Also YBF was a repeat which makes things look even worse if it did outrate The Bill!

I don't think Chattyman is doing too badly, because it didn't start till 10.20 last night and was on till 11.30pm and that 9% share is pretty decent.

EastEnders doing very well. It was a fun episode last night for me anyway with the preperations of the wedding.

Excellent for EastEnders, becoming its 3rd most watched Tuesday episode since 2007. The share is brilliant as well, and I think Friday's 7:55pm episode should top 10m as it's got a Doctor Who lead in and it's a big episode. Emmerdale's been rating poorly over the past couple of weeks, and that 27% share is awful. I've been looking at last year's figures, and it's normal for Emmerdale to dip during the Christmas period but it never went as low as 27.2% last Christmas in a regular 7pm slot.

Solid evening for BBC1 with Holby and Triffids doing well. A 0.5m drop is fine for DOTT, as we've seen in the past year quite a lot of drama lose more viewers for their second episodes. I thought The Bill would've dropped below 3m, but even with figures like that I'm sure some sort of announcement regarding its future will be made soon.

Decent for Alan Carr in its late slot but not great. I notice the regular series of Heads or Tails finished yesterday with 460,000 (2.1%). That gives the 10 part series an average of 540,000 (2.6%) which is not too much higher than what Live From Studio Five was getting. Another Five flop to throw into the trash.

Tuesday 29th December Roundup
16:10- Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit: 3.3m (22%)
17:55- Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day: 4.3m (23%)
19:00- Celebrity Mastermind: 4.9m (22%)
19:30- EastEnders: 9.5m (41%)
20:00- Holby City: 5.9m (25%)
21:00- Day of the Triffids: 5.6m (24%)
22:50- Sting’s Winter Songbook: 1.3m (10%)

BBC Two
20:00- This Is Your Life: 2.3m (10%)
20:30- Terry and June: 2.1m (9%)
21:00- The Many Faces of June Whitfield: 2.4m (10%)
22:00- Absolutely Fabulous: 2.2m
22:55- QI: 1.6m

ITV1
15:30- Midsomer Murders: 2.1m (15%)
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.1m (27%)
19:30- Grimefighters: 2.3m (10%)
20:00- Funniest Ever You've Been Framed!: 3.9m (17%)
21:00- The Bill: 3.2m (14%)

Channel 4
20:00- River Cottage Heroes: 1.3m (6%) , +1: 116,000
21:00- Gordon Ramsay's F Word: 1.9m (8%) , +1: 187,000
22:20- Alan Carr: 1.3m (8%) , +1: 184,000

Five
18:35- Heads or Tails: 460,000 (2%)
20:00- Cowboy Builders: 900,000 (4%)
21:00- Celebrity Shock List: 700,000 (3%)

Sky Sports 1
07:30- Live Test Cricket: South Africa vs. England: 366,000 (5%)
* peak: 701,000 at 14:00

Source: MG

Not that I want to start the argument about primetime again, but the Beeb quotes 6-1030 here for its Christmas Day ratings press release: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pre.../figures.shtml


No excuse for Emmerdale's poor rating really seeing as Celebrity Mastermind's rating wasn't exactly stellar, and is on par with what The One Show was getting before its break.


Ouch. The Bill beaten by YBF?

Very good night for BBC One. EastEnders' usual Christmas boost seems to have been prolonged by some very big, popular storylines that keep viewers coming back. Holby City very strong too and I think they'll be fairly pleased with a relatively minimal drop-off for Triffids.

The Bill is tanking horribly on Tuesdays and badly needs its life support back on Tuesday. Don't think ITV are going to carry on supporting it indefinately, though.

Alan Carr is OK on Channel 4, but he hardly has mass appeal for them. Can't help but think they got drawn into a hyped up bidding war for him without really considering just how valuable he is in ratings terms.

Broadcast quotes Daytime as 0930-1800 and Peaktime as 1800-2230 in its ratings pages. Presumably that comes from BARB and if they're the official compiler of the viewing figures then that has to be the official definition of Daytime and Peak. ITV only quote 7pm to whenever to bent the statisitics in their favour. Which is what all organisations do; bent the facts in their own favour. It's called spin.



Has Emmerdale been affected by BBC2 which have been running family films (Just Like Heaven, Miss Potter) in an early evening slot these last couple of days? Maybe these have been doing better than the usual BBC2 7pm offerings of 2 day old repeats. Tonight between 6.30 and 8.00 it's the Springwatch Christmas Special.

Top Gear producer...


http://transmission.blogs.topgear.co...where-were-at/

Does anyone know how the Big Bang Theory Series 3 has rated so far on E4 ? It's been on 17/12 and 24/12 at 9pm.

TV Burp repeats and YBF repeats for the Tuesday 8pm slot in the New Year anyone?? Seems they would pull in a solid 3.5m+ and would probably be better placed here than in an early Sunday slot.

About a million pages ago, someone asked if 'stEnders had ever been on a Saturday before, other than Christmas Day. Sorry, I've been away for Christmas. Anyway, the answer is yes, during Euro 2000, both BBC1 and ITV showed England vs Germany live on Saturday night, and the Beeb scheduled 'stEnders before it to screw over ITV. Which they did.

Also, during the 1998 World Cup, they did special mini-episodes over the weekend over the Final set in Paris, with fifteen minutes on Friday (before it was always on Friday), ten minutes on Saturday (at 8.10, after the Lottery) and then ten minutes during the build-up to the Final on Sunday.

The worst thing on television this Christmas was Ant and Dec, I'm a big Ant and Dec fan and think Takeaway is a good show, but this was appalling. It had none of the good bits of Takeaway - the ad-libbing, the liveness, the funny films like Ant vs Dec - and all the crap bits, not least the relentness ITV cross-promotion. It was outrageous, we didn't go thirty seconds without a reference to Britain's Got Talent, I'm A Celebrity or The X Factor. And when people say they should bring back Noel's House Party, I don't think they just mean the unfunny comedy crosstalk at the door. When Ant and Dec are good, they're great, but when they're bad they're awful. This was the worst thing they've ever done.

Also awful - Colin and Justin (especially Colin) manouevering themselves into the back of virtually every shot during the finale, and gurning like idiots throughout.

Wouldn't be a bad idea at all, and they'd do just as well if not better than the factual junk that's aired there lately. ITV should try and make use of this slot instead of throwing filler there. A new family comedy would work there, perhaps teamed up with either YBF or even a US sitcom (something like Community could work). Holby City is not unbeatable and this is a slot where ITV need to make more effort.

You're absolutely right.

With drama often on Saturday (sci-fi family drama), Sunday (family/detective/period drama) and Monday (dark crime drama), having drama on Tuesday nights is overkill.

I've said it a thousand and one times before. ITV needs to put some of its best entertainment in a Tuesday/Thursday split, starting from 2011.

Dancing on Ice is an obvious candidate, because ITV have dramas that they can place on Saturday's and Sunday's which can still pull in good viewing figures, as well as sport now.

So, in the winter season, ITV will have strong nights across the board, all (apart from Monday) averaging over 20% at least. And, as you can see, each night has a nice variety between entertainment and drama. I've left factual out, which would take over on Thursday nights after the spring. There's no point wasting a good DOI lead-in. Factual series could be on Thursday's from March right through to September again.

Saturday
7:00pm Ant & Dec - 6m+
8:00pm Primeval - 5m+
9:00pm Afterlife - 4m+
10:00pm News at Ten - 2m+

Sunday
7:00pm Emmerdale - 6m+
7:30pm Coronation Street - 8m+
8:00pm Agatha Christie Season - 5m+
10:00pm News at Ten - 2m+

Monday
staying as it is

Tuesday
7:00pm Emmerdale - 7m+
7:30pm House Guest - 3m+
8:00pm Dancing on Ice - 7m+
9:00pm The Best of Royal Variety - 4m+
10:00pm News at Ten - 2m+

Wednesday
7:00pm Emmerdale - 6m+
7:30pm FA Cup Live - 4m+
10:00pm News at Ten - 2m+

Thursday
7:00pm Emmerdale - 7m+
7:30pm The Krypton Factor - 4m+
8:00pm The Bill - 5m+
8:30pm Dancing on Ice: The Skate-Off - 6m+
9:00pm Married, Single, Other (s2) - 4m+
10:00pm News at Ten - 2m+

Friday
7:00pm Emmerdale - 6m+
7:30pm Coronation Street - 9m+
8:00pm You've Been Framed - 4m+
8:30pm Harry Hill's TV Burp - 6m+
9:00pm Stars in their Eyes - 5m+
10:00pm News at Ten - 3m+

Series Two? Better hope the first series doesn't flop first...

I think that it will be fine if it's given the DOI lead-in, although I think it might've done better with the X Factor lead-in, and vice versa with Downton Abbey, which is airing in the autumn.

It'll be another case of X Factor wasting its massive audience, really. It should be propping up brand new family/young demo shows. The reason ITV failed with the previous younger-skewed dramas in 2007, alongside the fact that they were sh1t, was that they were alongside older skewing shows, and on a channel which younger viewers didn't associate with.

It hasn't got a DOI lead-in. That's already been confirmed based on the January 10th schedule:

18:00 - ITV News and Weather
18:15 - Harry Hill's The Best of TV Burp
18:45 - Dancing on Ice
20:30 - Wild at Heart
21:30 - Dancing on Ice: The Skate Off
22:00 - ITV News and Weather

That will be Sunday's full until probably March 21st. Although given that there is 14 couples, and 1 go every week, if there is a 3 couple final, there is a chance that DOI may be stretched out until March 28th.

I think he is talking about his fantasy schedule.

No, I genuinely thought that's how ITV were going to do it this year; I hadn't read the TV guide or anything.

Well, it just shows how stupid ITV are. They'll probably let it flop on a Friday night at 9pm.

Why, oh why, did ITV not do this:-

6:00pm Dancing on Ice
7:30pm Wild at Heart
8:30pm Dancing on Ice: The Skate-Off
9:00pm Piers Morgan's Life Stories / Married, Single, Other OR Downton Abbey
10:00pm News at Ten
10:15pm Headcases

A good way of getting some really good Sunday night shares for 12 weeks and burning off a failure sketch show series.

And this schedule would also lead to Wild at Heart getting some better ratings, as it doesn't do too well at 8:30-9:30, not as family friendly as 7:30-8:30.

Then, in March through the Summer, ITV could've just had the soaps plus detective/period drama.

That wouldn't work as the 9pm drama/show would go directly against BBC One's offering. The way it is now means that ITV avoid the 9pm junction by having Wild at Heart on from 8:30 to 9:30.

And ratings for that show have always been ~8/9m, one of the few drama shows on the network that seem in 'safe hands'.

And just as we'd got back on topic too. Really it's all irrelevant nowadays and depends on the channel and the day. Arguably the BBC and ITV share the same view of primetime on weekdays (7-10pm - the BBC just include the news as it does them no harm!), probably 8-11pm for C4/Five and 6-10.30pm for BBC2.

Traditionally family viewing kicked off earlier on a Saturday, but it does seem to be getting pushed back by ITV at least now to around 7pm, with little more than filler on beforehand. Similarly for both BBC1 and ITV1 at the weekends they're switching to a night-time schedule earlier than in the past, rather than consistently playing out primetime programming to 11pm.




Almost as repetitive as the arguments about "prime-time" - nobody else seems to think Tuesday/Thursday is a good split for Dancing on Ice (even you predict a loss of a couple of million viewers), whilst the rest of your schedule is just full of things already axed by ITV for a good reason.

Your Saturday night schedule especially is particularly dull - and how you can say ITV have plenty of drama to fill the weekends with when they struggle to get more than one drama a week into the weekday schedule I don't know.

What are you even talking about? I never said anyone agreed with me, it's purely my opinion .

1. Dancing on Ice has never been tried before in the Tuesday/Thursday slot, so how can you even judge? Weekday entertainment works in America, so that's yet more evidence it has a chance of working here.

And what would you suggest for Tuesday and Thursday? Come on, I want to see if you could provide a better option...but you can't...you just criticise mine. I'd accept criticism if you posted an alternative.

2. Full of things already axed . What?! Stars in their Eyes and Afterlife. That's all. House Guest is coming back for a new daytime series, I think, and The Krypton Factor is back too. Agatha Christie dramas are still on, they do very well internationally as well, Headcases still has one more series to air, Monday Night Thrillers are still going, The Bill is still going.

What's your point? Hardly any have been axed

And about the axed programmes, what's wrong with the Saturday schedule? It's far better than what they usually offer in Winter.

Primeval is brilliant; Afterlife was amazing and should never have been axed.

Stars in their Eyes, without the celebrities, was very entertaining. But then again, it might not appeal to the TV snobs out there.

3. ITV have a very big drama slate. Monday Night Thrillers are constantly in operation, Sunday night detective/period series are still going strong and ITV have the scope to commission young/family/sci-fi dramas at the weekend.

And I suppose you've forgotten about The Bill

Drama is bound to perform better in the winter, hence in my fantasy schedule, I've included:

- Thrillers (Mon)
- The Bill (Thu)
- Married Single, Other (Thu)
- Primeval (Sat)
- Afterlife (Sat)
- Marple/Poirot/Murder on the Orient Express (Sun)

I wouldn't say that's too much drama, as there's no drama at all on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

I'd say the entertainment slate was pretty good too, focussing on the reliable hits:-

- DOI (Tue)
- The Krypton Factor (Thu)
- DOI: Skate-Off (Thu)
- Stars in their Eyes (Fri)
- Ant & Dec (Sat)

And no factual programming until Spring

What are BBC1 offering?

"It's going to piss a lot of people off." High praise indeed; that should be the tagline!

IACGMOOH is shown nightly and has its lowest figures on Tuesdays & Thursdays so why would anyone want to lauch reality shows on those nights

There is a difference between Primetime and Peak.