The episode of Lost was reported as 595,000 by DS so that's more than doubled its overnight.

Also, for the week ending 7th March, True Blood had 206,000 (not inc. +1) for the overnights but BARB reported an official of 467,000 (not inc. +1).

Again, looking at just FX alone, they are incredibly reliant on their Friday line-up. NCIS is #2 with 548,000 but after it, their #3 show is an NCIS repeat which is way back on 165,000.

It's by no means perfect but it's leagues ahead of a lot of non-crime drama ITV has churned out in the last few years. I guess it might be encouraging that since the intial drop-off it's remained static at 3.92-3.96m, and hasn't continued to shed substantial no. of viewers like a lot of unsuccessful dramas.

I know the first episode had 2.8m ABC1s but I'm not sure what it's been since then - I'll try to find out. The benchmark for an almost-certain recommission for an ITV drama seems to be 2.3m ABC1 or 0.9-1.0m 16-34 (usually it's the ABC1s which decides it for a drama). Based on the opening night numbers, I think it might be falling short of the ABC1 target but it's right on the fringes of 16-34s.

If they're going to axe MSO, I think it's quite likely whatever new non-crime drama they try out won't be as good. So I hope they recommission it, sort out a few problems here and there, market it better, and see where that leads to...

I think the new BARB system has seen official ratings higher than last year, Lost is the sort of show that has a young audience and who are likely to record it especially on Fridays and the same is true for True Blood and to an extent The Mentalist which surprisenly has a higher timeshift compared to other shows on Five.

Why is it that when SCD had a little slip in its ratings last series, it generated about 50 posts a week from the ITVistas celebrating its supposed demise, the end of Bruce Forsyth, and BBC1 dying as a mainstream TV channel producing popular programmes for the majority.

Yet when Tanking on Ice majorly tanks, we hear not a dickie bird.

How strange...


The key is when England's R2 and quarters matches will air - it's no great coup if they air at 5pm on a Tuesday because ITV1 will get the two biggest audiences of the competition with the 2 primetime group matches.

A bit underwhelming looking at that group stage line-up - some good games in the afternoons, bugger, including England's crucial final group game.


As I understand it, from what I've read in the press, it is exactly 50-50, and the contract prohibits them both airing the whole lot - they have to divvy them all up and if they cannot agree, then there's a mechanism for resolving it.


They seem to have done pretty well as I see it!



I'm slightly worried that DMN didn't know Pip Schofield started off presenting CBBC in the mid-late 80s!

Maybe I'm just showing my age and forgetting that people on this thread may not even have been born when Schofield waved goodbye to the Broom Cupboard.

This is the reason the 10 year old Robbie used to dash home from school...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbbBq...eature=related

He's lost his way a bit though since he moved into "grandma TV".

Those ratings for JC Newsround and Blue Peter are like from another reality 6.9 and 7.5 million-looking down on Ant and Dec in primetime these days.
And ITN at 5.45 -10.5 million -I be tempted to say thats more than News at Ten gets in a week. Astonishing.

And they'd still get crushed by 11m watching Blockbusters - at 5.15pm on a weekday.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.39m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.35m
19:00 Home and Away 1.05m
19:30 My Kitchen Rules 1.53m
21:00 Desperate Housewives 1.09m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.23m
18:30 A Current Affair 1.25m
19:00 Two and a Half Men (R) 1.16m
19:30 Two and a Half Men 1.31m
20:00 The Big Bang Theory 1.09m
20:30 The Mentalist 1.17m

Ten
18:00 The Simpsons (R) 0.59m
18:30 Neighbours 0.61m
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.75m
19:30 The Biggest Loser: Couples 0.77m
20:30 Melbourne International Comedy Festival 0.81m
*Melbourne rating: 0.35m

The final of MKR rated well. Nothing spectacular by any means but seemed to bring down Nine's usually reliable lineup a bit.

Another mediocre night for Ten but then most of them are.

I was going to reply to you the next time you couldn't be bothered to call Dancing on Ice by it's proper title.

I think the reason why Strictly got a lot of criticism in the autumn was a combination of the BBC moving it to clash with The X Factor plus Bruce Forsyth crying that if Strictly was on at the same time then it'd do better than X Factor in the ratings.

I think it was karma that led to the response on this thread. There was a lot of boasting from BBC people, but didn't get the return they expected.

Yeah, I think the best thing for them to do is give it another go, with better marketing and avoiding the latest stripped drama on BBC1. Looking at that, the ABC1 numbers probably aren't too great, but last week's 0.8m in 16-34s puts it up there level with top dramas such as Collision and Ashes To Ashes, so it's doing very well there. I don't think they'll find anything much better than it, and I think if they can sort out some of the problems with MSO (something they've already been doing) then a second series could pay off for them.

Because Strictly has an air of Event TV about it, locked in an epic Saturday night battle with the X Factor!!! When Strictly loses viewers that's news! (appartantly).

Whereas Dancing On Ice is just a "nice little programme" that happens to get quite a lot of viewers. Like Antiques Roadshow. When DOI loses viewers, nobody notices.

Incidentally today's Sun claims that the BBC are planning to run Strictly head-to-head with the X Factor again this autumn. Despite everything. Although it may be that the Sun is just in a particularly anti-BBC mood at the moment having just run a story about how the BBC are plotting a Labour win at the next General Election by including anti-Tory propaganda in The Basil Brush Show.

Twitter is exploding with Married Single Other talk. All giving it fantastic reviews, willing it to be recommissioned.

ITV would be on to such a winner with this one if they had the strength and vision. It is attracting a young, valuable audience who are telling their friends. Have faith ITV and win big.

They had a rogueish character called Dave standing for election - wearing a blue rosette.

No wonder the BBC has been bombarded with complaints about it. Quite right too!

I say this was nothing to do with the BBC. It'll be all down to Basil Brush. After all, the Tories want to re-introduce fox-hunting.

Pretty much. Strictly is a bigger show - in terms of ratings and press attention. And its ratings war with The X Factor always draws interest - and naturally people commented when the positions were reversed last year.

DOI is a relative hit for ITV but it's still a smaller show, and expectations are never that high going into a series.

If it can hold the same kind of figures then I think they might give it another chance. It really deserves a leg up considering it's performances - how quick a turn around could be done for a second series? Enough to maybe put it on Saturday's after The X Factor?

No, I don't think they could possibly get a second series on air this year unless they started filming tomorrow!

To be fair to ITV, they've given it a great slot. Apart from post-XF (Sun) or in the DOI sandwich, Monday 9pm is as good as it gets. It's where drama traditionally does best.

Very good.

DOI's lower ratings get mentioned every week before your daily press release. Generally, there is less interest in weekend ratings just now because Dancing on Ice and Antiques Roadshow don't generate the interest of Strictly and X Factor. AFAIK, no Dancing on Ice presenter has made desperate claims about the show beating a competitor. There is no long running ratings war between Dancing on Ice and Antiques Roadshow either.

Interestingly, I note that you managed to miss the comment that Lets Dance For Sport Relief was down 10% this series. Now there really hasn't been much comment on that at all, has there?

How strange...

Get filming ITV.

Seriously, I guess Britain's Got Talent 2011 is a more realistic target. The trouble is the first epsiode was weak and that lost a lot of viewers. They need to try to bring them back again, and I don't think the same slot will do this.

If Glee is getting 2m in the officials on the Monday with the repeat airings on C4 and E4 it's probably getting close to 5m an episode.

Good to see some figures for Crufts - considering it was branded DFS Crufts were the programmes advertiser funded, and hence cost More4 nothing?

Brothers and Sisters seems to be growing in stature with each passing series, and it seems to have found a decent home on More4. Not really my thing, but from the promos I see now it looks a hell of a lot better than most US dramas at the moment, and certainly improved on the first series - though I guess that's inevitable as the characters become established.

They can't.

Unless Murray is number 1 or 2 seed it is 50:50 random draw which half he goes in.

Men's half containing Federer has to be Mon, Wed , Fri.

So this is out of BBC's hands!

But AEC will of course fix Murray's start time - ie 1st or 3rd on Court as necessary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...how_characters
"2002-2007 Dave is one of the original characters that features in the comeback. He is regularly shown to have a flair for business..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ree_.282004.29
34 "The Candidate" 22 October 2004
Molly and Dave are both running for School President, but the have completely different ideas. Basil, Madison and India help Molly, meanwhile Anil and Steven help Dave.

So where was Mike in all this, then?

er.... where to start

BARB aren't responsible for the missing programme logs, Kantar (who have the contract to measure tv viewing) receive them from the tv channels. BARB is an industry committee that is funded by tv company, ad agencies and advertiser.

If a channel doesn't provide all their logs (on time or otherwise), then Kantar can only process what they've got. Which is why you may see some fairly big digital channels display the "There is no data available for this channel for this week on the website......" message for top 10 report.

Usually, though not always, there is an amendment made to the logs and the data is made available to data bureaus. I can't say for certain that means the affect top tens will be amended/readded, but I will let know if they are.

There is a contact page that you can use. I can't give out their telephone number as I could lose my job, then someone else will be updating the website (and they might not be as nice as me).

PS - it's a bit presumptuous to assume the head of BARB is a man

http://www.itv.com/documents/doc/ITV...ch%20split.doc

you can see the various scenarios for the later stages in this doc

mlt11 does get rather passionate when it comes to all matters Sky related. Something I can appreciate as so do I but from the opposite side of the fence most of the time!

Thanks for the updates though, Mike. Interesting to hear an insider's view of how it all works and long may it continue. I must admit I do get fed up with the "no data" message but thankfully that seems to be getting rarer these days.