I counted it up slightly wrong - ITV has 8 peaktime group matches, while BBC has 7. So ITV does have the better pick of the group matches. But from then on, the BBC's easily got the best picks.

550,000 - Top Gear on 20th December, 2009.

...of course I'm presuming nothing on Sky Sports HD or 'invisible' ITV HD has broken that.

Thank you for posting the list DMN.

It will certainly be interesting to see how the BBC schedule their 2 weeks of Wimbledon coverage and the F1 races through the World Cup period. I presume World Cup games will take precedence on the BBC HD channel over Wimbledon and F1.

As Wimbledon starts on Monday 21st June this year, all of the first day coverage will have to go on BBC2.
Not sure what they will do on day 3 and day 5 of Wimbledon when the BBC seem to have booked themselves for 2 concurrent world cup matches both starting at 15:00. BBC3 won't be available at that time so red button service maybe? Although I can't imagine they would relegate any Andy Murray games to the red button. Hopefully they will keep him off court on those days.

If only F1 was in HD....

The problem is that ITV are negotiating from a position of weakness because if talks broke down and both channels ended up showing all England games, ITV get hammered and miss out on bumper England ratings.

Then again the BBC are reliant on ITV's cash to keep the deal going - if ITV withdrew from the deal, then the BBC could not keep it going on their own.

As others have said, ITV have got a raw deal out of that, but no surprise there.

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Dancing on Ice did well relatively speaking. I'm not that surprised that the Stephen Gately tribute did better than Wild at Heart, and in turn it supported the Skate Off.

Stupid scheduling from BBC1 and BBC2 hit the former hard at 9pm, but BBC1 had a good evening before them.

Lol you must have a treasure trove for this thread-though that proves the 17 million plus is an error in Televisions Greatest Hits. 14.3 million is an immense audience though for Sunday afternoon which I am assuming it was.
They should have done another edition imo.

Well that's the BBC abusing it's position - although in signing the deal to share the rights in the first place you'd think ITV (and the BBC actually) would put it in the contract that they could only screen half the matches each.

I didnt know it wasnt-we are getting the SKY HD box this Saturday so thats one thing we wont we be seeing in full glory.Looking forward to BBC HD in general though.


BTW, as an aside given that there are other threads-RIP Harry Carpenter -one of the greats.

I have lots of old ratings buried away in the attic. I will have to brave the spiders and cobwebs one day, and fish them out.

None in Primetime however.

Here is an old section of the ratings thread, with an old BARB report discovered in GeorgeS's house, and on the next couple of pages, some ratings from my 1989 scrapbook.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...37319&page=209

Blimey, Phillip Schofield's been on TV for over 20 years?

They will probably arrange with The All England Club that Murray is in the part of the draw that plays their matches Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday

Not very good for Dancing On Ice. Its suffered, like SCD last year, from poor scheduling and little known contestants. Anyone know what SCD's series average was last year?


They are always worth a read for one reason or another. He has some radical ideas that often are a bit too radical but I wont knock him for his creativity, something that schedulers across the land dont seem to have.


7:15pm kick-off would be very strange and I cant see them doing it as the match would be over by about 9:05pm then post-match until 9:30pm, leaving a free 30 minute slot before the news. I reckon 7:15pm on the ticket is just to get people in the stadium on time and it will probably be a 7:30pm or 7:45pm kick-off with a long half time.


Im sure ITV are satisfied with the deal. They get two guaranteed, primetime matches that they can sell advertising slots well in advance. The BBC are relying on a bit of luck to get the best out of the deal for them. Also ITV get plenty of value after the group stages, they will get some very good knockout ties, just not the England ones.


I reckon both broadcasters could somehow broadcast the competition by themselves. Either could buy the rights for the whole games then sell of some games that werent do good to other broadcasters. And, I dont see how ITV have got a raw deal both them and the BBC seem to have done alrite.

Well the ticket actually says to get there for 5:00pm, so I'm not too sure.

IIRC Schofield started out in New Zealand where I think he lived for a while. He was great doing the live intro's on CBBC in the 1980's. I think he got the job by bombarding the BBC with hundreds of applications so persistence works (talent helps too!)

ITV have two less matches than the BBC and the BBC will thrash ITV in the semi final (if England reach it) and the final.

Saying that - I wonder how much leeway ITV asked for in regards to the soaps? The BBC have the evening matches on both Thursday's which may offset the movement needed on a Monday and two Friday's. Still, I think ITV should've tried to bargain harder than they seemingly did to come up with that kind of deal.

Just looking at some of the multi-channel official ratings. If you include +1, Glee had over 2m viewers.

Glee - 2,149,000
Skins - 1,052,000
The Cleveland Show - 993,000
Desperate Housewives - 956,000
Shameless - 871,000 (not inc. +1)

ITV2 also has some big ratings, the following include +1 unless otherwise stated.

What Katie Did Next - 1,684,000
Vampire Diaries - 905,000
Hells Kitchen USA - 728,000
Secret Diary of a Call Girl - 726,000 (not inc. +1)
Ant & Dec's Push The Button - 664,000

That Ant & Dec rating (for a repeat at 5.30pm on Sunday) was quite surprising. Though perhaps not as surprising as Jeremy Kyle at 2.30pm on Monday (3.30pm on +1) which combined had 685,000.

On BBC3, what I assume were 2 repeats of Gavin & Stacey on Monday had an average of around 670,000 in the 9pm hour. Some others:

Eddie Izzard: Marathon Man - 886,000
Undercover Princesses - 751,000
Heroes - 741,000

Comedy Central's top 10 is dominated by Two and a Half Men. Their aggressive promotion has really paid off and with Friends set to join the channel in 2011, it will have something else. Indeed, with Friends at 8pm and TAAHM at 9pm, that's a solid schedule. New episodes of Two and a Half Men on Monday at 9pm & 9.30pm had combined totals of:

Two and a Half Men - 503,000
Two and a Half Men - 432,000

Elsewhere, FX are enjoying some significant success on Friday nights with their line-up of NCIS at 9pm and True Blood at 10pm. Including FX+, the ratings were:

NCIS - 666,000
True Blood - 649,000

Living TV seems to be focussing on the 9pm hour from Mondays to Saturdays with strong results from some of its imports which are outperforming its home grown programming.

America's Next Top Model - 459,000
Psychic Sally: On The Road - 274,000
Supernatural - 570,000
Grey's Anatomy - 503,000
Criminal Minds - 649,000
Most Haunted: The Live Series - 340,000

A marathon of Come Dine With Me on More4 on Sunday evening had some great ratings and decent numbers for the much promoted Brothers & Sisters and Crufts 2010.

Come Dine With Me - 1,130,000
Come Dine With Me - 1,032,000
Come Dine With Me - 919,000
Come Dine With Me - 717,000
Crufts 2010 - 661,000
Brothers and Sisters - 416,000

Sky1 also did well but should maybe be concerned that its top 2 shows are set to end in May.

Lost - 1,232,000
24 - 1,014,000
A League of Their Own - 816,000
Bones - 801,000
Simpsons - 693,000
House - 673,000
Fringe - 605,000

It's overnight was only ~0.5m wasn't it? Pretty impressive timeshift.

DS are just starting to update: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...ow-of-18m.html

Amazes me how The Mentalist gets top headline when I think there are two more worthy headlines to be had...

DS normally lead with US imports. It's what the readers are most interested in a lot of the time.

Quoting a week old post, but I've just watched the last 3 episodes of MSO on demand and changed my mind about it. It's a quality drama. Such a shame that the first episode was the weakest one as it's improved a lot and has real potential. Just shows that you need to make a good impact right from the first minute. (Also it's wrongly labelled as a 'comedy' drama because it's not really!)

The 16-34 figures have been: 1.1m, 0.9m, 0.9m, 0.8m. In raw numbers, that's right at the top end of what ITV dramas get. Of course, they might not be good enough as the total numbers are low. But I do hope it gets a recommission as I think it's a show which could build an audience series to series.

DS has just posted Saturday's article. It was a tie in primetime with 21.0% each.

I agree, tonight's episode was very good. It's a shame episode 1 was so average, and that along with Five Days have possibly ruined the chances of what has actually turned out to be a good drama series, and ITV's best 9pm non-crime effort for a long time. I agree that it isn't a comedy drama, as whilst it does have the odd funny moment, it's a straight drama, and should have been billed as such.

The 16-34 numbers do look very good, and the overall numbers, whilst low, aren't in 'flop' territory, and I think ITV would have given it another chance a couple of years ago, but they've become a lot stricter with drama in the last year or two. I agree that it could build an audience series to series and I just hope ITV give it another shot. Do you know how it's been doing in the ABC1 demo as that's also very lucrative for ITV, and if it's doing well there too, then they may think it's worthy of a second chance.