Looks like ITV aren't moving. Perhaps, like the BBC, they feel that they have put themselves in a position where they can't really move The X Factor earlier? It's not really a great schedule on ITV's part but it worked out fairly well last weekend.

The viewers are supposed to watch the adverts. That's how ITV make their money.

Surely Strictly viewers can take a breather during the filler. Quick! Run to the toilet whilst Tess is doing her post-dance interview.

Yes, the Robson Green & John Sergeant travel shows I expect will go to Tuesdays at 9pm. There are 5 episodes between the 2 shows which I guess will take them up until I'm A Celeb starts.

The Tuesday night drama idea has clearly not worked for them.

It looks as though ITV are pretending that Strictly doesn't exist when doing the schedules, which, after seeing last week's results, is probably the best thing to do. Moving X factor earlier would make no difference unless they moved it really early which wouldn't benefit them either. It wasn't dented that much by Strictly on Saturday (1-1.5m) and it will have 40 minutes afterwards to grab a massive audience. I can still see the first live show getting a similar rating to last year, despite the clash, which seems to be hurting Strictly more than X Factor. Strictly also won't be helped by the super long running time, which'll have no breaks, but plenty of filler.

I guess ITV's justification for moving Saturday X Factor from 7pm to 8pm would be that Sunday's programme is also on at 8.

The XF forum will be running wild with conspiracies about who gets to perform in those last 40 minutes!


Last year (and most of 2007) they always put X Factor on around about 7.30-8pm once Strictly had started. So it seems that they aren't changing from what they would usually do.

That's irrelevant. The point is viewers don't sit down glued to the ads and that's what I would take into account rather than compare like for like, as so many on this thread love to do.

The GSS audience on SSN between 3pm and 5.15pm is often pretty near the SS1 audience. GSS total across both channels from 3pm to 5.15pm often exceeds 1m.

Re CL - note that the Man Utd game had 30 mins extra intro (prog start 7pm) whereas the Arsenal prog started at 7.30pm (with a separately listed pre-game show from 6pm).

Final ratings are in, Flash Forward down slightly, The Mentalist up 0.2 to 3.6 which looks a bit better. Greys stayed at 6.7 and until someone posts a more detailed breakdown, we won't know whether or not Greys or House topped the demo for the week.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/25...hforward/28439

The following adults 18-49 ratings are just Monday-Thursday. The biggest Sunday show (apart from NFL) will be Desperate Housewives which should slot in at #3. Also on Sunday, Cold Case, Amazing Race and Brothers and Sisters plus the FOX animations. These are final ratings so might differ slightly from those already reported.

1. House (FOX) – 6.7
2. Greys Anatomy (ABC) – 6.7
3. NCIS (CBS) – 4.8
4. The Big Bang Theory (CBS) – 4.7
5. Two and a Half Men (CBS) – 4.5
6. NCIS:LA (CBS) – 4.4
7. CSI: Miami (CBS) – 4.3
8. Cougar Town (ABC) – 4.3
9. Criminal Minds (CBS) – 4.2
10. Modern Family (ABC) – 4.2

CBS - 6, ABC - 3, FOX - 1, NBC - 0

CBS
1. NCIS – 4.8
2. The Big Bang Theory – 4.7
3. Two and a Half Men – 4.5
4. NCIS:LA – 4.4
5. CSI: Miami – 4.3
6. Criminal Minds – 4.2
7. CSI – 4.1
8. CSI:NY – 4.0
9. Survivor – 3.7
10. The Mentalist – 3.6
11. How I Met Your Mother – 3.6
12. Accidentally On Purpose – 3.3
13. The Good Wife – 3.1
14. Gary Unmarried – 2.3
15. NA Old Christine – 2.2

ABC
1. Greys Anatomy – 6.7
2. Cougar Town – 4.4
3. Modern Family – 4.2
4. Flash Forward – 4.0
5. DWTS (Mon) – 4.1
6. DWTS (Tue) – 3.5
7. DWTS (Wed) - 3.3
8. Eastwick – 3.0
9. The Forgotten – 2.6
10. Castle – 2.3

FOX
1. House – 6.7
2. Hells Kitchen – 3.4
3. Glee – 3.1
4. Bones – 2.8
5. SYTYCD? – 2.5
6. Fringe – 2.3

NBC
1. The Office – 3.8
2. The Biggest Loser – 3.1
3. Heroes – 2.8
4. Community – 2.7
5. Law and Order: SVU – 2.5
6. Jay Leno (Tue) – 2.5
7. Mercy – 2.3
8. Jay Leno (Wed) – 2.0
9. Jay Leno (Mon) – 1.8
10. Parks and Recreation – 1.8
11. SNL Update – 1.7
12. Jay Leno (Thur) – 1.7

Total Viewers:

Monday-Thursday, Final ratings

1. NCIS (CBS) – 20.6m
2. NCIS:LA (CBS) – 18.7m
3. Dancing With The Stars (Mon) (ABC) – 17.8m
4. House (FOX) – 17.1m
5. Greys Anatomy (ABC) – 16.8m
6. CSI (CBS) – 16.0m
7. Criminal Minds (CBS) – 15.8m
8. Dancing With The Stars (Tue) (ABC) – 15.4m
9. Dancing With The Stars (Wed) (ABC) – 15.4m
10. CSI: NY (CBS) – 15.1m

CBS - 5, ABC - 4, FOX - 1, NBC - 0

Sunday Night Football will give NBC one entry. Desperate Housewives should be comfortably in the top 10, but difficult to say exactly where.

Women 18-34 (CW target demo)

1. Vampire Diaries – 2.6
2. Gossip Girl – 2.4
3. America’s Next Top Model – 2.3
4. 90210 – 2.1
5. One Tree Hill – 1.6
6. Supernatural – 1.5
7. Melrose Place – 1.5
8. The Beautiful Life – 0.9

TOTAL
1. Vampire Diaries – 3.8m
2. America’s Next Top Model – 2.8m
3. Supernatural – 2.7m
4. One Tree Hill – 2.3m
5. Gossip Girl – 2.0m
6. 90210 – 2.0m
7. Melrose Place – 1.4m
8. The Beautiful Life – 1.0m

Very telling that the shows doing well on The CW are the supernatural shows like Vampire Diaries and Supernatural. I expect Smallville will break 3m tonight.

NCIS is the powerhouse rather than CSI which shows how far the show has grown in the last couple of years, Bad for FOX that the only show over 10m is House.

Low for all channels last night, bar the New Tricks repeat. The Bill's share was ok, even if it being below 4m must be a concern. None of the other channels (bar BBC1) managed to take advantage though, but they were very close to each other.

Watchdog is holding up well for BBC1 at 8pm. Emmerdale seemed low in audience, high is share at 7 and low in share, high in audience at 8pm. Coronation Street is not seeing a boost as of yet, not that I'm surprised considering the quality of the programme at the moment.

Pretty timid set of ratings in the UK on Thursday. The BBC continue to get good mileage out of the New Tricks repeats. The Bill is a bit better, but still needs to improve further once NT dissappears completely from Thursday nights. Watchdog is doing alright, but no better than that - and all the soaps seem quite restrained.

Whats going on with Corrie at the moment. Seems to be having a pretty rough patch ratings wise and struggling to recover from the summer lul. I know its 8.30pm showings have always rated worse than the 7.30pm ones, but it seems strange to see it barely more than a million ahead of Emmerdale preceeding it.

--

The US looking more interesting once again:

NCIS is clearly the biggest CBS franchise right now, which makes the decision to switch The Mentalist away from Tuesday pretty curious. I guess they decided they could only go for 2 hours of procedurals and needed to give NCIS:LA the obvious boost. Once that is established with its own audience, I think we could see it move, allowing The Mentalist to return to its former birth.

The big story of the week for me though is ABC. After a fruitless few years in terms of premieres it was important to find a couple of returning shows from this batch and they have a decent chance. Too early to be certain yet, but they seem to have finally got a couple of the comedies they so desperately craved. Flash Forward has held up under the expectation of being “The New Lost” pretty well too. Grey’s is still a powerhouse and I’m sure Desperate Housewives will be strong too. A good week only tarnished perhaps by the decline of the ageing Dancing with the Stars.

Fox seems a little subdued with the exception of House, but then again, they always seem to struggle before AI and 24 return. They could do with another big drama hit. Glee is doing OK, but its not really a smash – it’ll get a second lease of life with the AI lead-in soon.

As for NBC, well, at least Leno is doing alright… a 1.7 demo with the opposition it had last night (Grey’s and The Mentalist is literally about as tough as it will ever get) will have execs very pleased. On the other hand, some of their premieres have been forgotten. Community looked OK, but needs to stabilise – but nothing else catches the eye to replace the dying Heroes and L&O franchise.

House was surprisingly high, it had lost some ground when FOX moved it to Mondays (losing an Idol lead-in) but really rebounded. FOX will hope that it can keep a big audience next week and work well with Lie To Me which starts at 9pm.

I think FOX will be quite pleased this week. No, they aren't really competing with ABC and CBS. But at least they're not just going to spend the rest of the year waiting for American Idol as they usually do.

I'd say their 2 concerns so far would be Fringe down so much at 9pm Thursdays and maybe SYTYCD being a bit lighter than they would have hoped but compared to their usual situation at this stage, those aren't big concerns. I doubt Dollhouse ratings tonight will bring good news either, but seeing as they recommissioned it on low ratings, it's safe to say that they aren't that bothered.

SYTYCD to autumn was a surprising move and presumably a short term one if it's true that they plan to schedule X Factor USA at this time last year. I'd guess SYTYCD will return to summer.


And Community moves to the 8pm slot in a few weeks when 30 Rock returns at 9.30pm.

On Monday, I thought Heroes was definitely dead at the end of this season. A few days more of NBC ratings and suddenly Heroes doesn't look too bad. Which sums up the mess that they are in. Maybe Trauma will do well, but I just can't see anything taking off there just now.

Elsewhere, The CW have a reality series based on Gossip Girl and another based on Virgin America (the airline) scheduled for some point this season. Both are 8 parters. Both sound dreadful.

Also, after just 2 episodes and only 9 days since the premiere aired, The Beautiful Life has been cancelled. It's believed 7 or 8 episodes had been filmed. The slot will, at least in the short run, be occupied by repeats. With Life UneXpected probably coming into that slot midseason.

And, as touched on above, the X Factor US saga is rolling on in UK and US press. NBC are supposedly still hovering. But the various papers are all saying different things.

Medium premieres tonight on its new network and Dollhouse and Ghost Whisperer return to CBS and FOX respectively. Law and Order kicks off at 8pm on NBC, having been shunted to Fridays in its 20th season.

The Mentalist was an odd but understandable move by CBS given that the 10pm shows after CSI never seem to hold on its audience and while The Mentalist premiered lower against a hyped up episode of Grey's Anatomy, it will do increase against Private Practice which does not draw the same crowd as Grey's. NCIS:LA will be moved to another day like Sunday if it can hold onto the NCIS audience without too much loss.

Will be interesting how FlashForward does on Five, I thinking it will do very well considering the hype and it's very different from the procedurals that Five usually show.

The Beautiful Life's cancellation doesn't surprise me although it was quite sudden, I expect Vampire Diaries or Melrose repeats to take its place. Life UneXpected will take the slot in the new year.

I think Law & Order will be fine on Fridays and has aired there before and I expect it will be second after Ghost Whisperer. CBS will rule Fridays with its strong lineup.

This morning's Daily Mirror has an article on Life, BBC1's epic new 10-part natural history series.

The article says that the programme starts on October 12th, which is a Monday.

If this is correct then, to me, that increases the likelihood of Spooks running up against The Bill.

..that'll take us to 14th December then. But why a Monday?

BBC don't normally have documentaries on Monday's.

That's why I went .

Mondays are a strong night for ratings. It's when the 3 big soaps often get their best figures of the week. Who Do You Think You Are put up a strong showing in the Monday 9pm slot at the start of the year but ITV1 also acheived big ratings for the dramas playing opposite. This would be complimentary scheduling that could allow both channels to win healthy figures (depending what ITV1 have to offer and if the public don't find Life too boring).



And my logic is suggesting Spooks to play on a Thursday in my previous post:

Tuesdays tend to be "women's dramas" (excuse my generalisation) such as Mistresses and All The Small Things to tie in with the soapy Holby City. So I predict Material World (or whatever it's called) to finally take a slot it was suppose to be in already.

Fridays is HIGNFY and presumably Armstrong And Miller.

Waterloo Road is due back soon, presumably on a Wednesday, and two dramas on a Wednesday seems excessive (yet three dramas on a Tuesday seems perfectly acceptable. What a strange world we live in.)

So that leaves Thursdays for Spooks, with BBC1 sensing The Bill is weak competition and looking to beat it to keep up its audience share on a night when ITV1 now has 90 minute of soap, instead of the 30 minutes previously that allowed BBC1 to win most Thursdays in auience share.


Incidentally - what chance Gavin And Stacey running on a Sunday? Emma starts October 4th for 4 weeks (Correct? 4 weeks?) then G&S could start on 1st November for 6 weeks running until 5th December with Sports Personality on the 12th.

Would I be right in saying Gavin and Stacey's target audience is 16 to 34's. Having it on Sundays @ 9pm directly against Top Gear is really not a good idea.

I agree, I can see BBC1 going with:

Monday: Life
Tuesday: Spooks
Wednesday: Material Girl
Thursday: Gavin and Stacey/Outnumbered
Friday: Have I Got News For You/Armstrong and Miller

My thiking behind Material Girl and Spooks is that football now airs on Wednesday, not Tuesday on ITV, and Material Girl will attract a completely different audience to it, whereas Spooks would have some crossover, whereas it would do well against ITV's Tuesday travel shows.

Ah, I forgot about that.

Incidentally, TG will be in HD next series, so it would seem that it's not moving to 9pm to avoid The X factor, as Jeremy Clarkson thinks, but to avoid the Antiques Roadshow which is also in HD - neither programme being able to move to 7pm because Country File is also going to be in HD.

It seems that, increasingly, the schedules for BBCs 1 to 4 are being drawn up with the HD channel firmly in mind, for although some programmes have to play in a different slot on BBC HD than on its main channel, mostly the BBC want to have simultaneous broadcasts.

BBC One obviously want Life to have a headline slot. Previously, this would have meant 9pm on Sunday, but with The X Factor/Doc Martin pairing there, Monday is probably the best slot they can go for.

Regarding the scheduling of Spooks (possibly) on Thursday, it'll hopefully kill off ITV's lazy scheduling once and for all - what an uninspiring night Thursday's are now.

Also, I think both Gavin and Stacey and Outnumberered will be held back til the New Year. With Not Going Out axed and Harry and Paul moved to BBC Two, BBC One have nothing else to pair with QI on a Friday night come Janaury...apart from Vicar of Dibley repeats!!!

I can see the schdule going like this:

Sunday: Emma/Garrow's Law/Small Island
Monday: Life
Tuesday: Material Girl/other filler
Wednesday: Around The World In 80 Days/other filler
Thursday: Spooks
Friday: HIGNFY/A+M

Here's a thought.

I think it was a few weeks back there was thread elsewhere regarding BBC HD's viewing figures and the general view was that they seemed a bit disappointing. It was suggested that some people who access to HD still watched the SD version.

Perhaps the BBC could try an experiment by broadcasting one of their HD shows before the SD broadcast - even if only by an hour. Obviously live shows are out of the question but Antiques or Top Gear, (perhaps a good way of promoting the HD version?) might be an option.

It would confuse the hell out of peple who are obviousl not technically minded in the first place.