Not sure about this 30m figure for the debates.

This morning on Sky News when the viewing figures came in the presenter mentioned that with 9.4m for the first debate it appeared to fall "slightly" below the estimate of 30m for ALL three debates. Does that not indicate that some in the media are predicting a 30m combined audience, and then other media outlets have grabbed that figure and ran with it as a prediction for the one debate? (If that makes any sense :P)

Wonder if ITV will ever sort out their soap schedule.

A few stats from yesterday:

- 400,000 of those watching the Election debate were children.
- BBC News channel and Sky News channel had double their all day audience share due to Volcano/debates.
- BBC News was 3rd in the multichannel chart for the day with 1.6% all day share.

Source: digital-i

Gordon Brown has agreed to a Paxman interview and Mandelson is saying Cameron won't because he showed last night he can't answer tough questions. Paxman may well get his wish of all 3.

Its a bit of a sideshow anyway. 2-3m vs 10m last night.

How do we think The Whole 19 Yards will do for ITV1 this weekend before Britain's Got Talent? I was thinking today I hadn't seen it advertised at all this week (only for ITV1 to promptly air a trailer!), and with Doctor Who clashing for the first 15 minutes, I'm not sure it has much chance. It might have been better off in the 7pm hour on Sunday, with Survival bumped to a 9pm slot one night in the week.


Probably been mentioned somewhere amongst all the debate build up but the next Saturday it's in the same 7pm slot, with BGT at 8pm and surprisingly only running for an hour - I'd have thought like The X Factor they'd extend it by 15 minutes to get the extra ad break. Doctor Who is at 6.20pm and Over the Rainbow 7.06-8.15pm.

Interestingly though - and very rarely - that night the 5 terrestrials all have programmes starting at 9pm - Casualty on BBC1, Have I Got More News for You on BBC2, The Prisoner on ITV1, the premiere of Borat on C4 and CSI: New York on Five. With Britain's Got Talent on ITV2, that could be an interesting battle for second place at least.

I think it has a power to do huge damage though. If one them gets stuck with Paxman they're going to suffer for days.

Can't see Kitchen Burnout doing well at all, as it hasn't been advertised well and the first part was very dull and uninvolving. It picked up a lot after the first break but ITV viewers are very fickle, particularly in the post-Corrie slot. Sub 3m beckons, I think.

Yes but they can just clam up & stick to the prepared points. Paxman looks increasingly silly these days. Twice this week he messed up reading the autocue and questions like asking Cameron what a slippery nipple is will just look silly after the policy heavy debates.

And frankly we've all seen it before.

I think a lot of new stuff on ITV will suffer this weekend because Britain's Got Talent and the Leaders Debates have dominated ITV's promo time this week.

As I said above I hadn't seen The Whole 19 Yards promoted until today, don't think I've seen anything for Marco's Celebrity Masterchef and can't recall seeing anything for The Prisoner - but have seen Survival plugged once or twice though.

The amount of promotion for the debate last night may work against ITV as it could dent the new and returning shows this weekend. All the press has been about the debate yet I havent seen much coverage for BGT compared to last year. Also I havent seen many adverts for Kitchen Burnout and especially 19 Yards.

Edit - Brekkie has just made the same point.

19 Yards and Kitchen Burnout have barely been promoted at all, and therefore neither of them will do well. Shame as I've heard good things about 19 Yards and Kitchen Burnout has already improved a lot and is actually quite good now. BGT's been promoted a lot, and Survival's had a decent amount of ads. The Prisoner's been heavily advertised though so I'm surprised you haven't seen anything for it.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of ads for The Prisoner.

Why does Britain's Got Talent need to be advertised? There's no urge to advertise it - its all but guaranteed to win the night. ITV's priority surely is with 19 Yards and The Prisoner which they would hope does well at least both 4 million plus.

BGT will get a good figure regardless of advertising it.

Media Guardian's reported how yesterday's Election Debate did in the key demos:

16-34s: 3.2m (34% of the 9.4m)
ABC1s: 4.3m (46% of the 9.4m)

Surprised by how high the 16-34 audience was, especially %-wise as shows like X Factor skew at around 25%.
----
As for the four brand new ITV shows this weekend, I've seen the most adverts for the Prisoner and least for 19 Yards. I'd seen the Kitchen Burnout promo quite a lot as well but I think it'll be the lowest rated out of all four shows at about 3-3.5m. I also think BGT will launch with a slightly lower number than last year (about 10m) as the competition is a little bit tougher and there seems to be less pre-series press coverage this time round.

3rd!

Agreed. It doesn't need the promo.

Of course it needs the promo, especially if the press coverage is lower. It could be the difference between 8-10m and 10-12m tuning in.

That said, I don't think the promo is very good at all - looks very cheap for their biggest show. And from the point of view of the other shows it would have been better for ITV to promote their Saturday night schedule as a whole rather than individually.

Apparently stories in The Sun and The Star tomorrow that this will be Cowell's last BGT, although the story in the Star says Jordan will replace him which casts huge doubt over the story's credibility! Wonder how it would fair without him?

Depends on the replacement - though I think if Cowell went a whole new panel would be for the best.

I'd take it with a pinch of salt though as in the past Cowell has also said BGT would be the last show he'd give up, though I expect he's said that about The X Factor too.


All comes back though to The X Factor USA and how it'll affect scheduling here.

Not as bad as Idol will do without him. To be honest, I never really saw SC as the best judge for Got Talent, for X Factor, yes, but not for Got Talent.

It's probably fake, the Daily Star can't tell it's left from right.

The Daily Star's interpretation is obviously fake, but it's been picked up by all the press now. Anyone would think a new series of BGT is launching this weekend!

Now, what were we saying about press coverage!

Cowell has probably leaked it himself to get more coverage for the series debut.

It's the biggest show on TV. The promo it's had has been more than adequate IMO. It's on the front page of tomorrow's Sun so that will no doubt help.


I agree, that would have been a better way to push it.

Well he got the front page of The Sun and The Star - not bad.