Quite possible, I'd have thought, as I think Mister Eleven was made as 1 x 120 and ITV split it into two quite late on. I think it's quite likely to happen to U Be Dead, as it could be run across two nights (unless they want it to air on a Bank Holiday). Albert's Memorial seems to be more of a Sunday thing though so I doubt it'll happen to that.

Ignore.

I suppose it's possible. ITV's drama page has both of the shows down as "coming soon". The other shows on the "coming soon" list have already been given air dates, such as Sleep with Me, Above Suspicion, etc.

I thought Law & Order: UK would start the week after Above Suspicion (it may well), but there's no sign of it on the "Coming Soon" page.

Edit: Just realised Law and Order: UK wouldn't be on that page anyway, as it's only for drama "premieres".

Edit2: But then again, Above Suspicion is on there.

Ah, OK. I do think, if Above Suspicion gets > 7m like series 1, then they should maybe try Monday and Tuesday shows again, especially if it in the short term helps Tuesday's out. But as you rightly say, Law and Order does need to go somewhere. Maybe that'll go on Friday's? IIRC, Trial and Retribution did well earlier this year with > 5m against BBC's comedy hour.

One final bit from me, here's the Top 10 Overnights for this decade, and what The X Factor needs to get into the top 10:

Most Watched Programmes of the decade (overnights)
1 – 20.3m (73%) – Only Fools and Horses (BBC1, 25/12/01)
2 – 18.9m (70%) – Euro 2004: England v Portugal (BBC1, 24/06/04)
3 – 17.9m (69%) – EastEnders (BBC1, 05/04/01)
4 – 17.6m (61%) – Coronation Street (ITV1, 24/02/03)
5 – 17.3m (68%) – Britain's Got Talent (ITV1, 30/05/09)
6 – 15.1m (56%) – Tonight Special: Millionaire (21/04/03)
7 – 14.4m (58%) – World Cup 2006: England v Sweden (ITV1, 20/06/06)
8 – 14.3m (53%) – Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (BBC1, 25/12/08)

Note: Only the top rating per programme is used. One rating per football tournament

I think tonight's show will slot in either 6th or 7th. There's quite a big gap between 5th and 6th (2.1m), so it may not actually move up any positions in terms of the above chart - saying that though, if tonight's show gets ~15m then tomorrow could get 17m.

Tonight depends on how much the first 45 minutes is dented by Strictly, I suspect Strictly may be dented to about 6/7m while The X Factor will have 12/13m in the clash.

The peak will also be interesting - and maybe give us a clue as to what the average will be tomorrow.

Guess half of the puzzle will be revealed with a red banner at 9:35am tomorrow. (I think we'll have a banner - there was one IIRC for BGT?!)

After I posted that earlier this year, I realised that it was a bit incorrect. Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and Heartbeat officially got 15.88m and 15.16m in January 2000. Their overnights weren't reported, but I suspect they were higher than numbers 7 and 8 in that chart.

To complicate matters, though, Wallace and Gromit and the World Cup match are higher in the proper officials than Millionaire and Heartbeat due to huge timeshifts and BARB's previous methods regarding World Cup matches.

Until recent times (when delayed viewing seems to be becoming more popular?), I used to use "Kenny's patented 10% rule of thumb". ie. you could add an approximate 10% to the overnight scores to predict the official numbers. On that basis, the two overnights would have been about 14.5m and 13.8m, respectively...

K

Yeah, 8-12% sounds about right (especially for ITV programmes which generally timeshift more due to adverts). So Heartbeat would have probably just missed out getting into that list, with Millionaire just in there around 7-8.

Incidentally, I think BARB's stopped reporting just match officials for football matches and now just take the official average of the entire broadcast. So next year's World Cup matches might not get big "timeshifts" which previous World Cup matches did.

I wonder what method BARB will use next Summer for the World Cup? Full programme - or split into 3?

Looking at Millionaire, it makes you think 'oh, how the mighty have fallen'...

I think BARB are doing just the 1 official rating for the full programme. For Euro 2008 they used that method, even though in previous Euros they'd split it into three.

It makes quite a difference as well, if we look at England's overnight and official ratings for 2006:

10/06…12:35-16:15…8.8m (74%)… England v Paraguay (1-0)…BBC1… OFFICIAL: 12.00m
15/06…16:15-19:15…11.3m (66%)… England v Trinidad & Tobago (2-0)…ITV1… OFFICIAL: 13.67m
20/06…19:00-22:15…14.4m (57%)… England v Sweden (2-2)…ITV1… OFFICIAL: 18.46m
25/06…15:30-18:15…14.2m (75%)… England v Ecuador (1-0)…BBC1… OFFICIAL: 16.29m
01/07…15:00-19:00…13.3m (76%)… England v Portugal (3-1 pens)…BBC1… OFFICIAL: 16.20m

With the old method, some matches were being boosted by about 4m in the officials. It's possible that with the 'new' method an England World Cup match won't be number one in the ratings next year, especially if they don't progress too far in the competition.

I'd hazard a guess they will use all 3. I believe the reason BARB didn't split Euro 2008 was because no home nations teams were involved.

That's good to hear. It's weird that they split it in the first place, but at least, it's consistent with previous World Cups. Also if it means higher official ratings then it's good imo .

I don't see why they should be allowed to rate the match as a seperate rating. Every other programme has to take an average of the entire show. They don't list their highest rated 15 minute period as a seperate show.

Plus there are no commercial breaks during the actual game (not yet anyway - give it time) so a seperate rating has no benefit to the advertisers.

But Coronation Street doesn't have 45 minutes studio talk before each episode does it?

I think its perfectly fair. And (for big sporting everts) it gives a more detailed report...

i.e - 8million watched the build-up, 14.5m watched the live action, 6.5 the post match celebrations/commiserations etc..

It depends hows its listed doesnt it?
I though tv companies used to liste the build up and post match as different programmes which was ok if they were longer than 15 minutes?

And yes there are ads in the match segment - at HT!

Why though? They don't do it for Rugby games, and they definitely don't do it for F1, so why do it for Football?

Oops...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...be-reshot.html

For the 2003 Rugby World Cup, BARB split the ratings up. So for the final, we had:

RUGBY WORLD CUP PRE MATCH (SAT 0830) 5.19
RUGBY WORLD CUP FINAL AUS V ENG (SAT 0907) 12.66
RUGBY WORLD CUP POST MATCH (SAT 1124) 11.95

But for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, BARB had it all in one rating:

RUGBY WORLD CUP 2007 (SAT 1929) 13.13

So, are you 100% sure BARB will split the 2010 FIFA World Cup matches into three chunks? It looks like they've stopped doing it for all competitions.

(After the removal of adverts, there were 4 IIRC) Didn't the Pre-match coverage of the 2007 RWC fall short of the 15min qualifying duration?

I suppose its up to the broadcaster to decide if they want to split the coverage into separate shows. 99% of the time it probably isnt worth the hassle. In the end its only anoraks that really care (oh and newspaper journalists!)

Hmmm...Kickoff was at 8pm, so surely ITV had less than 15 minutes of adverts during 7.30-8pm?

Also for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, ITV had some pre-match coverage which was short of the 15 qualifying duration. But BARB still had a separate match rating.

God know - even from a 30-second trailer you could tell it was lucky to get a slot on ITV1 at all - they might as well have just written it off really.

The problem with ITV drama is when they do actually try and make something more ambitious, they usually don't get the ratings to justify it. As sad as it is basically if they want viewers they generally have to be detective dramas or middle-aged women in some sort of crisis, usually played by Caroline Quentin.

It is something the whole drama industry needs to look at though - they can't just whine about reality shows taking the airtime when they are consistently failing to make their marks on the schedules. If shows like The X Factor can pull in 12m+ on a weekly basis, there is no reason why most new drama should be lingering below 5m.

Was Robson Green in it?


Really? I can see 3 of those ITV shows losing their slot tonight and FF losing to SPOTY whilst head to head tomorrow.

A weak programme at 7pm is always a recipe for weeknight disaster. When Castaway was sub 2m in that slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays in 2007, it affected ratings for EastEnders.

I think you're getting your rescues and your specials confused.

Oh. yes, nobody's actually listed half-time as a seperate programme. I was just assuming cos it's not part of "the match". And it must drag down the ratings for the game because people will be channel-hopping* or going for a beer or going to the toilet. Or doing anything other than listening to the pundits.


*particularly on ITV because Boy, do they have ads at HT!

Whenever I watch a match on ITV1, the more ads at half time the better...