I'm certain that's got something to do with the fact that all the latter programmes are self-contained episodes, so if there's nothing else on you can switch it on and know you're getting the whole thing in one night, whereas the former are all two parters at the least, so people have to make some sort of commitment.

I've said this before but since the thread's gone into another part I'll say it again, but back in the nineties, William Phillips, Broadcast's brilliant ratings analyst, pointed out that drama series repeats didn't work, because ITV would sometimes repeat series of London's Burning or Soldier Soldier and they didn't do very well - I remember one repeat run of Soldier Soldier, at the height of Robson and Jerome mania, being abandoned halfway through because it was dying. Something like that isn't worth repeating, really. They even used to repeat Casualty in between series, back when there were rather fewer episodes.

I remember ITV repeating Moll Flanders, which had been a huge hit, at 9pm in 1998, but after two episodes they dumped it to 11pm and stuck Alright on the Night repeats on instead. But really, if you weren't bothered enough with that kind of show to watch it the first time, why would you be any more interested eighteen months later? And unlike something like Morse, where even if you know the killer you can enjoy spotting the clues, with something like London's Burning once you've seen it, you don't need to see it again.

Hmm, I'm not sure if this is BSI striking again, or whether it could give BBC Three record ratings next Friday:

BBC Three
20:30 - EastEnders Live: The Aftermath
21:30 - The Weakest Link: EastEnders Special
22:30 - EastEnders Live (R)
23:00 - EastEnders Live: The Aftermath (R)

So it means that the episode of The Weakest Link a week Saturday won't be a 'new' edition - yes its a new edition for the terrestrials, but not 'new' and in 'new new'. If I was BBC, I'd have done:

BBC One
19:00 - The Weakest Link: EastEnders Special
20:00 - EastEnders Live
20:30 - A Question of Sport
21:00 - QI
21:30 - MasterChef

So that TWL actually gets to premiere on the Friday and it means a short break for The One Show.

Also, Thursday was the lowest rated weeknight of the year so far, with only 23.92m watching in the 9pm slot. Thursday's are the lowest rated weeknight of the year, with Friday's on average the highest rated night of the year, although Friday's figures are inflated by New Year's Day.

Weakest Link is a late change for BBC3. The Radio Times has Being Human in that slot. (But I know you're telling the truth because I've just checked my Sky guide. Unless the Sky guide* is wrong)

Your schedule is down half an hour of Masterchef. Unless you intended to put that on Saturday at 9.25 in place of Weakest Link.

The BBC3 premiere is irrelevant. I can't imagine WL getting too many viewers at 9.25pm on a Saturday even as a BBC1 premiere.



* Sky's current advertising motto "Believe In Better". Isn't it a pity their channel controllers don't?

I didn't realise it repeated so badly. I can sort of see why all they ever repeat is New Tricks, Antiques Roadshow and George Gently (arguably all with a older audience, much like Doc Martin, Midsomer and Frost on ITV1, perhaps they are the ones who are prepared to watch repeats - might explain why BBC1 daytime does well when most of it is repeated content)

ABC:
8pm – The Deep End – 5.7m (1.5)
* Tied 4th/5th with Vampire Diaries on The CW
9pm – Grey’s Anatomy – 12.7m (4.3)
* All time low with adults 18-49
* Has set series lows two weeks in a row
* Lost to Survivor in the 9pm hour
10pm – Private Practice – 9.1m (3.2)
* Continues to decline with Grey’s
* 2nd with A18-49, had a 45% lead among adults 18-34

CBS:
8pm – Survivor: Heroes vs Villains – 14.2m (4.5)
* Drove CBS to Thursday victory, #1 from 8-10pm
* Up 2% from February 2009 premiere
10pm – The Mentalist – 15.7m (3.6)
* Won the hour with adults 18-49, up 9% from last week
* Season high among adults 25-54
* Largest audience of the night

FOX:
8pm – Bones (R) – 8.1m (2.1)
9pm – Past Life – 5.3m (1.4)
* Down 55% from Tuesdays premiere
* Lost 33% of its lead-in

NBC:
8pm – Community – 5.3m (2.3)
8.30pm – Parks & Recreation – 5.0m (2.3)
9pm – The Office – 7.4m (3.7)
* NBC’s #1 scripted show by a margin of 28%
9.30pm – 30 Rock – 6.1m (2.9)
* NBC’s #2 scripted show

tvbythenumbers

With The Deep End for a lead-in, Grey's Anatomy is really struggling. At this rate Modern Family is going to overtake it and it's ratings this week are lower than those of Lost.

Past Life looks like a total bomb for FOX though it didn't get the best chance last night by only having a Bones repeat for a lead-in. Its low performance reflects well on Fringe.

CBS had a better than usual night with Survivor's 2 hour premiere doing better than CSI would have at 9pm. NBC had a typically low key Thursday, all its sitcoms will return next year.

Thursdays have been pretty poor for all the networks this season and pretty boring as well. American Idol lands at 8pm in a few weeks for the semi-final results.

This is a brilliant point, extremely well made.

Whilst sitcoms and dramas which are traditionally self-contained (with elements that extinguish themselves in multiple episodes) rate extremely well, dramas and comedy dramas that rely on narrative and extreme character progression & change will not.

Often, stuff like Friends, The Simpsons and Heartbeat which rely upon the same laugh-out-loud or familiar cliches - and this can repeat well for decades.

Look how ITV3 holds up with its detective drama/Heartbeat/Goodnight Sweetheart.

E4 aired episode 10 last night. So airing one episode a week I work out that they'll be at #23 (season finale) by the 13th of May. CBS won't get there until the 17th at the earliest or possibly the 24th. It's off for 2 weeks now due to the Winter Olympics, CBS will throw in some repeats and it'll miss a week (or maybe 2?) for some basketball.


Procedurals (and also sitcoms) tend to repeat well unlike serialised drama. The article below (referring to the US) discusses the decline in serialised drama because as first run ratings decline, syndication becomes more important:


CBS shows far more repeats than its competitors but gets away with it because their repeats are sitcoms and procedurals which do well. ABC tend to find themselves plugging gaps with reality shows because their more serialised line-up struggles in repeats. They introduced a Jerry Bruckheimer procedural to Tuesdays at 10pm and comedy to Wednesdays partly in the hope of some programming that repeats well.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/art...hp?rssid=20065

Wait so 7 million makes it NBC's number one scripted show since September?! That is appalling (in terms of their scripted ratings I mean, not The Office)!

Anyone know the Irish weekly ratings? I notice Glee is massively popular on their Itunes.

thanks

I guess this is something Brits will have to get used to if we want shows as close to US air dates as possible.

Not since September, but The Office is their #1 show this week and throughout the season. I was referring to its adults 18-49 ratings when I said it was #1 but even their top scripted show in terms of total viewers (Law & Order: SVU) is only around 10m.

But their scripted output is a mess. Even 30 Rock is weak without The Office as a lead-in. They really only get by on the strength of Sunday Night Football and The Biggest Loser.

Interestingly, one of their big hopes for next season is ITV Studios Prime Suspect.

I don't know what anyone else thinks, but given the massive amount of 'free' news coverage on it over the past few days, Piers Morgan's Life Stories on Sunday has to, has to with a 8m lead-in get at the very, very least clear the 6m barrier.

It couldn't have been promoted better outside of ITV.

The Piers Mogan/Gordon Brown interview is being plugged tonight on the ITV News.... and on the BBC News!

NBC is utterly bombing.

More BBC deception

This business of actors performing live? I wonder if it will ever catch on in the theatre?

Play.com have the final 2 episodes of A Touch of Frost up on their website with a release date of April 12th.

Sunday nights will therefore more than likely have A Touch of Frost on March 21st and 28th, and then 4 x Lewis, 3 x Foyle's War and 1 x Marple before the Britain's Got Talent live shows.

There is one huge question which hovers over all this...

Are people interested in Gordon Brown? It's not even that he's not popular, it's that he is so so boring. Life Stories has shown itself to be hugely variable depending on the guest. Is Gordon Brown a more interesting prospect than Katie Price?

Tbh, I'm not really sure what it will do. It's one of those things where I won't be surprised if it has 6.5m or if it has 4.5m.

Axing Rosemary and Thyme was an odd one as was the axing and then un-axing of Foyles War. But I thought Heartbeat genuinely dropped in the ratings in its normal slot and that's why they started moving it about (it made things worse though).

I wonder if Survivors will be dropped after the disappointing S2 ratings

And once upon a time, all TV was live.

Would a live drama cost more or less than a pre-recorded one? If it costs less*, that's something for cash-strapped TV bosses to think of bringing in, permanantly.

*it must do. filmimg it all in one go instead of over three weeks


Not sure how interested the GBP are in Nick Griffin, but his appearance on Question Time sent the ratings soaring.

Worth considering that Survivors is getting about 230k in the officials on BBC HD as well so it probably is still hitting 4m in the overnights just not on BBC1 alone.
Still, I don't think it will be re-newed.

Problem with having a live drama aside from a one-off is that you are restricted to having it mostly indoors with not much location shooting and there is no room for error. You couldn't do Doctor Who live due to the amount of CGI used although it would be interesting to see.

Only sitcoms and soaps have really worked with live episodes , The live version of The Quatermass Experiment was good but it could have easily been prerecorded.

is that not true of any live episode of a TV show that is normally recorded?

And that's why it would be cheaper.

In the black and white days of TV, dramas were live because it was too difficult and/or expensive to record them.

No such restriction today, so they could do as much location filming as they liked and slot it in where necessary providing the actors with an opportunity to change costume or move to the next set.

Or they could record it as live, which is probably pretty close to how the soaps have to film anyway, with their 97 episodes per week.

Anyway, this is all hypothetical. Like the fantasy schedules that sometimes infiltrate this thread, it ain't gonna happen.

lol that isnt even correct for the total number of episodes from all the soaps.