Wouldn't be easier just to move The Graham Norton Show to Fridays? I wouldn't be surprised if they are considering doing chatshow pilots, Michael McIntyre and Dara O'Briain would be obvious choices although I would go for Dara as he's a great at talking to people as evident in his standup.

Well I wouldn't pay him £6m a year.

He is very good with the guests though and he gets some big names and makes them feel very comfortable.

Mariah Carey's agent said to him they should do a sitcom together and that Bieber kid has been raving about him on Twitter since he was on saying everyone should see it.

Ever since Parkinson returned the UK has always had a big chat show for the A list on BBC1 or ITV1. I'm not sure Graham Norton on a Monday night cuts it.

Jay Hunt did say they wouldn't fill it with one person - lots of comedy, entertainment, chat, etc. So probably a lot of pilots.

I expect stuff like Would I Lie to You?, Not Going Out etc Ross did a lot of shows with only breaks for Holidays and I expect a chatshow would only 10-13 episodes per series.

and what if he wanted more than that to leave his current job.

He did 40 episodes a year in the end.

He's only getting paid £1.5m.

When I said 'do everything I could' to get Alan Carr, I meant within the limitations of what is reasonable.

I didn't know that. Cheers. I wonder if she'd suit BBC1, though.

Look at the bigger picture.

By moving the ITV soaps to Sunday slots, it would vacate the 8pm-10pm slots all week...also meaning Corrie would drop an episode...which would raise its quality and its ratings.

For example, Friday nights would financially benefit ITV without the second Corrie. Frost/Midsomer/other 2 hour drama repeats would rate quite well between 8-10pm, I feel - around the same audience if not more than the Harry Potter screening.

Do remember that Friday nights are when youngsters go out, so Harry Potter (as well as nearly all of ITV's entertainment offerings) have failed there.

Only Benidorm stands out as the major exception!

Sunday's could be given real boosts too all year round, even though the soaps might be slow at first:-

7:00pm Emmerdale - 5.5m-6m (30%)
7:30pm Coronation Street - 7.5m-8m (35%)
- This means a significant lead-in for the 2 hour dramas. Since the soaps vacated the slot in 2008, ITV's detective shows have suffered greatly in sheer numbers.
- Also a big lead-in (even though it doesn't need it) for shows like Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor.
- It gives consistency to Sunday nights, and allows ITV to broadcast its best new shows in the very desirable 8pm & 9pm slots - everyone watches TV on a Sunday night!

One little creative snag would be the day itself, as a soap's plot mirrors the day it is broadcast. And some say that Sunday's would be particularly weird or boring. But I think it would make a nice change, even if it means a Roast Dinner with Norris Cole or The Dingles - it makes a change and breaks up the action nicely.

If ITV implemented this, its ratings would soar on this night, and Friday nights would remain reasonably stable with money saved.

Friday: 20% primetime share
Sunday: 30%+ primetime share

Saturday 10th April Overnights
BBC One
06:00- Breakfast: 1.2m (30.3%)
10:00- Saturday Kitchen Live: 1.6m (25.6%)
11:30- Great British Menu: 1.2m (19.8%)
12:00- BBC News: 1.3m (21.3%)
12:15- Football Focus: 1.2m (19.5%)
13:00- The Grand National: 2.9m (32.9%) , HD: 0.1m
* 2009 coverage averaged 3.4m (34%)
17:00- BBC News: 3.8m (27.5%)

17:15- Total Wipeout: 4.0m (26.2%)
18:15- Doctor Who: 6.4m (34.0%) , HD: 0.33m
19:00- Over The Rainbow: 5.4m (26.0%) , HD: 0.1m
20:10- The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins: 5.9m (25.8%)
21:00- Casualty: 5.7m (24.2%)
21:50- BBC News: 4.9m (22.4%)
22:15- Match of the Day: 3.2m (18.1%)
23:15- The Football League Show: 0.9m ( 9.8%)

BBC Two
16:30- Fina Score: 0.7m ( 5.1%)
17:20- The Aviator: 0.8m ( 4.2%)
20:00- Dad's Army: 1.8m ( 8.0%)
20:30- Master's Golf: 2.2m (11.3%)

ITV1
13:15- Midsomer Murders: 0.7m (10.2%)
15:15- Rosemary and Thyme: 0.7m ( 7.0%)
16:35- FA Cup Live: 3.2m (20.2%)
* peak: 4.9m (25.0%) at 18:30
19:00- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 5.7m (25.7%)
21:30- Piers Morgan's Life Stories: 2.0m ( 9.1%)
* overnight series average: 3.8m
* both previous series averaged: 4.3m
22:30- X2: 1.1m ( 7.1%)

Channel 4
16:30- Come Dine with Me: 0.9m ( 0.9%)
17:00- Come Dine with Me: 1.4m ( 1.3%)
17:30- Come Dine with Me: 1.8m ( 1.5%)
18:00- Come Dine with Me: 1.9m ( 1.6%)
18:30- Channel 4 News: 1.3m ( 1.2%)
19:00- The Welsh Great Escape: 1.5m ( 1.5%)
20:00- Pearl Habour: 1.4m ( 1.2%)
21:00- The 100 Greatest Stand Ups 2010: 1.5m ( 1.4%)

Five
18:50- NCIS: 0.7m ( 3.6%)
19:40- NCIS: 0.9m ( 4.1%)
20:35- CSI: 0.7m ( 2.9%)
21:30- CSI: New York: 1.7m ( 7.7%)
20:30- Law and Order: 0.9m ( 5.5%)

Primetime Shares
BBC1: 23.5% (last week: 26.2%)
ITV1: 19.2% (15.1%)
BBC2: 8.0% (5.1%)
Channel 4: 7.0% (6.5%)
Five: 4.9% (6.0%)

Good for DW.

Apart from Harry Potter, that is a horrid rating for the FA Cup and an ever crapper one for Piers!

Decent for Doctor Who, and the rest of BBC1's evening did well, too. over The Rainbow seems to have stabalised at a good level. As for ITV, the Harry Potter premiere underperformed, but looking at it with hindsight, a two night Harry Potter marathon seems to have resulted in fatigue as viewers don't want to watch it all night for two nights in a row. I suspect it may have got about 1m more had Goblet of Fire aired last week instead of on Friday. Still, 5.7m for a two and a half hour long film is still good business, a term which cannot be used to describe the rest of ITV's night. The FA Cup did badly but at Life Stories! Winner proved a real turn off, which is a shame, really as his episode was quite good last night. When it returns in the Autumn (which I think it is), they need to get better, and more popular guests.

Also, just noticed that Total Wipeout rating, which is excellent at 5.15pm in the Summer.

I like how a MOTD minus big teams and only showing two matches pretty much matched an FA Cup semi final involving Chelsea and Villa.

Decent enough for DW, but I do think the early-ish start time is hurting the ratings a little. A great share nonetheless. OTR has got a core audience of around the 5m mark which is decent, the test will come next Saturday when it's up against the giant that is BGT, will any viewers defect?

Great share for the Grand National. If anybody knows, what were the ratings and share for last years GN?

3.4m (34%) last year, so slightly down.

EDIT: It peaked with 7.6m (57.2%) @ 16:15. I think that's down on last year, but still superb.

15-minute breakdown of last night: http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/1042/satuj.jpg

I wonder whether the drop at 21:30 will look alarmingly similar next Saturday! ITV executives hope otherwise.

The breakdown also shows why Potter should have started at 20:00... there's a very clear increase and its only at 20:00 when it stabilises.

BBC1 had a solid night throughout. Doctor Who rated pretty well considering the timeslot and weather. Over The Rainbow has stabilised around 5-5.5m for now on Saturday nights, though it'll fall next week due to the return of BGT. National Lottery and Casualty both up from last week.

All of ITV1's programmes underperformed. Very poor for the FA Cup semi final - like someone said before, even MOTD matched that and it didn't even feature a Big 4 side! The HP premiere was about 1.5m down from the previous premiere, and Life Stories hit another series low. BGT can't come soon enough.


Easy to say that with hindsight, but then ITV1 would've had to commission a 1-hour show to fill the gap between the football and movie. And Life Stories would've started at 10:30pm, where it would've probably got an even lower rating.

Definitely. It was a beautiful day yesterday and 18:15 is too early for it to start. Same happened with Merlin in the Autumn though. Seems the BBC are happy not to ratings chase with either program.

Cheers.

Amazing peak audience and share.

I'd have just put YBF! there to be honest... even for just half an hour. It's pretty obvious, even though Who was on BBC1, that people tune out in there droves after a footy game even if the next programme is on in 5 minutes.

Total Wipeout imporved this week while Doctor Who decreased. STrange.

Excellent day for BBC1 yesterday. The peaktime line up maintained its usually performance despite being up against HP.

Decent audience for HP considering the length and I think with poorer weather it would have got more. The last premiere did air in a better Sunday slot with an XF lead in, so it can be seen why that premiere got more than 7m.

Awful for Piers-I doubt ITV will be commissioning any more shows with Winner in them! Piers has shown that with the right guests he can get bumper ratings, so he just needs to find them. The Simon Cowell episode got over 7m viewers in officials and the ITV2 repeat combined, and that was only 6 weeks ago.

Slightly alarming for CSI:NY- even though the franchise does well in repeats, the first showings are really showing signs of decreasing and I think FIVE need to perhaps reevaluate where they slot their US imports next season as CSI:NY going up against Casualty dents it somewhat, and next week it's Casualty V CSI V The Prisoner which should be an interesting battle.

Yeah, hindsight is a great thing, and when the schedules were finalised that 7-9.30 slot looked very peachy for Potter. Unfortunately for ITV, the weather (where I am anyway) was glorious last night, so the 7pm slot harmed it, as DMN's graph shows it was comfortably above 6m in the second half of the film. Whilst it was about 1.5m down on Goblet of Fire's premiere, it should be remembered that Goblet ran on a dark, cold Sunday night in October, whereas last night's film ran on a hot Saturday in April. Whilst the schedulers obviously weren't to know the weather would be so good, it did ultimately knock it. Like I said earlier, running Potter two nights in a row can't have helped either. Still, it's a good rating and it'll repeat well so I can't see ITV being too disheartened.

They could have gone with You've Been Framed and Best of TV Burp in the 7pm hour, which would have helped Potter, but Life Stories would have to be moved, and remember ITV didn't know it would only get 2m.

Didn't watch it myself but the Grand National was at around 4 wasn't it? Why did it start at 1pm? Were there other races? Perhaps a;
1300 Live Racing
1600 Grand National Live
1700 BBC News

would have rated better?

Yeah I agree.

Also I think if the film started at 8pm it would have got the exact same rating. The peak seemed to be at the end, people were tuning in to see the big ending, but would as many people have tuned in at the end if the film didn't finish till 10.30pm? Because this is a family film and ITV thought, quite cleverly, that starting the film at 7pm would get the DW audience switching from BBC1.

I remember last year when Jonathan Ross had ratings of about 2.5million, Piers Morgan said that he would shoot himself if his show ever rated the same. Now 2.0m is less than 2.5m, so will he carry through with his statement ...