When did C4 managed to get Friends back (or did it show on both channels, at the time)? I did hear about Sky poaching Friends for a while, before C4 managed to show new episodes again.

You could be right in that C4's rights deal covers the first two seasons rather than just the one. However it only buys time, it doesn't make the problem go away.

Sky will be conscious that they missed the boat on this one first time around and won't want to make the same mistake again. It is simply too delicious a prospect.

But yes, as you say, we'll see what happens.

Fantastic figure for Glee's return and very well deserved. It doesn't seem to have lost any of the momentum.

The Channel 4 deal with Friends was an multimillion pound deal with Warner Bros which also covered ER as well, Five had a similar deal with Disney for FlashForward so the cost for FF isn't so bad as it covered films and kid shows.

C4 will have to put a great fight, if the second season does well.

Well I'm sure Channel 4 won't just let it go without a fight but it may reach a point where the asking price just goes so stupidly high that only Sky would pay for it.

I'm sure they're watching it like a hawk, typical Sky.

Glee did actually beat FlashForward according to MG:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...lee-tv-ratings

Yes, D.M.N.'s post and MG quote the full hour averages. DS have removed the final 5 minutes from FlashForward's rating.

I think the terrestrials have learned from their mistakes though and C4 won't have put it into a position where it risks losing Glee. And to be fair, it's now quite a while since Sky actually poached a show - I think House was given up by Five rather than stolen by Sky.

And as brilliant as Glee is now, chances are it won't be as brilliant by series 3 anyway, so if it does go to Sky, cest la vie!


I think the more immediate concern is Five cashing in with "Don't Stop Believing", a blatant jumping on the bandwagon show choir reality show which really C4/E4/T4 should have got in there first with.

In which case, I apologise. The MG article was not up when I looked so I was going by DS. I wish they would just report the figures in the same way as everyone else because it does create an awful lot of confusion at times.

digital-i is reporting that GMTV logged 900k (21%) yesterday. Definitely room for improvement when Chiles comes in.

Someone was asking about Jonathan Ross - looks like he will be two guests down this week - Robert Downey Jnr and Demi Moore, although its not clear.

Little interesting fact I picked up on Twitter - Jonathan Ross' BBC contract prevents him from publically backing a political party.

I thought it was only those working in news that had that in their contracts.

Daily Mirror suggesting ITV have approached Myleene Klass to reunite with Adrian on GMTV. Sounds like Christine isn't interested though as her spokesperson told them she didn't want Adrian to go, but is happy where she is. Sounds like Kate and Emma will go.

Andrew and Ben are both going, it only mentions that Ben will stay until Adrian arrives.

They also throw Matthew Wright's name in for The One Show.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/...5875-22197723/

Fincham was the one that put Adrian and Myleene together in the first place, so he clearly rates them. Myleene didn't return to The One Show because she couldn't commit 5 days a week though, so I'm not sure she would do GMTV.

I was wondering if that might be the case with many presenters during an election due to the rules on bias etc. Was funny with Charlie Brooker last week when he said something along the lines about how he'd love to repeatedly punch David Cameron in the face, but in the interests of impartiality he'd also love to repeatedly punch Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg too.


So, is Ricky Gervais still in the UK?

IIRC from a book about C4 I read, Sky was preparing to bid for both the pay and free rights for Friends and ER (they already had the pay rights for both) in the same way that they bought up Lost and House. The were both big on C4 and naturally they didn't want to lose them so they also bid for both the free and pay rights. They ended up winning which led to the launch of E4 so they had somewhere to air what they had the pay rights for.

Friends used to be pretty huge on Sky1 despite it being in far fewer home than it is now. I think Sky1's highest ever rating is still an episode of Friends from the early 2000s so it was clearly a big loss for them.

Myleene Klass is rumoured for every bloody job going. I think in the end they'll probably end up keeping Emma as his co-host.

Maybe Emma and Kate could go back to Sky News?

It's Ben Shephard I feel sorry for.

Matthew Wright for The One Show sounds plausible - he was good as a stand-in last year I thought. But then I've always rated him as a presenter.

yes he would be a good choice, ive always liked The Wright Stuff, he is the right kinda guy as well.

I do wonder how they are going to handle future seasons as the kids have to leave high school at some point and what happens after they reach nationals? I suspect they'll lose regionals (not a spoiler, just speculating) in the season finale but it won't be the end of the Glee club.

TBH I prefer the adults to the kids at times epecially Sue and Schu, although it's funny that considering he's a Spanish Teacher, you never see him teach Spanish!

Worth noting New Tricks was not shown on BBC Scotland or BBC Wales last night.

BBC Wales had Coming Home at 9pm followed by Living With Alex at 9:30pm
BBC Scotland had Holby City at 9pm

I think Ben Shepherd would be good on The One Show.

Yes, you can read about it in a book called 'Channel 4 A Licence to be Different' it's by Maggy Brown a contributor to the Guardian

Essentially Warner Bros wanted to sell both the Pay TV & FTA rights together, and they bundled up Friends, ER etc with a whole load of other crap that Ch4 didn't really want but ended up taking so they could get the rights to Friends which was a staple part of the Friday Night comedy line up at the time.

This one deal also fast tracked the launch of E4!

One show they did get included though was the West Wing, so not to bad!

Glee could slow the timeline down.

I think That 70s Show slowed theirs down to almost 1 episode covering a few days just to keep them within the 1970s after 8 seasons.

It starts getting complicated when you do that though.

I've noticed that Five are promoting The Wright Stuff a lot more than they used to, it along with The Gadget Show have been chugging along nicely and now are considered the crown jewels of the schedule after the US shows and football.

Speaking of Gadget Show, they given it a four episode extention as this series was 13 episodes.

And if Matthew Wright left FIVE they could still keep the Wright Show and bury Ian Wright in early mornings and try and sort out Live from Studio 5 (if they are keeping it) perhaps Ben Shepherd or Andrew Castle could do it, I hear they are looking for new opportunities to talk about irreverent nonsense on a daily basis

True. These shows have a habit of being red hot in their first seasons and then trailing off a couple of years down the line (Desperate Housewives anyone?).