I think even if it does well it'll only hit around 2m or so.

BTW - "trending" on twitter - how much is it down to discussion and how much generated by the programme themselves (e.g. I think people can send in questions via twitter IIRC).


That kind of put the Hollyoaks figures into context too - even as poorly as it's doing right now, in the key demographic for it the show is within touching distance of many major shows.

Worth noting that 0.9m is the current average without the last episode rating in. If the last episode gets <0.76m, then it'd fall to 0.8m overall. Still good numbers though.

By the way, Above Suspicion got 0.6m in the demo. It might've been Benidorm which you were referring to, which technically isn't a 'drama' as such but I kept it in the table as it's a hour long scripted programme .

Thanks to rzt first and foremost, and to DMN for the great table above.

It's miraculous how Single Handed was recommissioned with only 3%, 0.1m of viewers aged 16-34 - although it was billed as one of those sleepy 2 hour dramas.

Give it a Monday 9pm slot and I'm sure it would improve in that demo, given it was very good really and deserved a higher rating.

On the others,

- Doctor Who leaps and bound, going to show what a powerful drama it is - certainly the leader of the pack in quality and ratings in Britain.
- Married, Single, Other deserves a recommission with that rating, I'm thinking it deserves either a Sunday 9pm/Thursday 9pm slot next year, hopefully the former.
- Benidorm did rather well with 19% of 16-34s, certainly makes up for its lack of ABC1 viewers. I think a move to Thursday's would aid the cause even more, and it could be reaching heights of 7-8m. It's certainly Britain's flagship sitcom serial at the moment.
- Whitechapel could have been an HBO series, it was that well directed and produced! It really was stunning, and I think that's what encouraged the younger and upmarket viewers. Certainly money well spent, and an example of how ITV should be spending their drama budget.

My bad. Changed.

Single Handed was probably recommissioned because it was:

a) cheap (half of what they'd usually pay)
b) absolutely quality - undoubtedly one of the best dramas on TV last year.
c) skewed quite well with ABC1s (the 16-34 figure doesn't matter in this instance).
d) set somewhere outside the M25

I'm expecting ITV will play this out in the summer (probably 2011) as it's a cheaper co-commission drama than one of their high-end dramas.

I don't know whether this has been mentioned already, but it seems as though ITV have commissioned a new 'Robot Wars'-type gameshow, Fight For Me, from the makers of Primeval (Impossible Pictures).

Although it's a bit copycat, it sounds extremely exciting.

Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/...5875-22146283/

I hope they make it 6x 1 hour instead of 3x 2 hour - as I think it would benefit in a Monday 9pm slot in the autumn, or summer.

I wonder whether, given STV's success with Underbelly (which outperformed the premiere of M,S,O), ITV might look at more imports - despite being rather put off by Pushing Daisies - which was a bit out-of-mainstream.

Underbelly is cheap, crime-fuelled and extremely good quality - but could it get over 4m nationwide?

Single Handed was commissioned with RTE (Irish National Broadcaster) so the costs were split as far as I know, so probably is not that big an expense, I'm not 100% on that, but I know it's shown on RTE first.

Having watched the show, the first 45 minutes were approaching tedious as the girls (who the public have not really got to know) were singing in groups of four and as such were as nameless at the start as they were at the end. The drama of the choice put the ratings up but overall it stumbled rather than flowed and somehow the BBC just cant seem to get this kind of show right.

Thanks for the info and tables rzt and DMN interesting figures there. BBC should probably recommission Material Girl for BBC3, 24% in 16-34 is their demo.

Yeh, I think from next year Millionaire should go into the Sunday slot, but this year they've realy got to get rid of Heartbeat and The Royal, and other than Sundays I can't see anywhere else for them to go, and Saturdays in the Summer are barren as it is so without Millionaire it could be a real wasteland, as at least Millionaire was getting 4m or so and holding ITV above water last year on Saturdays in July and early August.

It does look as though Sundays are to become more of a gameshow slot though, as The Cube won't be airing alongslide XF auditions this year (Q4 apparently) so I think that may take the slot Family Fortunes had last year as there isn't much room for it on Saturdays. FF would be better on Saturdays as its cheaper, can air earlier and is more established.


Thanks rzt! Particularly interesting to see how BBC1's dramas skew much more towards ABC1s, but ITV's tend to skew younger. Looking at the 2008 stuff, a lot of the flops at the start of the year skewed very young, but some of the ABC1 numbers were terrible ( at Rock Rivals!). Harley Street seemed to be the exception, as that didn't skew towards either 16-34s or ABC1s. Come to think of it, the show itself didn't seem to be aimed at anyone at all, which was one of its many thousands of flaws! Looking at the revenue numbers, ITV must have made some horrific losses in 2008.

Also interesting to see how Moving Wallpaper was clearly recommissioned in 2008 to save face and because it was cheap as even those 16-34 numbers are nothing to shout about, and they got a lot worse in 2009. MSO is doing very well iin the deom, and should be recommissioned. The big difference between it and Demons is that by the end of the run Demons was barely scraping 3m and slid throughout, whereas MSO has held a rock solid audience since episode 2. Benidorm also skews very nicely towards 16-34s, but i think that it could have got around 1.3-1.4m in the demo had it aired on a different night.

The Fixer actually rated decently in the 16-34 demo for series one but collapsed for series 2 (even more than it did in total viewers). The Fixer seemed like a programme that was aimed at a younger audience but never really got it quite right. It was OK, but never as good as it had the potential to be, which ultimately is why it failed.

I remember that night well. 1,000 lines (of the school punishment variety, not the other kind) and the flippin' Variety Club Awards on television.

It is a 6 x 1 hour commission. I agree, I think a weekday 9pm slot would be great for it, and it could become a big hit, as the first series was fantastic. A Monday slot would be great but Thursday would also be good as there's still the Corrie lead in and with The Bill gone new drama is a must for this slot. I think it's airing early next year, but I'm not 100% certain on that.

I'd like ITV to air Underbelly in the Summer, as it's been successful in Scotland. Hopefully they won't be put off by Pushing Daisies as I think Underbelly would do quite well in a weekday 9pm slot.

How do we think Five's latest 'big' show - Good Times with Justin Lee Collins will do tonight?

Absymally, just like every solo project Justin Lee Collins does. Why the hell do Five keep giving him new shows? I notice they're repeating Heads or Tails too, perhaps a second viewer might become hooked on it?

Enid was a flop and a half, regardless of it technically being a repeat, I'm sure BBC1 expected more than sub-3m, who played the title role Amanda Holden?


You can never predict what these ITV Music Specials will rate, I'm sure they vary widely.

JLC also has a two part documentary to be shown on FIVE, showing how he tried and failed to enter the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 .... Surely this is not going to rate well?

While I don't have high hopes for the chatshow, I do like the sound of the Eurovision Documentary as it's more in the vein of Bring Back.... or the shows he did for Channel 4 and Sky1. I like JLC but I always preferred Alan Carr on the Friday/Sunday Night Project and he's great on Chatty Man.

The problem with this is, I can't see it going anywhere ... He did have a song written by Ronan Keating, he went on a morning TV show in Estonia, he submitted his song to Ireland but it got rejected ..... surley not enough for a two part show? ....

That would also mean Eastenders is much more popular in the 16-34 demo than Doctor Who; making EE very commercially attractive.

There's something ironic in BBC1 having the two most commercially attractive shows!

I can see ITV ditching The Bill on Tuesday's as pure filler. If it kept up the Thursday figure in the new slot, then they'd be delighted - and it may give them second thoughts about getting rid of it.

But by moving The Bill that'd give ITV the opportunity to offer new shows the Coronation Street lead in.

At the end of Married Single Other, they said the producer would be asking questions about the series on the Facebook fan page for it.

I can't say I've watched every moment of the entire series, but from what I've seen, it looks very good.

99% of the questions are 'Will there be another series?'. I strongly doubt you'd send the producer onto Facebook to deliver the news that there won't be another series - which strongly suggests that ITV have recommissioned it.

Besides the fact that I don't think he'd be able to read all 500+ comments about series recommission in the last 10 minutes!

Just had a peek on the Facebook page - people bombarding the wall asking if there'll be a second series.

Fingers crossed - although with its 16-34 rating they'd be silly not to really.

Amazing series. Has to be recommissioned.

True - and scheduling too. As I said last night if they'd split the Dancing on Ice final and put this in between them it would probably get twice the number of viewers, with Dancing on Ice hardly losing out either.


Re: the election debates. I wonder if the 10pm news bulletins will benefit more from a boost in ratings than the debate themselves. For a good number of people I'd imagine a 90-minute debate is a bit too much to handle (especially by the time they hit the third), so people might tune in for the edited highlights instead.

From what I saw of tonight's Chancellor's debate it was exactly what you'd expect really - three politicians trying where possible to avoid answering the question, and though of course more focused, the shows themselves not straying at all from the traditional Question Time type format.

I'm sure tonight's will do relatively well for C4 (anything above 1.5m is good for the slot), but can't see the ITV one especially rating much above 4-5m. Will Sky show there's on Sky One or perhaps Five?


P.S. A bit disappointed with the mid-season finale of Glee really - seemed rather rushed with long running stories reaching some sort of climax but then going nowhere. Confirmed though it's back on E4 on April 19th, and looks like E4 will run a promo campaign throughout the three weeks off giving viewers the chance to be on Glee.