It'll be interesting to see how the repeats of series 1 of Law And Order UK do on Tuesdays. I wouldn't be surprised if it fails to reach the end of its run because of low, low ratings.

Unless ITV do one of those bold, brash trailers that you sometimes see on The Simpsons - advertise it as a BRAND NEW SERIES! then have a voice at the end say quietly and quickly "Warning: may not be a new series."

Applause Store are advertising a new comedy (sounds like a pilot) from ITV1 called Dave Berry & Jason Byrne: Pizza and Beer. No idea what it's about, but it's billed as a 'very intimate new, comedy show.' ITV really do seem to be trying loads of different entertainment shows and seeing what sticks. At least they're beginning to make more of an effort with comedy, but as I've no idea what this show is about, I can't comment on how good (or not) it sounds.

Oh, they're repeating series 1 of Law and Order there? Surely it must do better than the documentaries in the 9pm slot? Considering it can get around 5.5m on first run through, I'd have thought it could claim around 3m.

On a Tuesday against Law & Order UK repeats? He could do considerably better than 3m. Besides, good to have some science on primetime BBC1, even if it is likely to be a bit CBBC-ish. Makes a change from all those cookery and car crime programmes.



That's the documentary about Tourette's, isn't it? Something we all suffer from when we see some of the BBC 9pm scheduling. The sooner 6Music and The Asian Network close and free up their £60million for extra quality programmes the better.

Seems as though Ugly Betty is moving to London for its final episodes (albeit London filmed in New York). I wonder if that will give a lift to UK ratings at the end?

I'm sure the Friends episode did really well here.

Depends where it ends up next season I suppose. Late night E4 isn't exactly off the cards.

Very good for 5 Days. Retaining that amount of audience despite the weak opposition is excellent, 3m more than it had in that slot last week. The football was a lot lower than I expected. I thought this would get 4m easily especially as there was hardly any pre or post match coverage. I really dont see how 3.3m for ITV1 any weeknight is anything but poor. I know its a Tuesday but still its very disappointing.

Law and Order repeats on Tuesdays is probably a decent idea. Why not put repeats on to get 3m rather than a brand new show getting 2.5m?

Its a new BBC science show, commissioned for BBC ONE.


Last years engineering conections on BBC2 was a repeat from the national geographic channel.

Whoever the pr1ck was that replaced ITN's News at Ten revival with the tacky, tabloid alternative should be sacked. 2008's revamp was gently rising into the 3m's on good days, and 2.5m's on bad days.

Law & Order:UK being repeated on Tuesday nights is stupid - straight after the 2nd series finishes. It really is bad. But then again, what alternative is there...

And watching England's football coverage on ITV1, it's terrible. Pointless interviews, REALLY STUPID competitions.

Horrific. ITV football is my worst nightmare. Boring Ryder, Annoying Drury and terrible pundits. Just poor. What's the point of getting lots of rights and then giving it piss poor coverage.

ITV should learn a lesson from Sky.

Good performance from BBC One last night.

From episode 2 according to DigiGuide. Was the pilot really bad or something?

Hammond has had BBC One shows before with Should I Worry About and Quest for the Holy Grail but this sort of programme seems more suited to BBC Two or BBC Four, wonder if was a BBC Two commission that got moved to BBC One, the James May shows have proven popular.

I think it's all about lowered expectations. Nowadays 3.5m is seen as ok for ITV at 9pm. If BBC1 got that there'd be plenty of cries as 'poor' but it's reaching the stage of norm for ITV, unfortunately.


Doc Martin may be a better idea. Repeat the last series and hope STV pick it up.


Have you been taking over by Robbie? Criticism of ITV from all quarters then praise for the BBC?

Seriously, have to disagree with you about the football. I don't think it's any worse than the BBC coverage. I think Jim Beglin is the best pundit on terrestrial TV, and Andy Townsend is less biased then Hansen/Lawrenson/Wright. Joe Royle's pretty good too. Admit that Steve Rider is very dull and needs to be replaced as soon as possible - Craig Doyle, Angus Scott, Jim Rosenthal would all be better and are all on ITV's books.

Agree on News at Ten though. It was improving, but what they've done to it is awful. Mind you, if it's going for a broadsheet angle then it'd be thrashed by BBC1 anyway so may as well go for the tabloid end of the market and hope for the best. The blame for that lays at ITV Past who mucked about with it instead of sticking with a good slot.

Is it just me or does ITV always feel so dull?

The news, the football coverage, the factual programmes, the dramas. There are no comedies except Benidorm. The soaps are even dull.

The obvious exceptions are Saturday/Sunday nights when they have Ant and Dec, Harry Hill and Simon Cowell's shows. But take this away and its just a depressing schedule.

It needs some colour and some life. Pushing Daisies wasn't a huge success for them, but it changed some perceptions and gave them a nice number of younger viewers for a while. They need more stuff like that.

I havn't seen Married, Single, Other, but it just seems a bit uninspired to me too.

However, on a positive note Take Me Out and The Cube feel quite original and fresh and some of the new shows like 71 Degrees North could be good if made well, marketed correctly and scheduled well. ITV need to bring some of their Saturday upbeat entertaining style across the entire schedule.

Knowing ITV they've deleted the recording. That, or they're planning something else on Tuesday's which means the series has to be cut down a episode.

I think as they're indicudual storylines with no ongoing story arc they'll probably just repeat them in a different order, or they may well not be repeating the whole series and have just picked a couple of episodes. Episode one wasn't one of the best episodes but it still pretty decent.

Having just checked, if ITV repeat all 13 episodes (excluding Episode 1) of Series 1 (2009 and early 2010), then it means Episode 13 would air on Tuesday, 25th May - the week before Britain's Got Talent goes live.

So yes, it appears starting from Episode 2 may be deliberate.

Not sure if they'll want to repeat them all though, as they've got a lot of factual stuff due to air, and surely there isn't enough room for it all at 8pm?

Well it'll almost certainly be exclusive to E4 considering how badly it did for C4 last season. I think it'll still get a 9pm slot though - IIRC it still rated reasonably well for E4 on First Look last year.

I think ITV are just plying their money into 'event TV' (The X Factor/Britain's Got Talent/Dancing on Ice/the football) and for the rest of the schedule they're just trying to get the most viewers for least expense. Goodness knows what they'd do without Emmerdale/Coronation Street!

Friends was successful though. E4 should really consider showing it again!


Well we said that last series and C4 still kept it. Defo should be E4 exclusive this time though, with at most just a T4 screening on C4.


Stateside and dumped NBC drama Southland began new episodes on TNT last night, getting 2.5m viewers (and a 1.0 rating in 18-49s, whatever that means!). Consensus on TVbytheNumbers seems to be it's not good enough to be renewed.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/03/03...ts-18-49/43779


Some figures on Eurosport's coverage of the Olympics too, but only an overview really and no breakdown by country - though the BARB figures for the first week show between Eurosport and Eurosport HD, all their top ten shows are comfortably over 100,000 - and notably the top shows are from the nights BBC2 didn't have any action in primetime.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/03/03...er-games/43711

Surely repeating a few episodes of an old series of Law and Order UK just after the current series has finished, is exactly the same as the BBC do time and time again?

At least they didn't run them in the same slot or mid series to con viewers into thinking its a continuation of new episodes like BBC1 does.

At the end of the last series of new tricks the announcer announced that it was the last in the current series and would return for a new series next year.But you can enjoy series ? again from next week.
Its not BBC ONEs fault that people prefer repeats to the Bill


They did the same for silent witness and even announced it was a repeat before it started.

I think Agent F was referring to Total Wipeout, not New Tricks or Silent Witness.

It doesnt apply to wipeout either as they only ever showed 1 new episode. So there was no mid series position to slot into

Not strictly ratings related but ...

Penny Smith cut from GMTV &
John Stapleton moved to 'special correspondent' role.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...dent-role.html

Isn't Total Wipeout essentially the same thing every episode anyway? How do you truly tell whether it is a repeat or not? Are the contestants really that memorable?