4.4m (22.3%)
22:35- Match of the Day: 4.2m (29.7%)

BBC Two
18:00- Autumnwatch: 1.0m (5.1%)
19:00- Autumnwatch Unsprung: 1.1m (5%)
19:30- F1: The Brazilian Grand Prix Qualifying: 1.7m ( 6.8%)
20:45- Gandhi: 0.8m (3%)
21:45- Have I Got A Bit More News For You: 2.0m ( 9.1%)

ITV1
15:10- The Lost World: Jurassic Park: 1.3m (11.7%)
17:30- Regional News: 2.6m (17.5%)
17:45- ITV News and Weather: 3.1m (19.2%)
18:00- Animals Do The Funniest Things: 4.5m (23.7%)
19:00- New You’ve Been Framed!: 6.2m (29.1%)
19:30- Harry Hill’s TV Burp: 6.8m (28.7%)
20:00- The X Factor: 10.9m (42.1%)
* 15 minute peak: 11.4m (47.2%) at 21:45
22:00- Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: 3.1m (16.1%)
23:00- ITV News: 1.7m (10.9%)

Channel 4
17:00- Come Dine with Me: 1.2m ( 8.9%)
17:30- Come Dine with Me: 1.6m (10.2%)
18:00- Come Dine with Me: 1.7m ( 9.5%)
18:30- Channel 4 News: 0.9m (4%)
19:00- Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour of Europe: 0.7m (3%)
20:00- The RIBA Stirling Prize 2009 Live: 0.5m (2%)
21:00- The X-Files: 0.7m (4%)

Five
19:15- NCIS: 1.0m (4%)
20:05- CSI: NY: 1.0m (4%)
21:00- CSI: NY: 0.9m (3.5%)
22:00- CSI: 1.2m ( 6.2%)
-------------------------------------------
The X Factor a little down from last week, but still a good rating and 3m ahead of Strictly. The F1 did okay on BBC One, but poor on BBC Two when switched over. You've Been Framed got a boost maybe because people didn't watch the F1 guys talking on BBC1. Bad for Piers Morgan's Life Stories.

Formula 1 - The Brazilian Grand Prix Qualifying - Ratings
The OK....

BBC One - 17:20 to 19:30
- average: 4.4m (24%)
- 18:00 to 18:15 - 4.0m (23.2%) vs. 3.3m (19.2%) on ITV1
- 18:15 to 18:30 - 4.1m (22.0%) vs. 3.9m (21.2%)
- 18:30 to 18:45 - 4.3m (22.4%) vs. 5.0m (26.0%) * note mammoth jump for ITV1, red flag for F1
- 18:45 to 19:00 - 4.4m (22.0%) vs. 5.5m (27.8%)
- 19:00 to 19:15 - 5.4m (25.9%) vs. 6.1m (29.5%)
- 19:15 to 19:30 - 6.6m (30.5%) vs. 6.2m (28.7%) * big jump for BBC One, but for Strictly

And the very, very bad....

BBC Two - 19:30 to 20:45
- average: 1.7m (6.8%)
- peak: 1.9m (7%) from 20:30 to 20:45
- Between 19:30 and 20:45, BBC One had 7.9m (31%) and ITV1 had 9m (35%)
- lowest rating all season

BBC's worst possible enemy yesterday was the weather. The weather struck, channel changed, ratings bombed.

X Factor did OK, Life Stories massively down though.

That's a mighty figure for X Factor considering it had Strictly AND F1 to contend with. I wouldn't be surprised if SCD hit a series low last night. Although in my eyes the standard of X Factor was really poor last night, I wonder if that will affect the results show?

EDIT: Strictly didn't do too badly I see, but another 3 Million + Victory for X Factor

Very good for The X Factor considering it only had 20 minutes after Strictly, unlike 45 minutes last week. Strictly did well considering the F1 cock up, which boosted Harry Hill hour and Funniest Things.

I'm not surprised at that dreadful rating for Life Stories - whose idea was it to have Boris Becker on?

Thats quite worrying for Life Stories, alough a repeat of Micheal Macintyre did really well! Super for Harry Hill and X-Factor!

Great for the X Factor, Harry Hill & even YBF!
Not suprising for Life Stories , there's always one boring guest , Should be up next week with a better guest.

Life Stories has a shit guest, but still not a terrible rating for time of night.

Peak Prediction for tonight.

Family Fortunes - 4.9mil
TXF - 11.9
Doc Martin - 7.3

15-Minute Breakdown --> http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1829/breakdown.jpg

I'm really shocked TXF is doing so well this year. I think this year's contestants are beyond terrible.

Why predict everything to be down about 1.5m on last week? There are no major schedule changes to suggest this'll happen, are there?

All a matter of opinion isn't it.

That's as near as a straight head to head XF and SCD will probably get and there is a clear 3m ratings chasm between the two shows.

Any comparisons to the same SCD episode last year ?

Oh and 6m+ for You've Been Framed is fantastic after all these years. It's a ratings phenomenon.

ITV is going to have 'An Audience with Susan Boyle' this Christmas:


Source: http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/show...S&ATTR=Showbiz

I wonder if ITV will put this on Christmas Day, maybe even as a spoiler tactic against Doctor Who.

I'm so pleased at the terrible ratings for Life Stories. Mogan was so quick to pull Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton up over their ratings being lower than his not so long ago. Looks like it is coming back to haunt him.

Another superb night for ITV1. I think we're almost at the stage now where we can say ITV1 = Saturdays. I find it odd how I never bother with ITV1 at all during the week (mostly because the programming is awful) but come the weekend it's my most watched channel.

Channel 4 really are in the doldrums. If I were the controller though I'm not sure what I would do to try and improve the situation, it's in such a mess right now.

Cancelling Big Brother was a good start, but this next year is crucial in finding a format that can seriously rival it in terms of the numbers and revenue it pulls in. At the moment they seem to be in a state of flux which isn't all that encouraging.

C4 does have a number of strengths, don't get me wrong - particularly daytime, comedy, 4homes and news - but not enough ratings bankers. And daytime is being hit by an underperforming Countdown and soon an outgoing Paul O'Grady. Testing times for the broadcaster.