It looks like BBC1 was dented the most with nothing bar the news over 3m from 8.30pm onwards.

Usually that Live at the Apollo repeat would probably have done good business. A half hour edit of Traffic Cops on a Friday is very lazy scheduling

Just been doing a few calculations regarding The X Factor and the 75 minute audition format:

Segment 1 - 19:01 to 19:11 (10 minutes)
Segment 2 - 19:15 to 19:26 (11 minutes)
Segment 3 - 19:30 to 19:44 (14 minutes)
Segment 4 - 19:49 to 19:58 (09 minutes)
Segment 5 - 20:02 to 20:10 (08 minutes)

Total = 52 minutes

So, 52 minutes for a 75 minute show, that means only 69% of the programme is actually the programme itself.

When it was on for 60 minutes, I'd say there was about 45 minutes of content which would have worked out as 75% programme content compared to ads.

I think, in this area, ITV are trying to play "the Big Brother trick" like Channel 4 did by extending their shows by 10 minutes with an extra short segment(s).

In the 7pm hour, there were 16 minutes of adverts on ITV.

Well, that's ITV screwed for next week, no going back now. Even if they're hoping that The Cube is more protected from Strictly, it has still got Merlin to worry about and it has a head-start as well. It launched with 6.7m last year.

ITV should have gone:
5.50pm - People Do The Funniest Things
6.50pm - The X Factor
8.05pm - The Cube
9.05pm - Casino Royale

I don't really think Casino Royale can be on before 9pm, so The X Factor would have to start after Merlin. But this way, CR starts just as SCD finishes. I think The Cube would do better and The X Factor would definitely do far better than it will.

But with things the way they are, I think Strictly will come out comfortably on top next week against X Factor and crush The Cube (I think something like 3.3m is likely).

It's going to be different next week with Strictly. I think the poor plots in Coronation Street are finally getting to viewers. The share is poor, and the rating itself is little better. I think it'll down to the low 5Ms next week with Strictly walking it with around 9M.

Saying that EastEnders was little better. Emmerdale seems to be the only soap out of the big 3 to meet expectations at the moment.

Derren Brown did excellently for Channel 4, and it'll be interesting to see how he fairs against BBC1's behemoth next week. Rebus will be down to the high 2Ms I reckon, though the repeats are doing ok for ITV at the moment.

I think ITV believe they're defending The Cube more by pitching it against Merlin. But they're deluded - Merlin has the lead in and The Cube'll flounder. A shame, because they do have a moderate hit on their hands at the moment.

The other thought I had was maybe they should switch Family Fortunes and The Cube around. Family Fortunes had a tested core fan base - The Cube hasn't.

I think ITV urgently need a decent show for Saturday nights to go alongside The X Factor. Ever since they stopped taking an autumn run of Saturday Night Takeaway, it has been very bare.

They should have a family drama, IMO. It's not that hard, the BBC family drama slate consists of one remake (Doctor Who) and two based on legends. Hardly great creativity at work, just pick a popular fictional character or a film and make a TV show! Plus, do it right and you can sell some merchandise.

All they have is TV Burp but at 30 minutes, it's not enough. Family Fortunes falls to around 4m without a strong lead-in. ITV have never made good use of The X Factor. Just look at Sundays, they're putting on Doc Martin! And they wonder why they struggle with young viewers?!

No there weren't. The ofcom limit is 12 minutes per hour.

They should've held Primeval back to the autumn. They've axed it, but alongside The X Factor it would've done well and stablisied their schedule. Yes, that would've been detrimental to the spring schedule, but I'm sure they could've found enough gameshows to cover what it a weak night there.

The Fixer would've been an interesting programme to use The X Factor lead out on. The lead out's are rubbish this year TBH - Doc Martin would do well wherever it goes, so why not use it to strengthen a weak night's schedule?

Quick question - I thought Match of the Day had to be aired by at least 10.30pm every Saturday, but tonight it's not on until 11.05pm. I guess the BBC have a special agreement to do this because of the Proms?

Are you sure? I'm sure broadcasters like Channel 4 go over that limit often with Big Brother episodes and stuff.

No, what they do is time the ads carefully enough as the rule applies to a clock hour (say 7-8pm or 10-11pm), so with 3.5 minutes per ad break (plus 20 seconds of promo) if they get the timing right the last ad break will spill over by at least 2 minutes into the next clock hour, keeping them within the limits.

Of course though they might try and push the boundaries a bit and see if they get away with it. Having only taped the BB final this year and literally skimmed through it I noticed the final ad break was actually six minutes long - 2 minutes more than the legal limit.


OFCOM really screwed up with their latest relaxation of the ad laws. I do believe they were correct to let longer programmes have more ads, but they screwed up on the timing meaning many shows which run between 1-2 hours now also have ads on average every 15 minutes, just a year after the 20-minute rule (which required 20 minutes of running time between the start of one internal part and the start of the next) was abolished.

This has meant rather than the extra breaks being sneaked in pretty much unnoticed, they've been widely commented on, notably with Wuthering Heights and the C4 9/11 documentary last week.

Isn't the new Ofcom rule do "Do what the eff you like. We don't care anymore."?


You've just answered your own question. The Festival Of Rememberance would be another special exception.

Would that it were so! Ofcom rules are archaic anyway. The code should be restricted to protecting viewers from being deceived, defrauded or mistreated in programmes.

But doesn't OfCom also limit the number of internal breaks to 3 in a programme of up to 90mins? If DMNs analysis is correct, it had 4!

Something doesn't quite "ad" up!

K

But when you consider that it would be going head to head with either Strictly or the BBC's own family drama, and that there is a recession on, I can see why it isn't one of their priorities at the moment, especially when You've Been Framed repeats would probably get higher ratings

I do sometimes wonder if TV is running out of programme ideas because they are racing through them very fast, there are so few viewers around thesedays meaning if one channel has a big show everyone else is left to pick up the scraps. Therefore far too many new shows are branded as flops and get axed after one series, meaning yet another new idea has to be found and the cycle continues. I'm thinking about stuff like the game show Duel and comedy show Thank God You're Here.

The ad breaks are 4 minutes, but 3 minutes of ads then some promo's. Plus you've got the phone in competition. It usually runs 44 minutes an hour.


If they don't want to spend on drama, then they should probably look to do something with Ant & Dec. They're not being used enough just now, between BGT finishing in May and the end of the year, all they do is I'm A Celebrity.


The Fixer and Benidorm should have been 9pm Sunday, particularly Benidorm.

What does Ofcom class as the '12 minute period'? Same a typical break is this:

19:45:00 - Break Bumper
19:45:10 - Sponsorship Bumper
19:45:20 - ITV Logo
19:45:25 - Adverts
19:48:00 - ITV Promos for Upcoming Show(s)
19:48:30 - Sponsorship Bumper
19:48:40 - Break Bumper
19:48:50 - Back to Show

Where does Ofcom enforce the '12 minute limit' from? In the example above, do they do adverts only (i.e. 19:45:25 to 19:48:00) or do they do the whole break, i.e. 19:45:20 to 19:48:30?

Sorry if that sounds quite confusing.

That's going back a bit now. Since June the rules have basically been...

1 internal break in programmes of 25 minutes+
2 in 45 minutes+ (30 minutes for non-PSB channels)
3 in 55 minutes+
4 in 1 hr 10 minutes+

then an extra break for every 20 minutes


Prior to that it was 3 in 60 minutes+, 4 in 90 minutes+ and then an extra break for every 30 minutes.


OFCOM justified it saying not many shows were longer than an hour anyway, but we've seen already how hour-long shows have been stretched out by 10 minutes to take advantage, and the most popular shows on commercial TV - The X Factor, Britains Got Talent and Dancing on Ice, generally fall into that bracket too, so will all be affected.

Other shows falling in the 1-2 hour mark tend to be documentary and drama premieres, and as we saw with the examples I gave earlier, extra ads don't slip into those sort of shows unnoticed.

True, but they are terribly bare on Saturdays. Once Who Dares Wins comes back, I think BBC1 are going to have to have Strictly finished by 8.25pm. Some weeks there would have to be a clash but in others, they could start X Factor around 8.30pm and avoid a clash. However, that would leave them with nothing on air until 7.30pm.

They've commissioned Piers Morgan's Life Stories to replace Family Fortunes on Saturdays but that's restricted to post watershed slots whereas FF could be moved around to suit.


Duel is definitely one. It was a good idea, at the very least the prize fund could have been lowered, a better host found and the show moved to a different slot.

There has definitely been a slow down internationally in new formats coming around recently. Wipeout is the biggest hit recently which doesn't say much.

I'm pretty sure that it's just the adverts that count towards 12 minutes.

Only actual ads count towards the 12 minutes. Each break is permitted to carry a maxium 3 minutes 30 seconds of adverts and a 20 seconds promo - although if they don't use all the ad time they can air extra promos. And then the sponsorship bumper is in addition, so generally speaking if the sponsor bumpers are 5-seconds (many are 10 secs now though) each ad break runs for 4 minutes - which is rather handy for my PVR as I can skip at 2 minute intervals.


And while we're on the topic I might as well clarify that on average ITV, C4 and Five can only show 7 minutes of ads per hour in a 24 hour period (6am-6am) - so a total of 168 minutes. The maximum of 12 minutes in an hour though means they can use their overnight quota during the day, but during primetime (6-11pm) they can only show a total of 40 minutes of ads, hence why ITV especially pack their ads around more popular programmes and lower rated programmes end up ad free - but ITV generally show promos instead, often because they have to take the break to show the sponsor credit.

The "non-PSB" digital channels can show an average of 9 minutes per hour, but still no more than 12 minutes an hour. However, they are allowed longer breaks and they seem to have been increased lately too (think it's around 4 min 30) - hence why the likes of ITV2 and E4 generally show promos at the beginning and end of a break, while ITV, C4 and Five usually only screen them at the end of a break.

OK, thanks, I found a report from October last year and hadn't realised it had changed again since! (I do find the Ofcom site is an absolute nightmare to navigate!)

K

Duel was fantastic and I've no issue with Nick Hancock either - indeed thank god it wasn't another vehicle for another Saturday night regular. At first the ratings didn't look too good, but they seemed to grow slightly over the series and in comparison to other shows (including Millionaire and The Cube for that matter) they didn't look that bad and it should have been given a second shot in a more suitable slot. These sort of shows are better suited to Sundays IMO if they aren't partnered with a hit on Saturdays.


Ideally the prize money wouldn't be reduced, but perhaps make them win 5 rather than 4 duels to clinch the jackpot. Also I think the contestant versus the accelerator rounds at the end of each Duel should have had the jeopardy of if they don't cover the right answer, they leave with nothing.

I'm not sure who would have the rights to produce So You Think You Can Dance? In the US, Fremantle don't produce it, 19 co-produce with Dick Clark Productions. However, the Australian version is made by Fremantle so it is possible that Talkback Thames would make it here. They've also been commissioned to make that new dating show on ITV1 as well so the success for the entertainment department is probably helping make up for the losses on The Bill.

Cheers. Surprised they don't utilise BBC2 in this case though, and air Match of the Day there - especially as a late Match of the Day this season means an exceptionally late Football League Show.


Poker Face'd be good if they cut the prize fund as well. Very much like Duel. And there's The Vault which IMO was a good show that was axed because of the prize money.


Agreed. ITV could give some drama's a real leg up by pitching them after The X Factor (and Britain's Got Talent auditions and Dancing on Ice) but they seem desperate for safety first.

Oh, completely agree there. How all these people complain I'll never know as I found it impossible, with you expected to quote the relevant parts of the broadcasting code you think have been breached.


Anyhow, start here:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2009/05/nr_20090526
(as you can see OFCOM try to downplay the changes)

And you'll eventually get to here - though rather than rewriting the document they edit it and cross bits out and put new bits in, which makes it even more confusing:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/cond...ment/costa.pdf

... and skip straight to page 36.


Personally I'd have preferred them to have left the number of breaks alone, certainly for shows 90 minutes or less, and instead permitted an extra 5 minutes of the daily allowance to be used in primetime. I think viewers would have noticed that less as the ads are packed around the popular programmes anyway, so it would only be around the shows which currently have what you could call "fake breaks" where the extra ads would play out.