The problem is it's during the analysis that ITV show the adverts, not during the match.


Can't agree with those who say Ant & Dec did poorly. They should still have over 6m in the officials and they finished above Casualty, Piers and Simon and TV Burp.

Can we spoil Piers Morgan's day by pointing out to him that he lost to Nick Knowles?

I'm amazed by the ratings for the various lottery game shows because the Great British Public are so in line with my opinion over them. The ones I like do well and the ones I don't like all flop.

Im not surprised at the Piers rating and maybe was expecting a few more. The image of Simon Cowell is a huge one and would have drawn the curious away from other channels. The meeting was inevitable, and Simon was reported to have cried (its almost a required element of a chatshow appearance these days), so once again the scene setting has set up the audience.
It is now reported that Cheryl Cole is preparing her tear ducts to meet Piers, a week or so after pulling out of an appearance with Ross. Presumably after all thats gone on this was also inevitable.
ITV really do make the most of their mafia (as it was described recently by iaindb). Simon Cowells head even appears on Push the Button, but its curious to me that he is the biggest name on tv and yet he doesnt do anything more than sit and pass judgement on others. Bill Cotton created a dynasty of acts on the BBC in the seventies but there was no doubt Morecambe and Wise and the rest were the stars.

Maybe not in the sense that you state, but somehow I expected A and D to have been bigger draws by now than 5.74 million against the lottery(and that great Light Entertainment stalwart Nick Knowles) would suggest.
OK they get viewers on BGT but they are part of a much bigger whole.
I still think a well made sketch and entertainment show is the way they should be going, although it is reported they want to be retired and playing Golf by age 40-which was about the time that Morecambe and Wise were just starting to get known.

Of course the first half-hour, which inherited a relatively low audience from TV Burp, was on against Let's Dance. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of PTB's ratings. Maybe it beat the lottery when they clashed.

So true. Hopefully the Cowell fad will start to fade out in a few years.

Maybe a case for ditching the extra episodes on Monday and Friday as this does smack of overkill. Also could this be affecting the ratings in the same way Neighbours and Home and Away turned people away in the nineties with episodes overkill.

Very good for Piers to get his best ever considering that's probably the weakest lead-in he has had (usually gets DOI or XF). He does seem to get a huge amount of variation based on the guest so Kym Marsh next week may not do so well.

OK for Ant & Dec. Haven't seen the show so I can't comment. If it can level off around 5.5-6m then that'll be fine.

A couple of ITV recommissions:

- Doc Martin will be back next year for its 5th series, no surprise there considering its excellent ratings. They're currently writing at the moment and in fact there's already been talks between ITV and Buffalo Pictures about a sixth series.
- Benidorm is coming back. There will be a one-off special in 2010 and then a proper series in 2011. Episodes will be 1 hour each (like last year).


Yeah, 5.74m wasn't too bad for PTB. Some episodes of Takeaway fell to around that level last year when up against Let's Dance (one episode was as low as 5.2m).

This is a good decision from ITV - I hope there's a one-off special of Doc Martin too.

I think, to keep viewers interested, having series every other year is best for successful shows - with a one-off specials covering years when they don't air.

Doc Martin and Benidorm have to be ITV's strongest non-crime scripted shows at the moment - so I'm glad the channel is looking after them.

Bad form to quote oneself, but back in February I spoke about Cheryl Cole's rumoured appearance on Jonathan Ross:




Actually, last night with Cowell was one of the first well-rated non-BGT shows I've seen Piers on. Good guest and very good timeslot helped, of course.

Really good for Lets Dance to continue to grow - its done much better this year than I expected and caused real damage last night to Ant and Dec and Harry Hill. We were surely expecting a moderate drop for Push the Button and thats what happened - Harry Hill fluctuates wildly again on the basis of lead-in, opposition and timeslot. Always very difficult to predict.

Very poor for the FA Cup, but with those teams, I'm hardly surprised. ITV seem more reliant on the big teams and stories to generate their own hype and in the absense of that, tend to struggle. The BBC had the knack of generating their own hype about the competition through build-up in their multiple outlets.

A welcome dose of common sense at ITV as these attract a wider demographic than their other shows and, of course, can be exported and sold as DVDs in the way a reality show can't.

Good for Piers but he'll come crashing down next week with Kym Marsh.

Casualty always seems to dip when it starts at 9.20/9.25. (It stayed above 6m when Charlie had his recent heart attack.) Next week it's on at 9.05pm which, to me, feels much earlier than this week even though it's only 15 minutes earlier. So it might go back above 6m.

It's a head-to-head clash between the drama and the chat-show, but I think you're right - Kym Marsh won't attract very much above 4m if that.

Kym Marsh is a car crash though so could pull in some viewers through curiosity.

Push The Button won the direct head to head against Who Dares Wins:

Time - BBC-1 (Share %) - ITV-1 (Share %)
20:00 - 6.58m (28.3%) - 5.47m (23.5%)
20:15 - 6.79m (28.9%) - 5.35m (22.8%)
20:30 - 5.48m (23.3%) - 6.08m (25.9%)
20:45 - 5.93m (24.9%) - 6.07m (25.5%)

Yeah, but ratings-wise, it was always the poor relation to Animal Hospital.

Maybe they should have had Rolf as the midwife.

"Can you tell what it is, yet?"

Do you know if 1 Vs 100 is coming back? And what about Guesstimation?

Yeah, people just watch for the guests. It was the same when Morgan was doing the same thing in a 10.35pm slot on BBC One a few years ago.

The old films aren't costing them £1m+ an hour though. They significantly overpaid for the rights - and will certainly not be making any money back on them with ratings like that. Also don't make excuses when it comes to ratings being knocked by analysis - ratings are usually reported for the whole show, and in comparison to matches in previous years (both on ITV and the BBC), these are nothing short of shocking for FA Cup quarter-finals.


Also James Corden will be hosting a live World Cup show from a pub after the England games for ITV1 (so I guess it's a three episode run then! ). Not sure if it's destined for 9.30pm or 10.35pm, but ITV are hoping it'll get 4m according to the News of the World. I think it's pretty certain it won't!

It's not really an ITV decision. Martin Clunes has made it clear he's only prepared to film Doc Martin on alternate years.

I expect something similar is now happening with Benidorm, although in this case, it's more to do with the writer wanting to take good care of his product.

It was on after EE wasn't it. Didn't manage to hang on to any of those extra viewers then. Ah Animal Hospital another one that ran for years. The BBC were fond of their docusoaps in the 90s. Airport was another one that ran for ages iirc.

Another page of ratings i've scanned from Broadcast magazine

Pets and vets were always a ratings banker for the BBC in the nineties, even the so bad it was good Pets Win Prizes. Also Auntie seemed very keen on DIY, gardening and decorating in those days but all these shows seem to have vanished now.
Wonder if reality television will face a similar fate as Channel 4 is phasing it out over the next 12 months and ITV seems to be pushing the more trashy offerings on to ITV 2?

Yeah, CH used to go out straight after EastEnders. I suppose the ratings were okay, but they weren't anything special. The Bill was very popular in those days, though.

Airport's success brought about a whole host of docusoaps, not least Airline.

Bill Cotton built up the biggest roster of entertainers on the television in the seventies in the same way Lew Grade built up a massive entertainment empire at ATV in the fifties.
You look at whom Cotton had on his books in the seventies: The Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Mike Yarwood, Val Doonican, Les Dawson, Petula Clark, Cilla Black, Ken Dodd, Dick Emery, Michael Crawford, these were all entertainers guaranteed to pull in 20 million viewers.