The problem with this idea is that it means either increasing the number of celebrities or starting the series a week or two later.

They may not want to do the former cos 16 contestants, which they had this year, seems about saturation pont. And they won't like to do the latter because, contrary to what some people on this thread think, Strictly is still one of BBC1's biggest ratings hits.

An alternative idea would be to have the eliminated contestant on any week spend the next week rehearsing a dance so that they could return to the contest as a substitute if anyone has to drop out.

Finishing on the 12th? The same weekend as X Factor Final? Owch!

They could always go for a Battle Of The Champions programme on the 19th. They would have no problem finding at least one past champion to participate cos she's sitting on the judging panel, and Darcey Bushell's signed up for that week so they would still have 4 judges.

Tuesday 24th November 2009

The Usual Suspects: I'm A Celebrity...unsurprisngly dipped but still wiped out the opposition. Paradox will be considered as as reasonable return as long as it stays above the 4m for the entire series. There is a slight bizareness from Digital Spy, who calls the 4.13m 'decent' for BBC1, yet 7m on ITV1 was 'reasonable' with Collision. Relocation, Relocation, Relocation finally helped Channel 4 out of the doldrums - but I guess only temporarily. CSI was as good as ever for Five. EastEnders did ok, but seems a bit low for the time of year. Emmerdale seems to be stabilising after it's shaky 2008/start to 2009. Holby City doesn't have much opposition, but that's down to it trouncing all before it so other channels have given up competiting.

Filler: John Sargeant stayed above 3m, at least. BBC2, Channel 4 and Five held up and little more at 8pm. The Iranian Martyr was crushed at 9pm though for BBC2.

They might as well just let films and drama repeats fill the slot.


Back to Strictly, and they could get away with a week where eliminated contestants compete for a wildcard in the final. I'm sure the usual complainers would see it as unfair, but viewers at no stage vote to eliminate a contestant.

The rule exists that they can bring back a couple that has already been eliminated - I thought they may have bought Phil back last week, but they passed on that and I guessed then they'd be going for a two person final.

Is this turning into a Strictly thread perchance? Not that I'm petty enough to note such a thing...

Robbie is willing to let this one go, given that the show needs all the oxygen of publicity that it can get, especially now it's on it's last legs. (or is that just most of the contestants)

Latest rumour is than Jedward will be poached by the BBC to go into the SCD house. In typical BBC fashion they cant create any new Saturday night stars so have to nick them off the competition Louis Walsh will be the rulebook adjudicator to see if this is allowable

Whatever happened to Sharon Osborne anyway ? I thought she was the BBCs big idea to turn around Strictly Comes the Iceberg?

Her daughter did the American version funnily enough and finished third.

So ITV has taken full control of GMTV. How fascinating! We could see some shakeups in the daytime schedule next year!

Wednesday 25th November Overnights
BBC One
18:00- BBC News at Six: 4.9m (25.5%)
18:30- Regional News and Weather: 6.1m (29.3%)
19:00- The ONE Show: 5.1m (24.6%)
19:30- Jimmy's Food Factory: 5.7m (27.6%)
20:00- Waterloo Road: 4.9m (21.4%)
21:00- Spooks: 4.8m (20.2%)
22:00- BBC News at Ten: 4.9m (24.3%)
22:25- Regional News and Weather: 4.7m (25.9%)

BBC Two
17:15- Escape to the Country: 2.0m (12.9%)
18:00- Eggheads: 2.1m (11.1%)
18:30- Strictly Come Dancing - It Takes Two: 2.5m (11.9%)
19:00- This World: Can Obama Save the Planet?: 0.6m (3.0%)
20:00- Top Gear: 2.0m (8.9%)
21:00- Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain: 2.5m (10.4%)
22:00- Never Mind the Buzzcocks: 1.8m (8.8%)
22:30- Newsnight: 1.0m (7.5%)

ITV1
18:30- ITV News & Weather: 3.4m (16.5%)
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.5m (31.0%)
19:30- UEFA Champions League: Manchester United v Besiktas: 4.8m (21.1%)
22:00- ITV News at Ten & Weather: 2.1m (11.0%)
22:35- UEFA Champions League Extra Time: 1.0m (9.6%)

Channel 4
18:00- The Simpsons: 2.79m [inc. +1]
18:30- Hollyoaks: 1.5m (7.5%)
19:00- Channel 4 News: 0.8m (4.1%)
19:55- 3 Minute Wonder: Subtitles Not Included: 1.0m (4.6%)
20:00- 10 Years Younger: 2.3m (10.0%)
21:00- The Family: 1.9m (8.1%)
22:00- True Blood: 1.0m (6.3%)

Five
17:30- Neighbours: 1.4m (8.6%)
18:00- Home and Away: 1.1m (5.9%)
18:25- Live From Studio Five: 0.3m (1.4%)
19:30- Highland Emergency: 0.8m (3.9%)
20:00- Britain's Best Brain: 0.5m (2.3%)
21:00- Hitch: 1.2m (6.4%)
23:25- The Sexy Ads Show: 0.5m (6.1%)

E4 [inc. +1]
19:30- How I Met Your Mother: 420,000
21:00- How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days: 310,000

Film4 [inc. +1]
18:15- Howard's End: 110,000
21:00- Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny: 260,000

More4
21:00- Time Team: 200,000 [inc. +1]
22:00- Terror Attack: Mumbai: by 91,000 (0.6%)
* below yearly slot average of: 134,600 (0.9%)

ITV2
20:00- Gossip Girl: 200k (0.9%)

Sky1
21:00- NCIS: Los Angeles: 409,000 (1.9%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 22.4%
ITV1: 20.1%
C4: 7.1% (+1: 0.7%)
BBC Two: 7.7%
Five: 4.1%

All Day Shares
BBC One: 21.0%
ITV1: 17.9%
C4 [inc. +1]: 8.3%
BBC Two: 7.4%
Five: 4.6%
--------------------------------------------------------------
Decent night for BBC1 and ITV1. Jimmy's Food Factory did really well against the pre-match talk, Waterloo Road and Spooks both up from last week. There's a period of 9 weeks in a row in February/March next year when ITV has football on Wednesday nights. I think it would would be a good time for My Family or any other BBC1 comedy to go out on Wednesdays at 7.30pm. If Jimmy's Food Factory can get 5.7m against footy, I'm sure sitcoms could do similar or better.

ITV's football match did okay considering there was nothing big at stake. I think that might be a new low for BBB on Five. It's flopping even more than the Farmer Wants a Wife!

good ratings last night for both waterloo road and spooks.

BBC1 could have a at night tonight against ITV1.

I'm hoping for

EastEnders 7:30-8:30 BBC1 averaging 8.5m across the hour.

Emmerdale getting an average of 6m for it's hour.

Coronation Street getting 7.3m for it's episode.

Gavin and Stacey getting 6m for it's episode hopefully more.

I'm a Celebrity getting 6.9m for it's episode.

Is that one of the smallest gaps between the ONE show and Emmerdale last night?

Most of Broadcast's articles, including the ratings ones, have gone subscription only from today. So that's one less source to get the ratings from (unless you have a subscription). It's a shame because they have some good non-ratings articles on there as well.

Also, it's weird that we haven't heard about ITV's spring lineup for next year. I'm sure it's usually announced by now, are they announcing it later this year or not at all?

I just noticed that too about the subscription articles. I'm just surprised that the articles were available to read without paying for all this time. £215 is a lot for Broadcast for a year.

A few updates from ITV Press Centre

Ant & Dec's Christmas Show, Saturday 26th December 19:45 - 21:00.

An Englishman in New York, Sunday 27th December 21:00 - 22:30.

Annoying about Broadcast, they've been down this route before I think, but then opened up the site.

They have an article on there confirming what everybody thought that Beat the Star has been axed in favour of alternative entertainment formats, and Justin Lee Collins new quiz show for Five is to be stripped.

Good ratings for ITV last night, surprised that it did well despite the fact that Man U have already qualified. Slightly surprised Spooks and Waterloo Road were below 5m.


Don't think so.


Why are the Ratings articles subscription though? Do they provide something extra that other free website like Digital Spy or Media Guardian don't?

An Englishman in New York down as Sun 27/12 @ 9pm on ITV Press Office.

Your hoping for a lot then
I think the Big 3 soaps will take around 6/7m
with corrie coming out on top

Gavin and stacey id say 5m+

Im a celeb 8.4

bad puns usually!

Ant & Dec's show should be called Ant & Dec's Boxing Day Bonanza

Shame about Beat the Star, as it suited Dermot O'Leary as a presenter more than Vernon Kay. Sometimes ITV should avoid axing a format, and rather replace the presenter, or move the show to a different part of the schedule.

I wouldn't call Beat the Star Sunday night television, nor would I say it had the right foundations to do well, unlike say Family Fortunes does now.

Entertainment formats, as shown by Family Fortunes, have great potential if given the right slot. Beat the Star shows yet more money wasted from ITV.

Just checked Broadcast again (http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/) and it appears all articles are now subscription apart from this section. Would love to know the motive behind it...

honestly its to try to make money. Most other news sites are going to go this way in the next year or two unfortunately, but journalists salaries cost money & the advertising generated by free access doesnt pay for it

edit: most of the broadcast site used to be subscriber access only until about a year ago. the free access experiment obviously didnt work for them financially [cent & dancc have just posted much the same response ]

Broadcast hasn't been free for that long really. It used to be that way for years. Not surprised they returned to it. No reason for them to give it away for free really.

Publishers believe this is the future, charging for web content as well as the print version. Murdoch's papers including The Sun and The Times are to follow suit shortly.

Broadcast Now is probably missing a trick by not offering web only subscriptions though.

Some Wednesday figures from ITV Sales about ITV2/3/4:

I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here Now! had 851,000 viewers, 5.1% share

The Darling Buds Of May had 616,000 viewers and 3.2% share
Taggart had 523,000 / 2.4% at 21:00 and 493,000 / 3.5% share at 22:00

Lethal Weapon had 262,000 viewers and 2.2% share

Spooks hampered by each episode being premiered on BBC3.

Just noticed that for the first 2 Wednesdays, the late night repeat of Spooks (at quarter past midnight) was in BBC3's top ten with over 600,000 viewers.