They should expand on "The Great British Song Contest" format from the nineties - but rather than eight contestants in the TOTP studio have 12-16 contestants in a two-hour event, each with their own original song.

That's exactly how it should be. They need to make it a proper contest and not some silly little reality show in a studio. It should be a proper one-off event on an annual basis that people should look forward to as something special and different, a bit like eurovision itself.

Hilariously bad ratings all round last night. A sub-3m performance winning the 9pm hour. Utterly dire.

The One Show about the only thing that performed well across BBC One and ITV1. The soaps have fallen pretty dramatically in the past few weeks and theres some poor shares there for them. I always find it amazing how closely their fates seem to be tied together.

****ing hell, what did the Multi-channels get?

But then again, Esure did awful!

fans of shows with "Master" in the title were well served last night, Mastermind, Masterchef & Mastercrafts.

Masterchef is not doing at all well on BBC One.

I'd say quite the opposite, after a shakey start its holding up well in what are tricky slots for BBC One...

Its Thursday performance is second only to Watchdog in the slot and its Friday performance is just a fraction of what A Question Of Sport gets. Granted the Wednesday slot is marginally below what it can acheive, but overall its doing a good job for BBC One - a solid (if not spectacular) first few weeks in its new home.

Lets Dance..has been very watchable, Robert Webbs brilliant performance on the very first show last time has given the format a fabulous springboard and I think its largely down to him that its been a ratings success then and now.

Tonights show was excellent and had a deserved winner. A definite to return for Comic Relief I would have thought.

What's happening with the final half hour of next weeks Masterchef which is displaced by Sport Relief?

Yeah, I agree.Its doing very well on thursday and its wednesday episode is getting about the same as Waterloo road was getting in that slot this time last year.

The question is whether BBC1+BBC2 are getting more viewers with Masterchef on BBC1 as opposed to it on BBC2 as in the past.

There's nothing extra that I can see on the following week's schedule...

It's on the following Monday (22nd) at 8.30pm.

Hard to compare, last year MC started in January this year it didnt start till the end of february.

Last year it aired over 4 nights [mon-thurs], this year its over 3[wednesday-fri]


This year 3/5 of its episodes are against emmerdale/ corrie,last year only 1/5 episodes were against the soaps[monday]

Anyway last wednesday compared to last year.[MC was over by then]

Wednesday March 11th 2009
Waterloo road[3.95] + Orangutan Diary [1.95m] = 5.9m


Wednesday March 2010
Masterchef [3.84m] + Lambing Live took [2.43m] =6.27m


last year thursday + friday was comic relief on BBC ONE

OK, I thought that Coronation Street would hit Eurovision slightly, but I believed ot'd get at least 5m. That's an atrocious rating. Mind you, you air rubbish, you get rubbish and that's what happened to the terrestrial channels last night. Dancing On Ice: Friday appears to be building slightly, though, and Masterchef did well.

Rebbecca Front on twitter about Lewis says.





Truely woeful ratings last night btw.

Friday has some atrocious ratings - hopefully they'll pick up on Monday

The reign of the old-guard is coming to an end. BBC1/2 ITV1 are now seen as no more important than any other channel. (except the soaps and uber-hyped stuff like Ant & Decs junk and Dr Who - The Teen years)

Trouble is at the same time as the reign of the old guard is the end of consistently great quality on British TV. The amount of trash which is being comissioned - mainly due to financial issues - is sad to see considering how British TV was just a decade ago.

.............in your opinion. In my opinion, 90% of multichannel output serves only to, bit by bit, dumb down the commercial terrestrials to a point where they will be just a shadow of what they were in the pre and early satellite era-if they are not there now.

I have to say that, as I've been saying since last year, FTA Drama and Sport needs lower ratings (like we had on Friday) to survive.

Friday's ratings need to become the norm, with 10m being exceptionally outstanding and 20m being Superbowl standard.

With lower ratings across board then Higher Quality Drama could become more affordable as advertisers spend still spend the same money but on lower ratings.

In my ideal world, drama should thrive at 2.5m/3.5m, the soaps should be good with 4m/5m and the X Factor content with 7m/8m and 11m/12m for the Final.

[The whole process could even lower costs of producing drama in the UK.]

Ideally, BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and FIVE should all be able to achieve these figures and more be able to produce productions (and receive better ad money) with the spread of the audience over the top 5 channels.

They won't though. As ratings dip, the money that is spent on television advertising will also dip as advertisers look at other ways of promoting their products - online being the main outlet.

Mind you, it may raise prices for the big shows meaning that it balances itself out in the end.

Daytime tv should be rubbish anyway it might actually get some of the lazy Bas*ards thats not had a job for years off their ass and looking for one.If i have a day off i can safely say i don't watch TV.

Anyway I think ITV having this morning on Weekends is lazy and why can't they stick on a film or some kids shows(classics and new) rather then the some rubbish 7 days a week.

BBC need to drop the reapts of Murder she wrote and Cash in the attic ect but they seem to be watched
and i think the BBC do try i mean they have Doctors and dramas like Missing.

Id have something like this Weekdays

BBC1

6:00am-Breakfast
9:00am-Homes Under the Hammer
10:00am Murder she wrote
10:45pm New Daytime Entertainment show
11:30pm Film
1:00pm News at one
1:45pm Doctors
2:15pm New Drama(Missing ect)
2:45pm Classic comedy/Classic soap/Classic drama
3:15pm News update
3:20pm Kids shows
5:05pm Newsround
5:15pm Weakest Link

ITV1

6:00am GMTV
9:30am Chat show
10:30am This morning
12:30pm Loose Women
1:30pm News
2pm Film
3:30pm New Drama
4:00pm Kids Hour
5:00pm Entertainment show(paul o grady ect)

Connor Williams, dan2008 both of your posts are quite unbelievable.

How do we get ratings from pre-1998?, as barb only gives us up until July 98.

I dont see it that way. A few low ratings on the terrestrials dont mean they have lost their dominance. You have loads of dramas and regular shows such Ashes To Ashes, The One Show, Masterchef, TV Burp etc that can get 6 million easily then you have Sky1, BBC3, ITV2, E4 that often get less than 500,000 for their 9m offerings. There is still a huge gap between Terrestrial and Multichannel.


Lower ratings would just mean lower advertising fees and mean more repeats and less drama made. If drama is of such high quality it should get high ratings if scheduled correctly. There are some dramas that will never rate well despite being high quality but that is of life, there is will always be niches that cant be satisfied. There has been very good dramas such as Occupation and A Short Stay In Switzerland that rated okish anyway.


Neither BBC or ITV are going to make drastic changes to their schedules anytime soon. BBC1 dominate daytime apart when CBBC is on so why would they change a winning formula? ITV1 do well enough in the demographics such as Loose Women pulling in a lot of students so they aren't going to change their line-up either. In your ITV schedule you have took out Jeremy Kyle which is probably one of their best performing shows in that slot for a long time. Also. if all people that watch daytime TV are just jobless scroungers then surely it would be better to just put crap on anyway.


Agree in some regards.