You are Brucie, and I claim my five pounds.

I wonder what slant Brucie is going to put on this one, he'll have his slide rule out ready for his next handout.

I was surprised at the outcome (which is why I never play the ratings game), but clearly both took a chunk out of each others potential audience.

I think SCD may live to regret having an all inclusive results show. To me, there was a substantial amount of padding between the performances and the results.

Must have been 2 professional dances, last years winners, a couple of VT's, chat with Darcy Bustle, Katherine Jenkins, judges comments and chat backstage before the result and the dance off. Must have totalled 30 minutes. All this stands to serve is to encourage people to channel hop or record. I know people in my household record it and fast forward through the 'padding'.

I wonder if they will reconsider the all inclusive show. There is certainly something to be gained from separating your results, going to another show, and giving people reason to come back later ?

(although I guess the counter argument is that X Factor results used to perform somewhat averagely when shown later).

SCD will need to play the fact that you get a result that night to their advantage come the live show head to heads.

I also think it was a mistake to have the same contestants dancing over 2 nights.

Well this whole business was clearly her doing so she mustn't be that happy with the result.

I'm quite happy that TXF won. If anything it now finally confirms the fact that last year was a very real growth in popularity and not just a coincidence because of the slot change. And last night viewers voted with their remotes.

Terrestrial TV strikes back.

Nice to see a very healthy rating for Peep Show on Friday, holding the lead in well. No surprise to see Derren Brown fall, but its clearly still a very strong rating for Channel 4.

The others obviously felt the squeeze of Derren Brown and SCD - the Tudors, in particular, seems a little flimsy.

rzt- pls do you have Friday's rating for "Live from Studio Five"?

Hmm, according to DS:

TXF peaked at 20:55 with 10.72m (42.6%)
SCD peaked at 21:00 with 8.68m (35.7%)

I presume TXF went to a break straight after the 'peak' and as thus viewers tuned to Strictly for a little bit. The 15-minute breakdown though doesn't show this that well - as it still has the 19:45 to 20:00 'period' as having the most viewers.

The Xtra Factor had 905,000 (4.5%)

Unfortunately not. But if the same trend continued as the few days before, it might've been down to 200,000 !

Saturday primetime shares by the way:
ITV1: 29.3%
BBC1: 28.6%
BBC Two: 6.6%
Channel 4: 4.7% (+1: 0.8%)
Five: 4.1%

I think your quite right. BGT has re-energised XF which just might have started to get a bit samey. Cheryl Cole has done for XF what Alesha Dixon cannot possibly do for SCD, though no fault of her own. SCD doesnt always start brilliantly-in the past the first shows have been single gender and havent always seemed the same as later on. So I still reckon that when the live XF shows get going the gap will close if there are still overlaps. It will also depend on how good a crop of apprentice celebs eventually start the marathon.
For Merlin, personally I dont think the show could be any better given that its a tv show and not a huge Hollywood blockbuster. Its fantastic escapism.
Casino Royale bucked the trend of big films and it must be a slight worry that Casualty is not pulling in bigger numbers given that there will be no X Factor results to contend with this year.
Overall, although SCD is still pulling a tremendous audience it musnt be forgotten that the BBC has given up the Sunday show and therefore lost that impetus. Having the results in the main show just might be more trouble than its worth. Even at this early stage I reckon we will see a different set up next year.

If I'm honest, despite the lead-in from X Factor (which is always going to be a positive), ITV need to start scheduling their films a lot better:-

7:00pm Emmerdale
7:30pm Coronation Street
8:00pm Heartbeat
9:00pm Film: Casino Royale
11:45pm The Late News

I think, in the past, films have always performed better on a Sunday. Channel 4 had a great stint of films, and I think there's more of an allignment with Sunday night programming with the older viewers.

Casino Royale could have, I think, performed with 6-8 million viewers on a Sunday night, and films of the same magnitude (like The Pianist and United 93) need to be advertised towards ITV's high brow audience.

And with BBC1 not being able to cope like they used to with Strictly, ITV could re-establish Sunday nights with the 8pm dramas.

To coincide with this, ITV3 could show a Bond themed Saturday and Sunday, with all the films being played out on both days BEFORE the Casino Royale premiere.

Hopefully, ITV can look forward and do this for 'Quantum of Solace'.

I think Casino Royale will almost certainly be repeated at some point in Xmas, probably on a Sunday in December if they find themselves with nothing on from 8pm onwards.

I have a question for anyone who might be in the know...

From following US ratings, it is entirely clear that to advertiser funded channels the only ratings that matter are those in the 18-49 demographic (maybe 25-54). If a show gets a 2.0 rating in the demo and 13 million viewers, it is more likely to be cancelled than one with a 3.5 and 6 million. American Idol doesn't get that many more viewers than Dancing With The Stars yet it a 30 second spot during Idol is more than double the price of one on DWTS.

Does this apply to UK commercial broadcasters?

We never hear about that kind of data here but I can't imagine that the demands of advertisers here are particularly different to those of US advertisers.

I would say it's the SCD format which suffered first from getting samey. Especially as there has been an extra series of that, and the "celebs" seem to be bargain bin.

Oh I hope not. The new Sunday schedule for ITV1 looks a lot fresher tonight than it has in a long while. It's an extension of a Saturday night schedule. (What were ITV showing this time last year ?)

Whilst Heartbeat is fairly reliable, and still capable of doing the numbers, I think it has had it's day.

Tonight is an interesting battle, BBC One accommodating the octogenerians and ITV skewing younger.

The stupidest comment this weekend, though, comes from the News of the World, which in its exclusive "Alesha is crap" story, brings us this gem...

"Friday night's Strictly was watched by a peak audience of 9.1 million and an average audience of 8.4 million viewers throughout the ninety-minute show from 8.30pm. When X Factor launched with Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole last year it peaked with a whopping 12.1 million. And this year X Factor launched with a peak of 11.2 million viewers.

"A TV insider explained, "With all the hype about Alesha starting there should have been a lot more people watching. It's a worrying sign."

This "TV insider"... they don't happen to work for ITV, do they? I notice that the front page story on the Sunday Mirror today appears to be "EXCLUSIVE - ALESHA IS CRAP". No wonder newspapers are going to the dogs.

I would think its exactly the same.

That's why Big Brother makes/made so much money - only 3m viewers, but its the right 3m viewers.

I don't really understand why ITV and Five don't chase 16-34s aggressively, like the US networks do. Maybe we are heading that way.

I guess it depends on the type of show.

For instance are you likely to get an advert on life insurance in the middle of a kids show or in the middle of Corrie?

Advertisers who's product aims for the 16 to 34 range would not advertise a lot during Corrie, Doc Martin and programmes of that type - whereas they'd advertise a lot more in football programmes and The X Factor.


Equivalent Sunday last year (21/09/2008) - Viewing Figures attached:

18:30 - You've Been Framed!: 2.9m (17%)
19:00 - For One Night Only: 3.3m (16%)
20:00 - Heartbeat: 5.1m (20%)
21:00 - Agatha Christie's Poirot: 5m (24%)

...and the BBC's opposition was:

18:30 - After You've Gone: 3.1m (18%)
19:00 - Antiques Roadshow: 6.4m (31%)
20:00 - Strictly Come Dancing: 8.3m (34%)
21:00 - Tess D'Urbervilles: 5.1m (22%)

I'd unsurprisingly totally forgotten about For One Night Only.

Very impressed with the Cheryl Cole video getting 1.3m viewers after midnight, then again, it benefited from coming straight after Casino Royale.

I think what we can deduce from this is:-

- Strictly Come Dancing is taking away a lot of Heartbeat's audience.
- At 9pm, BBC1 and ITV tried to appeal to the same audience.
- ITV have lost so much of their heritage audience, i.e. Older viewers staying in for the night on the same channel.

Coronation Street still has the pulling power, and appeals to the oldest audience out of all the soaps - I read some interesting statistics about it recently.

With that in mind, ITV should build their Sunday night programming around that next year, because I'm sure Strictly Come Dancing will become a permanent Friday & Saturday night fixture.

That puts ITV in a bit of a sticky situation on Friday nights, showing repeats, and hopefully dropping their 8:30 Coronation Street episode, moving it to Sunday. (due to the Strictly move).

N.B: By the way, the only reason Emmerdale is getting a better audience at 8pm on a Thursday is because it is picking up a much older audience than usual, I'm sure of it. I'd love to see some breakdowns.

Apparently on Champions League nights, a commercial spot can be sold at a 500% higher cost than usual due to the high number of 16-34 males watching.

It can actually be up to 10 times the rate due to the lower commercial minutage during the football.

That's according to ariusuk on the Broadcasting forums, who's usually in the know.

It would also be significantly more expensive than the BBC Three option.

Great ratings for SCD and The X Factor, the clash obviously hurt Strictly than it did X Factor, Merlin did okay but I think they need to switch the two shows as it held its own against X Factor last year.

Casino Royale did very well but it was on too late and would have benefitted airing on Sunday or a Bank Holiday, I imagine it will repeated a lot on ITV1. Do ITV1 have the rights to Quantum of Solace although I imagine that won't air until 2010 at the earliest and 2011 at the latest. Batman Begins I imagine will probably air in that slot and Star Wars Episode III will probably air on a Sunday after another Star Wars Season.

Channel 4 and Five were left out in the cold although LOTR did okay for Channel 4. I think they should be braver and schedule new content rather than repeats against Strictly and X Factor, I think Five could save CSI:NY for the summer and Autumn and have another US show like NCIS LA on Saturdays in January.

Obviously during Corrie. But in the US (and by the sounds of it here as well) advertisers pay far less because there are basically too many old people watching TV. If you want to reach a large number of 16-34's, there aren't many shows to do it on. Hence the cost per viewer shoots up as advertisers scramble for limited spots.

Whereas that life insurance advert could be on during daytime or in any of the many many dramas on ITV that attract an older audience. The demand for slots could be the same, but the supply of potential slots is so much larger that the price paid per viewer is significantly lower.

There's also the theory that younger viewers are more attractive to advertisers as they may not have established brand loyalties by that point.

Channel 4 did OK considering what it has been getting on Saturday's for the past few weeks with ER - the film last night appeared to take away from Five's audience a little - Five under a million for the majority of primetime.

My predictions from the Ratings Prediction Game:


Pizza knows best!

Last night's ratings show there's plenty of room for both talent shows on Saturday nights, and, as I predicted, both shows did well, with The X Factor coming out on top in the...

...forty-first...

...clash between the two shows.

I would suggest that Emmerdale does better at 8pm because it's later in the evening and at 7pm some viewers, or some of Emmerdale's viewers, are still coming home from work or clearing-up after the evening meal or putting the kids to bed.



Could it be that the reason advertisers put so much emphasism on the 16-34 year old audience is because everyone who works in advertising is aged between 16 and 34 and they live in some strange "Logan's Run" type world where everyone over 40 is considered a geriatric?

ITV made an effort with some terrible drama last year that failed miserably. But they simply seem unable to do anything but crime drama which doesn't do well among younger viewers. And sitcoms are very popular with young viewers as well but again, they seem incapable of doing them either. Channel 4 seem to do very well. And E4 beat Five among 16-34's in the last 6 months last year.

Now ITV are giving an X Factor lead-in to Doc Martin. True, it is one of their few big drama hits that isn't based on police or murder. But it's not exactly Scrubs or Greys Anatomy.


Thanks, that's interesting. Men definitely seem to command a premium as well, particularly young men. (I suppose most advertisers would rather pay the big sums for football than have to advertise on porn websites!).