It's clear the Thursday slot is not right for The Bill. I think it would do far better on Tuesdays.

For January 2010:

Saturday
7.00pm New You've Been Framed
7.30pm Harry Hill's TV Burp
8.00pm Ant and Dec's Push The Button
9.00pm Piers Morgan on...
10.00pm Headcases

Sunday
6.15pm Dancing on Ice
7.45pm All Star Family Fortunes
8.30pm Dancing on Ice: The Skate Off
9.00pm Married, Single, Other
* The old Cold Feet slot, best place for this show + DOI inheritance

Monday
7.00pm Emmerdale
8.00pm The Lakes
8.30pm Coronation Street
9.00pm Law & Order: UK
10.00pm ITV News at Ten

Tuesday
7.00pm Emmerdale
7.30pm Grimefighters
8.00pm Coronation Street
8.30pm The Krypton Factor
* better timeslot for the show, potential for a hit quiz show in primetime
9.00pm The Bill
10.00pm ITV News at Ten

Wednesday
7.00pm The Seasons
8.00pm Poirot / Marple / Lewis
* fixed schedule for non-football weeks
10.00pm ITV News at Ten

Thursday
7.00pm Emmerdale
7.30pm Tonight with Julie Etchingham
* in its new weekly slot
8.00pm Coronation Street
9.00pm Thursday Travels: Ray Mears Survival
* fixed slot for the 2010 documentaries
10.00pm ITV News at Ten

Friday
7.00pm Emmerdale
8.00pm Lion Country
8.30pm Coronation Street
9.00pm Wild at Heart
* Frees up Sundays for Married, Single, Other - would do well here as Heartbeat used to
10.00pm ITV News at Ten

Would be very solid IMO.

I dont see the point of trailing the show this early as people will just forget about it with everything happening over christmas.

Why is this in the ratings thread and not the X Factor thread.

Because it's very Ratings related ... :yawn:

Its just you blabbering on about how you love the X Factor so much. If you would have said the ratings are gonna be huge then that is relevant.

I said "it's gonna be huge". Obviously referring to it being "huge" for this thread, as the ratings will be a big topic of discussion all weekend.

GET over it. I can't bear all the people trampling on anyone who dares mention the show in here, just what is the point? When something is pulling in 14 million every week in this day and age I think we are entitled to discuss it at length in the RATINGS thread and I would be exactly the same if it were on the BBC.

If TMO starts 2nd January, that's 3 weeks away.

It would hardly be the first programme to be trailed so far in advance. Although, yes, you would have thought that trailers at this time of year would be for Xmas programmes.

I guess ITV1 don't have any programmes over Xmas likely to attract the big X Factor 16-34 audience.

I can't see the logic of having two Celebriy Mastermind's on the same night TBH, (they could've held Mastermind over until the following week). Actually my plan wasn't to weaken BBC1 but to strengthen it. Surely the legs are being kicked away from BBC1 at 8.30 with the repeat, leading to the 9pm slot? If Seaside Special aired at 7pm, then EastEnders would at least help BBC1 recover at 7.30 and Celebrity Mastermind would hold it's own, even if it is a double episode, and offering a better lead in to the 9pm slot?

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Weak for the soaps and The Bill - The Bill really seems on a slide now. Gavin and Stacey did excellently, though, while QI enjoyed the lead in.

Could you explain the reasoning behind this thought?

I don't see how it would do better with a 3m lead-in from factual or Millionaire than it does with a 8m lead-in from Corrie.

You might argue the competition is weaker on Tuesday at 9pm, but BBC1 is only weak in that slot cos they know ITV1 is weak in that slot. So Paradox gets a critical slating and unimpressive ratings, but still wins its slot.

Anyway, we get a feel for how well The Bill would do on a Tuesday on Dec 21st when it runs opposite Paradox, but with a 3m lead-in from Coastline Cops.

I agree with you, and think your latest schedule was very, very good!

I really like your idea about Wild at Heart / Heartbeat type dramas going on Friday's at 9.

And you have a great schedule for Tuesday's as well, which is so difficult to get right. I'm wondering whether that would do well. I still see The Bill as a pre-9pm show, but nowadays there's nowhere for it to go.

It would definitely work better than what they have now, but my fantasy schedule which I will post now is slightly more radical, and my opinion has definitely been shaped by how Robson Green performed on Tuesday. The documentaries are definitely best on Thursday's, with a lead-in from The Bill or something similar.

My fantasy schedule, James, is in the thread in the Broadcasting section. You know the one?

Good point. You have to question how many of the 3.8m who watched The Bill last night did so purely because it was on after Corrie. The show is on its last legs, its been beaten by repeats of New Tricks now G+S and Qi. Moving it to Tuesdays against a drama such as Survivors in the new year wont work.

It's horrible. What they've done to The Bill is pretty bad. They've completely changed its audience. It should be trying to appeal to as much of an audience as possible, like it did in the 90s era before Paul Marquez took over and made it into an out-and-out soap. It should have soapy features. There are too many crime dramas on TV at the moment, so why is The Bill trying to be a clone of all of those?

Thursday at 8pm is the best slot for it. Though, I don't think it should run for the whole year. It should have a 10 part Spring run, starting from the end of Dancing on Ice to the start of Britain's Got Talent. And a 10 part Autumn run from September to when I'm a Celebrity starts, with a Christmas special.

Why is Thursday at 8 best? Well, opposition is not great on BBC1. ITV already have control of the 8pm slot, and have done for sometime. And if ITV turn The Bill back into the loveable rogue that it was on screen, with the right mix of crime, series storylines and occasional comedic features, it could get over 6 million viewers again.

Putting it back into series is probably the best way to do that. Waterloo Road does quite well because it has a different agenda every series, and The Bill could have that too. I personally enjoyed it in 1999-2001 (before Marquez?) when each episode would focus on a particular police officer - that was very experimental and very successful, if I remember.

The Spring series could focus on one police officer every week (with a broader view of the station as well), whilst the Autumn series could have all the big storylines in.

Those are some impressive figures. I, for one, will be watching the repeat this weekend and suspect it'll at least break 800,000. Depending on the amount of floating viewers who'll just tune in for the final, it may hit over a million but similarly, a higher than usual amount of those repeat viewers might be watching live instead.

Option 1
- Older skewing drama repeats followed by documentaries, as suggested by PJMillar.

Pros: It costs next to nothing
Cons: Figures would be very low, possibly for both the drama repeat and the documentary, and could isolate Tuesday for good from ITV dominance.

Option 2- Move The Bill to 9pm on Tuesday, as suggested by James J.

Pros: It would leave Thursday nights to have more freedom, so the documentaries could get a good lead-in and a better audience.
Cons: The Bill would lose more viewers, and as a relatively expensive drama, would be incredibly loss making.

Option 3
- Move soaps to Tuesday nights in order to boost figures, as suggested by Agent F, seconded by many others.

Pros: It would certainly give a stronger lead-in to whatever's at 9pm, and remove Holby City's dominance of Tuesday nights?
Cons: It is likely to damage the soaps themselves, who have (especially Corrie) been moved no-end in 2009.

Option 4
- Move Dancing on Ice, along with 71 Degrees North, Hell's Kitchen and other older/ABC1 skewing reality/factual formats. With the "results" or "second" show on Thursday at 8pm, as suggested by PJMillar.

Pros: It would finally move Holby out of its place on Tuesday's, and provide a good lead-in for whatever is after it. Dancing on Ice is good enough to be stretched for 2 hours, and this format works very well in America. Other shows such as detective dramas and soaps work very well on Sunday nights, and they would be wasted on Tuesday's? However, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and Britain's Got Talent have worked on Tuesday's!
Cons: Would Dancing on Ice lose viewers from this? Or would people follow it? Maybe it would lose up to a million, is that too costly? Do we look at the bigger picture or not?

I'll leave you all to make your own conclusions. One of the other options is to leave Tuesday nights as they are, and accept the (likely?) possibility that they're never going to work, like Option 1.

To be honest it's probably a good thing as there is a fairly narrow range of topics the show covers, so it should be less repetitive. Might be a few more hour-long editions to compensate too.

Digiguide has updated

Saturday 2nd January

17:00 FA Cup Live : Reading v Liverpool
19:15 Take Me Out
20:15 All Star Mr & Mrs
21:15 Piers Morgan On

Krypton Factor is Tuesdays at 19:30

Weds 6th January

19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 Lion Country
20:00 You've Been Framed ! Kids Special ()
21:00 Above Suspicion

Countrywise repeat Friday at 20:00.

It's all a bit boring, but I suppose they are waiting for Dancing on Ice.

Saturday nights seem particularly boring for me. They all seem like shows that should be on up until 7pm or after 10pm. There is no big entertainment show there.

Like some of the posts on here?


Ouch.

Was Robson Green making a guest appearance?

That Corrie rating, 7.8m, is pretty piss poor for the show really - who'd have thought Corrie would be struggling like that on a cold and dark December night, with DIY SOS in competition?


Neither can I.

It means the Ratings Thread Simon Cowell wankfest takes a break for 5 months...


From ITV's perspective, I think the dustbin of history would be a better slot.

Must be time to turn off its life support soon, they must be losing money hand over fist.


I misread that as Piers Mogadon...

Mustn't upset the nans in the audience I suppose. Like you say, totally the wrong demo.


Probably better suited to the soaps forum but I agree with most of that. In short Corrie has had a terrible year in terms of quality and the scheduling has just made matters worse. A new producer next year should hopefully herald the beginning of a recovering period for the show.

EastEnders has been good with some standout episodes and Emmerdale has definitely turned a corner under the new producer - I'd rank both above Coronation Street.

BTW those repeat ratings for The X Factor are very impressive.

We could always talk American Idol on ITV2 (which will be going out the day after US transmission this year) if you like

Looking at Digiguide and it seems due to Silent Witness on Thursdays and Fridays, Five have moved NCIS to Wednesdays which is interesting given Wednesdays are their weakest night. I'm thinking that the 9pm weekdays will look a bit like this:

Monday: Paul Merton in Europe/Extreme Fishing with Robson Green/Flashforward

Tuesday: CSI

Wednesday: NCIS

Thursday: Film/Documentary or Factual/Football/The Mentalist

Friday: Film/Documentary or Factual/US import

Presumably filmed before he drowned on ITV1 the other night?

What about yours? Sarcastic (and sometime humorous), and very pro-BBC. Lots of roll-eye faces and stuff.

I'd say I'm pretty unbiased, even though I talk about ITV more, because its more troubled. And with a troubled ITV comes a complacent BBC, hence I'm happy ITV got all their big guns out in the autumn.

It made me realise that BBC1 didn't make anything new this year of any note. Nothing. Unless I'm missing something (which who knows, I could be...).

ITV have had years like that (quite a few in the last few years), but this year have launched some more very successful crime dramas and seem to be doing some exciting stuff in the factual department.

I think both need to raise their game in different departments.

But I still maintain, BBC Four remains the best channel on British television, in my opinion anyway. Such a good variety of intelligent material, and it isn't even pompous.

The Sun reporting that CBB producers are going to spend more money to get bigger names. Only 10 housemates this year.

They say MC Hammer, Pamela Anderson and Boy George.

Not sure Pamela Anderson would do it, but she is rumoured to be desperate for money.

They also say it will go up against So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing on Ice this year in some kind of fierce ratings battle. A bit sloppy.

Jamelia...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/inter...8/jamelia.html

Any ideas?