Great start for Blood & Oil, I feared it might pull low as it was quite long and initially slow though overall REALLY good. Great to see an audience for good quality drama. Thought MSO would have pulled a bit higher for the finale, but with it's younger leaning audience should be good for another run.
Mondays at 9 is a tough slot, all the channels providing something different.

It was a drama? Based on the title I thought it was a documentary or something else.

It's the same as the last episode got, to be fair. This isn't the kind of show where you can miss a whole episode and expect to get back into it straight away.

I'm not going to lie, it's a disappointing figure. But it looks like the axe is soon going to fall in the U.S. anyway so it's better this way. Five, to their credit, have given it every possible chance to succeed. I've even seen billboards in my local area for it which I don't often see for a TV show.

I really enjoyed last night's episode but I think many have lost their patience with it. That's just the way it goes.

It was still about as successful in Five terms as MSO was in ITV terms.

Drama based on oil corruption and kidnapping in Nigeria, gripping stuff.

alarm bells follows by sobbing as they realise there is nothing they can do. They only have the revamp/new producer card left to play, and they should have played that months ago.

not even sure if this low rating can be explain by the non ratings peroid, in theory soap fans are loyal, so will watch whatever.

The typical aussie lifestyle is very different to ours though. A daily soap is a quite a big commitment for them, unlike over here where we lap it up whatever.

Pretty good for Ask the Chancellors. Not amazing, but its a low-rating slot and only real political anoraks would relish a lengthy debate over economic policy. The PM debates will have much wider appeal and will be relentlessly hyped up in the news - I'd be surprised if we didn't see 6-7m for the first one, at least. It might drop for the latter ones if (as expected) the debates turn out to be dull and over-rehearsed.

Married, Single, Other doesn't seemed to have benefitted from all the social networking chatter - I still think its young audience numbers justify another shot though. It's not like ITV are drowning in non-crime drama to take its place. Worth some ITV2 repeat runs and another 6 part effort - if it doesn't catch on, then at least they gave it the time. Whats the worst that can happen?

Great for Blood and Oil at the same time on BBC Two - I expected plenty of critical acclaim but not much popuar interest for that, so its a good surprise.

FlashForward is sinking for Five now after the hiatus, but to be fair, its only replicating whats happened the other side of the pond. They did the best they can for it and there's not a lot they can do. Its going to be cancelled - time to move on.

Mind you, hopefully they'll move on to something slightly more successfull than another JLC vehicle. Has no exec at Five realised that Alan Carr was the popular one yet...? Terrible decision to sign that Golden Handcuffs deal.

Glee did really well last night: 1.47m (5.8%) without E4+1, 1.90m including +1.

Highest rating of the series. There's been a growth of about 30% since the opening episode. Its 16-34 demo numbers are very strong - 0.85m for last night's episode which puts it near the top of the tree for any drama on British TV.

Maybe Five should have given Paul Merton another project instead in addition to his travelogues.

JLC is a good personality but he works better with Alan IMO and the reverse is also true.

Above average, but some Dispatches documentaries (the dumbed down ones!) have I think performed better in the slot. I don't think it bodes well at all for the debates - I just don't think outside of politics (MPs, journalists etc.) the demand is there from them amongst the general public - just look at the recent interviews on ITV1. Gordon Brown did OK, but nothing spectacular, whilst the Tory and Lib Dem ones were nothing short of flops.



Stateside and So You Think You Can Dance is basically becoming So You Think You Can Dancing with the All Stars, as 10 new contestants will be paired up with different All-Star contestants each week and be voted out individually. Be interesting to see if that pays off or backfires.


And LOL at Justin Lee Collins! Another coup for Richard Woolfe there.

Did we get a figure for Sunday too? If the C4 airing remains in the 1.75m+ range, along with the further repeats it's got to be easily getting 5m+ over the week.

Just hope it can sustain it's enforced break - if E4's only repeating it once a bit stupid really to do it over the last two weeks - would surely have made more sense to do it during the three weeks it's off air. Long term though if not a staple of E4's daytime repeat cycle it's one show they can actually put on 4Music which actually does contain music!

Those are fantastic numbers. It's such a great show really good fun!

Question Time rates solidly enough in a later slot with less high profile representatives from the main parties. With all the press these will doubtlessly generate, underestimate them at your own peril.


Channel 4 had the exact same audience in that slot but surprise surprise this gets no comments even though C4 should be doing better than Five!

Definately, I think the first one at least is on for 5-6m+. The later ones will be lower (the one on Sky obviously will be) but I think 4m+ is still achievable for a later debate on BBC1.


They didn't actually, as The Good Wife didn't begin until 10.35pm, as The Secret Millionaire was 95 minutes last night. I think why JLC's ratings are being picked up on is that it was very heavily promoted, and JLC is apparently Five's 'big name' so undoubtably they were expecting a lot more from it (maybe even double what it got).

Also, according to the updated Radio Times website, Survival With Ray Mears is starting on Sunday 11th April at 6.30pm, with Corrie at 7.30pm. Presumably in future weeks it will move to 7pm with no Corrie in the schedule. I'm glad they haven't put it at 9pm as it's definately more of a family documentary than ITV's other authored journeys, but 6.30pm is a bit early, although 7pm should be fine for the following two episodes.

It's mostly a daytime phenomenon there with American and repeats of old Aussie soaps being something only the housebound see. Home and Away does reasonably well in its slot but Neighbours is largely ignored now. Unlike Britain soaps aren't a big deal any more for the networks.
It does look, though, that Neighbours could be on its last legs as a rating of 0.5 million peak time on a major network is like a soap on ITV1 only pulling in 1.5 million here, totally unacceptable. While axeing Neighbours would have caused uproar in Britain during its boom years around 1988/89, I don't even think here many would notice now.

22:00 - Justin Lee Collins: Good Times: 0.6m (3.2%) awful awful awful

hahaha..should rename this Justin Lee Collins: Bad Times (in the ratings)

So Ch4 had the Chancellors; ITV, BBC and Sky each have a PM debate. What are Five doing for the election?

Ah, good point. The ratings review listed the start time as 2200 hence my comment.

Although it's probably fair to assume that in the half hour or so that they were both on air there wasn't much between them.

I'm not sure what Five were expecting but I knew it would be sub 1m. JLC could be a useful asset but right now it seems they've just chucked a pair of handcuffs on him and don't quite know what to do with him.

Yeah, The Good Wife and JLC were probably pretty close though, but still, The Good Wife is a More4 show put on C4 to fill a slot, JLC's show was heavily promoted. I agree, they don't know what to do with him, as the chatshow failed on ITV2 last year so I don't know why they've given him another. I don't know why they signed him at all though, Alan Carr was always the funnier one and is far better on his own than Justin. Surely they could have got someone else? They'll be putting him as a presenter on Live From Studio Five next!

One of the rare occasions where Justin Lee Collins would actually improve a show.

Sky provide Five's news output, might be better to ask them?

I'm sure Five's flagship 5pm bulletin will have plenty of coverage in the run up to May 6 and hopefully simulcasts of both Sky's leaders' debate and election night programme can be secured.

I thought Sky would be making their debate available to other broadcasters simultaneously anyway.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that. It premiered first on Channel 4 (the very first episode) and got a lot of promotion at the beginning. The More4 first look only explains some of the decline. I can't imagine for example that C4 are too chuffed their flagship channel is not too far behind E4+1 in that slot.


Well, I'm not sure about all that either. I like both Alan and JLC but neither work particularly well on their own IMO. Chatty Man was decent enough but also logged distinctly unimpressive ratings compared to what the likes of V Graham Norton was getting back in the day.

As for Live From Studio Five, I must say it has actually improved a bit since Melinda left. Indeed JLC was a guest last night. I think if they rebrand it as a showbiz news show they might be able to salvage something from it, under the name of Showbiz Tonight / Showbiz Spy or something. But in it's current form it's hard to see what future it has, especially with the ratings frozen at 300k.

What sort of rating did the Jack Doherty Show used to get in the early days of Five?

Also channel hopping last night I had the misfortune of finding JLC and Ian Wright on TV at the same time as he was talking about the Friday/Sunday Night Project returning to C4 but without him and Alan.


Wonder how C4's Comedy Week will perform next week. Personally I think it's a mistake cramming it all into one week and the Comedy Roast series, which is a pretty decent concept, would do better weekly IMO (perhaps in a Sunday 9pm slot) than on three consecutive nights.

All soaps down on last week now the clocks have gone forward.

Decent enough performances from all in the 9pm slot-I am very surprised since episode 2 MSO has only fluctuated by 0.2m viewers. Much higher than expected for Blood & Oil, Crimewatch does it's job as a filler in BBC1's schedule, Secret Millionaire does its job in boosting Mondays and FlashForward is pulling in a decent audience (relatively speaking for FIVE, but disappointing considering episodes from the first half were all getting 2m+. Then again all of FIVE's imports are getting less this season. )

Fantastic for Ask The Chancellors, denting FIVE in the process.

Ouch for JLC- entertainment just doesn't seem to be working for FIVE. And it was in a decent slot aswell, although starting halfway between B&O and SM wasn't a good move. Maybe it will pick up next week?

Fantastic 16-34 numbers for Glee and the performance is astonishing. Hopefully it doesn't lose its momentum when it returns after the break. It will be interesting to see if CH4 keep this on E4 or transfer it. I'm in two minds really, because it could go on to be a huge success on CH4, but then again E4 needs some hits. On a Monday (apart from SM) CH4 struggles to get 1.5m in the 9pm slot, so filling Mondays at 9pm with Glee for almost half the year could be a move CH4 might look at perhaps.