Nice to see Glee doing well. It's getting repeated at 5.30pm on Sunday nights on C4 so it'll be interesting to see how that figure compares. I would predict it'll continue to do relatively well (though below 1m) on E4, but probably struggle on C4 and ultimately move to an earlier slot during T4.

Thank you for that. Very good rating taking everything into account. I didn't even realise it was back on until about 20 minutes beforehand, sending my viewing plans into chaos!

I seem to remember Paul Merton getting 1.5m each week for the India series so he seems to have kept the same audience regardless of the competition.

DS take out the final five minutes of Corrie's ratings so aren't taking into account the whole slot average like they do for EastEnders. In the interests of fairness that is why the DS soap overnights are largely ignored in these parts and only used when there's no other more reliable source.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.36m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.27m
19:00 How I Met Your Mother (R) 0.98m
19:30 Border Patrol (R) 1.03m
20:00 Destroyed In Seconds 1.00m
20:35 Movie: Derailed 0.59m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.17m
18:30 A Current Affair 1.11m
19:00 Funniest Home Videos & Two and a Half Men 0.77m
20:00 The Middle including Lotto draw 0.69m
20:30 The Mentalist (R) 1.01m

Ten
18:00 The Simpsons (R) 0.54m
18:30 Neighbours 0.56m
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.62m
20:00 All New Simpsons 0.61m
20:30 Movie: Double Jeopardy 0.67m
*12th January 2009 audience: 0.93m

SBS
19:30 Top Gear 0.72m

7TWO
19:30 Heartbeat 0.22m

---

Really poor for Neighbours. That was the series return by the way after the Christmas break.

The Mentalist continues to perform better in repeat form than it does on first run. Nine will be very pleased with those numbers.

Next week the Australian Open kicks off so Seven's numbers should experience a significant boost.

Is there any chance of the averages for the soaps so far this year? I'm wondering if Eastenders will come out on top?

I don't know how long Ten can keep going with Neighbours really - it's been the best part of a decade where the UK audience has kept it going.

Isnt it summer holiday/ extended Christmas NY break in Oz at the moment? I'm not sure that those ratings are representative?

Full Swing!
http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Full_Swing

It was actually a series, even though it was, as you say, clearly Big Break with 'snooker' scribbled out and 'golf' scribbled in. Only got one series, though, but I remember every episode ended with a plea for contestants for the next series.


Yeah, but it was never any good, and it used to be on all the time. It also carried on for ages, they recorded about ten thousand episodes in 1997 and flung them out for the next few years, you'd still get episodes turning up in 2000 with a 1997 copyright date and the old BBC logo at the end. It was probably the last of the Beeb's pile-em-high quizzes where you'd record a million a day and fling them in every available slot.

The first episode got 16.5 million viewers, on a Tuesday night in April, which is remarkable.


There was actually a game in the first show, lots of people in tracksuits taking part in undignified games to win the honour of starting the draw. I remember they were all split into teams to represent the good causes, so you had the Millennium team and the Charity team and so forth.

The second show was a complete disaster, Anthea said it was her worst moment in TV, because it was presented in the pouring rain in the Rhondda Valley (you'll remember for the first six months it came from a different location every week) and the autocue broke and all the VTs failed and the audience kept getting into shot, I remember Anthea trying to interview someone from the audience and she just went "Hello mum!" over and over again.


Well, Bob was great, but Gagtag wasn't. There were two series of that, one with Jonathan Ross presenting with Bob and Frank Skinner as team captains, with the idea being that Bob would be joined by a new comedian and Frank a veteran. Then there was a long, long gap and two years later there was a second series with Bob presenting and Eddie Large and Phill Jupitus as captains, which flopped big time, I think it got about two million. The only thing I remember about the first series was that there was a documentary about Les Dawson a few months later and a lot of the talking heads filmed their interviews on the Gagtag set. Now that's trivia.

But Joker In The Pack was a series where Marti Caine invited The Great British Public to tell jokes, so she'd go out onto the streets and ask people to tell gags, and at the end there was a studio game where teams of workmates had to tell jokes and there'd be an audience vote. I think. It was an American format.

It was also shown about two weeks ITV had launched a virtually identical show called Only Joking, which was the first show hosted by Bradley Walsh, which was on Saturday teatimes, but did so badly the regions flung the second half of the series out whenever they could be bothered, and Granada showed it at 11.30 on Saturday mornings, before The Chart Show.

Really great start for Glee. I am pleased.

Hustle and Law and Order: UK did very well last night especially Hustle which had a small decline but nothing serious. BBC Two did very well with Delia and The British Family and Paul Merton in Europe did good for Five despite the heavy competition, I imagine if it holds up or increases there will be another series but it wouldn't surprise if they another series is in the planning.

Glee did very well, I expect it will drop below 1m but if it does between 0.6m+ it's a success for E4.

I notice Police Interceptors is doing much better business than Fifth Gear and it's a repeat and new episodes would be comfortably over a 1m so it was a wise decision by Five to axe Fifth Gear.

Good start. Notice they showed the "directors cut" version of the pilot too.

A shame though 4oD are waiting until after the C4 airings on Sundays to put the episodes up online - especially as my recording cut out before the end (though I'm assuming I only missed the end of Rachel's solo.


True but if figures were expected to drop so low surey Ten would have held it's return back a couple more weeks.

Yeah I noticed it was the Director's Cut - glad I got to see it in its entirety.

And yes, you didn't miss anything else.

Good figures all round last night - it goes to prove that two dramas can co-exist in the 9pm slot on BBC One and ITV and still pull in good numbers. I expect both Hustle and Law and Order: UK to put on a decent number in the officials too. Fanstastic numbers for The One Show and Inside Out too.

Panorama is still an albatross around the neck of BBC One though. Last week's REPEAT of DIY SOS pulled in about 4.5m, and ITV1's 'soap alternative' The Lakes last night pulled in 4.4m. It's something that is going to have to be seriously considered I think, although anyone who even dares to tweak with the format/slot will be deluged with accusations of dumbing down. I think the main problem is that many people still link Panorama to boring documentaries they were made to watch by their parents in their youth, and so just steer clear. I agree with the need for prime-time current affairs, but I think Panorama has reached the end of it's life-span and a new brand is needed.

More strong ratings last night. Very good for both 9pm dramas-L&O pretty much in line with what it was getting last year which is good.

I must say with the last 5 minutes of Corrie taken off 11.3m is a pretty impressive rating considering not that much is happening in Corrie at the minute-even more impressive when you consider the highest rated episode of last year was 11.46m. Also didn't expect EE to increase from last Monday. Emmerdale still well above 8m despite The One Show's return. Looks set to be another good week for the big 3 and I reckon Emmerdale will match that 9m from last Thursday or even top it.

Fantastic for Glee-much better than I expected. I really didn't anticipate how big this was going to be. A lot of people were talking about it today and I've just seen their version of Don't Stop Believin' has already made it to number 6 on iTunes!! And there's plenty of other Glee tunes in the top 100!

Decent night for FIVE. 1.5m is good for 9pm on FIVE, but Paul Merton must be quite an expensive programme surely and it needs to build on that, rather than decrease. Also just noticed the ratings for FIVE's soap hour. Neighbours getting a boost of around 0.3m from the return of H&A, which getting 1.3m must be one of its highest ratings in a long time. Also when H&A was on its own in December without Neighbours it was constantly below 1m, so it just shows both soaps need each other.

im torn tonight I plan to watch both CSI & Survivors, I guess Survivors will win but I want CSI to get good figures as well.

ITV Piers Morgan On... does not seem like much competition

I won't be surprised if Channel 4 beats ITV in the 9pm hour.

A bit surprised though really E4 didn't hold Glee back another couple of weeks as it doesn't return in the US until April 13th, meaning they will have to take a break for 2 weeks after the first 13 episodes.

Any news on when Desperate Housewives is back - C4 been very quiet on that this year, but E4 seems to be keeping Sundays free (even though it rated better in the first look 11pm slot) so I'm guessing it'll be soon after the end of CBB. Also notice C4 will be airing The Good Wife - I thought that was destined for More4.

yes you might be right

I was surprised that Hustle won the 9pm slot last night - I thought L&O averaged 6m+ overnights last year. Can anyone post the actual figures please.

The Good Wife was destined for More4 but I think the critical acclaim it has been getting prompted Channel 4 to give it a berth on the main channel, it'll still get an airing on More4, probably after Brothers and Sisters.

Wednesday 27th January.

Hope EE can keep over 10m and Emmerdale over 8m. By the way do we think Hollyoaks's days of over 2m are over

maybe E4 will have a couple of 1 week breaks for hollyoaks later or something??

I cant see the good wife doing well on C4! Though i think its a good idea to premier every new show on C4, and then move it to more 4/ E4 the week after!

ABC:
8pm – The Bachelor – 10.5m (3.7)
* Improves 9% from last broadcast
10pm – Castle – 9.5m (2.6)
* Up 24% from last original episode
* Seems to do better with The Bachelor lead-in than with DWTS

CBS:
8pm – How I Met Your Mother – 9.8m (3.9)
* 100th episode
* Season high
8.30pm – Accidentally On Purpose – 8.5m (3.2)
* Decent, but still the weak link in the schedule
9pm – Two and a Half Men – 17.3m (5.4)
* Highest audience since December 2008
* Best 18-49 ratings for almost a year
9.30pm – The Big Bang Theory – 15.8m (5.7)
* All time high audience and 18-49 ratings
* #1 rated show of the night (adults 18-49)
10pm – CSI: Miami – 13.7m (3.7)
* Easily won the hour in viewers and adults 18-49

FOX:
8pm – House – 12.2m (4.6)
* #1 for the slot in viewers & adults 18-49
9pm – Fringe – 7.8m (2.8)
* Special episode
* Significantly higher than what it gets on Thursdays
* Held 61% of its lead-in, about the same as Lie To Me usually does

NBC:
8pm – Chuck – 7.3m (2.6)
* Slips 15% from Sunday premiere
* Best performance in regular slot for a year
* Performed very well relative to NBC slot average
9pm – Heroes – 4.7m (2.1)
* All time low
* Declined on its lead-in
10pm – The Jay Leno Show – 4.8m (1.6)
* Highest Monday ratings for 13 weeks

Tvbythenumbers
________________________________
American Idol returns tonight amid more hype than ever. Paula is gone, there are guest judges, Ellen just started and it's Cowell's last season who has expressed his hope that the ratings rise this year. Seems like its best chance to turn things around. Last year it kicked off with 30m and an 11.8 rating, down 10% from 2008.

ABC are making another spin-off of The Bachelor. Bring back the stars of the franchise over the years to live in a Big Brother style environment, it has the working title "Bachelor Pad" and is expected to premiere late summer shortly after The Bachelorette concludes.