Are we sure its not just a repeat of the SciFi first series episodes?

EDIT: UK TV Guide has it down as 'NEW' but also as 'Series 1, Episode 1', which means that it must be a repeat as its already been shown before on SciFi.`

It's not really a "repeat" is it? It's new to ITV and it's new to Freeview, that's the significant part.

I'm very thankful to ITV and others for bringing these shows over, particularly Dexter. Saves me a lot of money!

Well now they are trying the exact same strategy with Viva, formerly TMF.

Double bills of Two and a Half Men occupy the 9pm timeslot Monday-Thursday with marathon reruns on Sundays. Does that mean Viacom are putting Two and a Half Men up against Two and a Half Men?

Sorry, but how daft. "Watch this for FREE on our new channel Viva, or you can pay to watch it on Comedy Central!" Tough choice.

Just had a look and the MTV website says Viva will be showing Two and a Half Men exclusively. And yet I'm pretty sure I sat and watched Two and a Half Men on Comedy Central last night!

I suppose Viva will be on Freeview unlike CC, but it still seems like a really bad idea.

Will Viva be in the entertainment section of the EPG?

Not sure. The Freeview EPG is not split up into genres in that way. Viva is still mostly music based like its predecessor, but primetime is broader than previously with films and sitcoms in the mix.

I'm not sure it will affect CC all that much. I mean, pay TV viewers are used to watching it on there now. I'm not sure they are going to suddenly switch to watching it on Viva, which is starting right at the beginning with season 1.

But it does seem awfully silly to put it on two of their channels at once. Shouldn't Viacom be trying to show me what I'm missing out on with Comedy Central, not giving me the exact same thing (for free) on Viva?

Dollhouse episode 1 is on again tomorrow night at 8pm on ITV4.

Anyone know Vivas launch night ratings?

Two and a Half Men was on Five a few years ago and paired with Joey but it was never a smash hit and Five only showed as part of the deal they got with Joey. I believe they only showed Season 1 and 2 then dropped it due to cost issues with Warner Bros and the right to show it on Five USA.

Ok for Murderland last night. If it can stay above 5m then ITV'll be happy. Life improved, obviously taking bored ITV1 viewers away from the channel. The soaps all did well, the usual Monday boost will be followed tonight by the Tuesday lull.

I wonder if Channel 4 are wondering about bidding for Big Brother at a cut down price? At least that constantly got around 2m in the height of summer, which is more than any of their current shows are succeeding in doing.

FlashForward is holding steady. I am surprised still that Five didn't give it the chance it offered The Mentalist and place it in the Thursday night slot.

Interesting scheduling from BBC1 regarding the extra EastEnders episode. After the complaints made about the clash with Emmerdale they then go and recreate it themselves. I don't know why they didn't schedule it like this on a Tuesday night:

7.00 The One Show
7.30 EastEnders
8.30 Holby City
9.30 Gavin and Stacey

giving Gavin and Stacey a healthy lead in. I wouldn't be surprised to see Coronation Street given a boost that Thursday night, though, with no hour long programme on BBC1 overlapping it.

Thursday Night is football every other week or so and the disruption would hurt a new show like FlashForward and it's likely when football finishes, The Mentalist will return for its second season.

I can guarantee that Coronation Street almost certainly won't be on that night, and here's why...

There's a few things to be taken into consideration here. The extra EastEnders episode is on Thursday 26th November, therefore I'm going to assume that the schedule will look like this:

19:00 - The One Show
19:30 - EastEnders
20:30 - NEW: Gavin and Stacey
21:00 - NEW: Paradox

While that looks good, ITV1 has a problem of its own, which could massively dent the BBC One schedule. There is UEFA Champions League on Wednesday 25th November, meaning:

a) I'm a Celebrity misses a night - longer two hour show on Thursday probably
b) Coronation Street will have to move from its Thursday slot, extra episode being scheduled on Wednesday 11th November @ 19:30 to make up for this.

What this means is that ITV1's schedule looks like this:

19:00 - Emmerdale
20:00 - I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!
22:00 - News at Ten and Weather

So two new programmes probably up against IAC, in Paradox's case, that'll start a week earlier on the 19th November, but will still be up against IAC.

I hadn't thought about the UEFA Cup Football. Good point.


There are going to be quite a few spare Coronation Street's floating around isn't there? Surely they'll have to cut the 8.30pm episodes on Monday, Thursday and Friday once the elimination stage of I'm A Celebrity has been reached? That or cut the highlights short.

If the two channels follow through the schedules you state then BBC1 could have an issue, with Emmerdale taking viewers off EastEnders and then I'm A Celebrity stopping viewers from switching back for the second half hour of EastEnders.

Top 5 Adults 18-49:
1. Dancing With The Stars (ABC) - 3.7
2. The Big Bang Theory (CBS) - 3.6 *REPEAT*
3. Two and a Half Men (CBS) - 3.4 *REPEAT*
4. CSI: Miami (CBS) - 3.1 *REPEAT*
5. Castle (ABC) - 2.8

Top 5 Total Viewers:
1. Dancing With The Stars (ABC) - 17.7m
2. Two and a Half Men (CBS) - 11.3m *REPEAT*
3. CSI: Miami (CBS) - 11.2m *REPEAT*
4. Castle (ABC) - 11.1m
5. The Big Bang Theory (CBS) - 10.6m *REPEAT*

House was off for the week with So You Think You Can Dance shunted to Monday due to baseball. It won the 8pm hour with adults 18-34.

CBS was in repeats all night but still managed a 3.0 rating in the demo, not far off ABC's 3.4.

Despite the hype that Jay Leno would do better against repeats, he got 4.6m viewers and a 1.3 against CSI: Miami's 11.2m and 3.1. Not good.

Monday Overnights In Full

Wait and see where the displaced EastEnders ep goes when the schedules are confirmed.

Just a note, it seems like ITV Press Office is beginning to update earlier as we get into Christmas, for instance it updated properly yesterday instead of Wednesday. As thus, the update shows that The X Factor on 7th November will definitely be on from 20:00 to 21:35. Strictly is provisionally down at

Based on the past week, I *think* the updates for ITV will go something like:

Monday 26th October: w/e 13th November
Friday 30th October: w/e 20th November
Thursday 5th November: w/e 27th November
Wednesday 11th November: w/e 4th December
Tuesday 17th November: w/e 11th December
Monday 23rd November: w/e 18th December
Thursday 3th December: w/e 3rd January

BBC Press Office should hopefully confirm its schedules in a similar way.

I think that's how it'd go - it would help though if they actually told us the proper dates! Although yeah as we get nearer towards Xmas, the date it which it updates is brought forward.

So basically in just over a months time we'll know what the Xmas TV Schedules will be, and then we can all shut up.

Why are CBS full of repeats when it's autumn? Not that they're failing the channel as such but it does seem strange.

It's so they can have new episodes in December, it's just for this week and Thursday is November Sweeps so CSI and The Mentalist are likely to be new. But their lineup repeats very well and I wouldn't be surprised if NCIS gets like 15m or so for its repeat.

So it's like a 'rest' week for them?

How many members of the audience realised that this week was going to be repeats before they started watching I wonder.

They need to take breaks at some point (22 episodes won't last the season) and they like to start a series with a run of original episodes and have original episodes through November sweeps. So now is the ideal point.

Plus, the baseball has been messing with everything just now. World Series starts tomorrow and if it runs long (6 or 7 games), FOX could win the fall season.

I think US audiences are quite used to it as it does happen fairly often. It's one of the things about US TV which I really don't like.

Some of the other networks try and fill the gaps with special factual/reality series but CBS do so well out of sitcom and procedural repeats that they don't really bother.

FOX will score with the baseball which has been doing good so far and actually works in their favours as it means less repeats for their other shows although their midseason schedule is going to tight due to American Idol and 24 plus midseason dramas like Human Target and Past Life.

well its been the same for years so i think the people will know by now! like people habe said, they have around 45 weeks tos show 22 episodes! CBS are get the best ratings when they do this, and usually the whole night is repeats... sometmes other channels have 1 repeat and then something new, which IMO is a bit of a waste!

I've only taken close notice of the US ratings recently - I'll get used to the differences soon enough.

Thanks, everyone for the replies.

My advice: Don't get too attached to it...

I think it was the repeat run that killed it. If it had managed closer to 4m, it would have been worth ITV keeping, but less than 3m meant ITV were not getting much repeat value out of the show.


Ugly Betty not working for C4 on Mondays at all - I think that might be less than some of the E4 premiere showings have got.

Would have been better to put True Blood on the Monday - that would still get the 1.5m or so it gets on a Wednesday, and Ugly Betty wouldn't have lost half of it's C4 audience.


I wonder with nothing else in the slot of note if it might be worth C4 chancing Dispatches at 9pm. Wouldn't see ratings alight, but sure of getting 1m week in, week out, with bigger shows topping 2m. C4 could then probably get away with running repeats in the 8pm hour.


Seems odd for it to have been put on ITV4 - not a show I thought matched the target audience.