Great ident.

So Albert Square is not, er, a square then?

It means that more open liberal (and people who have no sense of privacy) people watch it, which is good for advertisers. But Eastenders is on the BBC.

I'd expect Eastenders to overtake Doctor Who. This episode has been very heavily promoted and has the double-whammy of being live and climaxing one of the most skillfully put-together plots in its recent history.

And a boxing ring isn't round, either.

Re Holly on DOI. The show is still pulling big numbers obviously (if a bit down) but its not making the press like it did a couple of years ago and no amount of Phillip S shouting or Twittering is going to change that. There is nothing for it-Holly will have to go topless!

Ths Sun will then feature her on Page 3 and, as it does with all its models, give her something deep and meaningful to say on post Maarstricht Europe or climate change.

You obviously weren't watching last night!

I don't know how she managed not to go topless.

This most definitely was round though...

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

Much as I like the new EE ident, you can't help but get nostalgic for the likes of this.

Yes, I wonder if the producers, mindful of the lessened interest, egg her on. Its strange though-a couple of years ago Hollys cleavage was the darling of the tabloids (not her, just the cleavage), and it just doesnt make the same impact in the post Boyle world. Ofcourse there is only one thing for it-an op!

It is ridiculous but BARB for some reason now allow "programes" of that size in their charts. It was much better when they excluded anything under 15 minutes, I remember a load of Creature Comforts that got 9m after Emmerdale on Sundays were excluded. But, if your that bothered you should contact them or start a protest.

ITV's desperation to wring every bit of sweat out of Dancing On Ice yet again hurt their Sunday night schedule IMO. Wild at Heart is on too late for family viewing IMO, while Piers Morgan's finishing time was, quite frankly, awful. Dancing on Ice is not helped by such a stretched out air time, though it did seem to go quicker last night than last week.

BBC1 did well (though going by Robbie's exceptionally high standards it flopped badly ), and Five kept above 1m throughout the night. Channel 4 limped along somewhat, and were the definite losers in the battle of the major channels.

A big winner, though, was Got to Dance which achieved terrific figures for what appears to be a highly rated series. I wonder whether they'll try a quick turn around and have an autumn series - as long as they finish it before The X Factor it could do well for them before Christmas.

Feb 14th

Ch4 including +1
17:30 - Glee - 0.92m

With regard to repeats of soaps, I know the BBC release figures for the repeat of EE, which adds 400,000 to its ratings, and Fiver quotes its repeat audiences for Neighbours and Home and Away, but does anyone know how many people watch the re runs and omnibuses of Coronation St and Emmerdale as these must surely have some impact?

The BBC3 showing of EE rarely ever drops below 500k and is usually in the 600-900k range. Corrie gets something like 150-200k but does suffer from the fact it doesn't have a consistent timeslot on ITV2.

Will be interesting to see what happens to it's ratings tonight considering it was held back until after the Winter Olympics. I think it'll show how important the strong timeslot is for it.

No criticism there by the way, just brilliant scheduling by the BBC.

yes and must be fairly complicated to add up all the audience figures for the ITV soap re runs as there are so many of them and maybe they only count the omnibus and the first repeat.

Eh?

BBC1 did exceptionally well - even if ITV put out a low rating schedule all night (something with Amanda Holden in it, a bit of football, a special of The Bill), I doubt those BBC1 numbers would go up by much.

And it's a good varied schedule by BBC1, with a range of stimulating and interesting programming - particularly when compared with the diet of mushed cabbage ITV1 is serving up for those preferring programmes suiting a softer palate.

Doesn't EE/EE related content usually always rate well on BBC3 though? IIRC the repeat has been shunted back before and has still done OK as far as m/c numbers go. Also the BBC3 specials always tend to rate quite well some as high as 800k. So the BBC3 rpt does seem to have its own consistent following. It's something that's grew and grew over the last 10 years though. Corrie on ITV2 may also have benefitted in a similar way had it stuck to the same slot. It can't be hard to give it a consistent timeslot can it, what about 10:30pm after EE?

Yes, but it was lower than ITV1 - ITV1 apparently tanked, so goodness knows what BBC1 did.

BTW what show did ITV1 put out last night that had Amanda Holden in it?

Coronation Street at 10.30pm, with Emmerdale after it would be much better than the films they put out all the time. But then...ITV don't want good repeat figures do they? They're reliant on good first showing figures and the advertising money that goes with it.

EastEnders' first showing and repeat combined often win the night. ITV are trying to force people away from the repeat and onto first showing. For the BBC, that is not an issue.

No, "tanking" is what Tanking on Ice is doing this season.

Its ratings are down a few hundred thousand - and by GeorgeS's measure, as applied to SCD, that means it's "tanking".

Nice to see you're not in a tit for tat battle, Robbie. That'd just be silly. EDIT: Wait, I tried doing that earlier. Um, moving on...

Meh, Dancing on Ice is doing ok, just as Strictly Come Dancing did before Christmas (yes, Strictly got slightly higher ratings IIRC, but then it always has). I think both shows would benefit by stricter scheduling than being spread over the schedule like butter over bread.

last nights show was only 10 minutes longer than the same episode last year and this year they have an extra contestant.So its not stretched out.The only real difference this year is that its lost 900k viewers year on year

One disadvantage with Corrie is they've got an hour to repeat every Friday and Monday. I do hate the Corrie scheduling it's madness and beats me however it ever ended up like this. It's far from ideal. Emmerdale on a Thurs should also not be 2 eps they should drop one completely six isn't needed.

Source ???

Corrie had an fixed 10.30pm timeslot for repeats in the early noughties on ITV2 and they only got half what BBC choice was getting back then [500k vs 240k approx]It wass dropped

Neither corrie or emmerdale are huge with the 16-34 crowd particularly emmerdale so why would ITV2 want them when they could run films uninterrupted during one of the best timeslots for multichannel.


If they were trying to maximise first time viewing why do they repeat them during the day and why have they reintroduced the weekend omnibus

Itv3 is about abc1 viewers, the one show has more than emmerdale, perhaps the beeb should repeat it on BBC4

It feels longer than last year. Maybe it's something as simple as not having a stand out performer that everybody can't wait to see skate (a la Ray Quinn) is detracting from the programme a bit. There's no top-of-the-table tussle either (like Chris v Suzanne) to create intrigue. It's a very open year...but maybe not the better for it?

For me, they need to split the show (ITV with Dancing on Ice, BBC1 with Strictly Come Dancing) over 2 nights. The slickness of The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent makes them look laboured in comparison.


They should cut Coronation Street down to four and Emmerdale to, at the most, 5 and spread the former across the weak (maybe one Monday, one Tuesday, one Thursday and one Friday). It's idiotic how it stands at the moment.