You usually can but remaking a classic, iconic show like The Prisoner is much more destined to fail than any other show because of the expectations.

Considering The Prisoner only got 3.2m nothing at all to suggest Marco's Kitchen Rip-off would have bettered it's Friday ratings. The breakdown shows most people tuned in and tuned out for BGT, many switching to ITV2 I guess at 9.30pm.

ITV just haven't got a huge slate of programmes too benefit from the inheritance at the moment anyway and as we've discussed a bit over recent weeks the Saturday night schedule is now just anchored around one or two programmes, rather than with the intention of holding viewers for the entire evening.


Did we get a figure for More Talent BTW?

It wasn't destined to fail from the moment the idea was formed. It was only destined to fail after the final product was in place and released on DVD to condemnation. By that time ITV1 had wasted so much money on it, they had to give it the best chance possible. It hindsight, Thursday post Coronation Street would've maybe been the best slot (non-crime drama has alwways performed strongest there for ITV1) but they obviously, and understandably, thought that the strongest lead in possible gave it the best possible chance.

If I was ITV1, I'd switch The Prisoner and Kitchen Burnout now, advertising both hard and reshowing the opening Burnout episode next week after Britain's Got Talent.

EDIT: Scrap that, the schedules have been signed off for next Saturday. They'd have to start that from the Saturday after.

The kid singer was good and so was the dog but neither of them are going to be big deals. There was no SuBo last night or even anything similar, I doubt they'd want to try it too obviously anyway.

I'd expect a more regular pattern to the auditions ratings this year (perhaps more like X Factor), down a bit for the second episode and levelling out as it progresses.


I think that is hugely exaggerated. All television skews female quite heavily unless there is sport on and ITV have The Champions League and England matches to cover that.

As we saw the other day, Corrie has one of the most valuable audiences on TV, lots of ABC1's and 16-34's. We know Emmerdale skews quite a bit older.

Their Saturday offerings are generally family orientated. Even though XF and BGT perhaps target younger viewers more specifically (far more money to be made) but when they are on air they are probably #1 in almost every demographic there is.

Their top dramas like Above Suspicion, Wild At Heart and Doc Martin seem older but fairly broad anyway. Most of their factual entertainment doesn't appeal to anyone.


I'd always question putting a drama like The Prisoner at 9.30pm on a Saturday night. I thought it would collapse in its second week (as it did in the US) but I didn't realise it would lose so many within the first episode.

The Prisoner only got 3.2m because most BGT viewers switched off at 9:30 but I reckon more would have stayed if the following show was different. There must be such a low crossover from BGT to The Prisoner. They are two completely different shows and viewers of one probably have no interest in the other as shown by last nights ratings. Im not saying that something else could have got 7 or 8m after it but there have been shows aired in the last weeks that would have done much better than 3.2m in that slot and could have actually then been recommisioned as a result. Also, only about 1.5m or so would have watched More Talent so its hardly a lot of 10.6m


I also would have aired The Prisoner after Coronation Street. The older Corrie audience would probably have more recognition of The Prisoner show. It would probably still rate badly but I think more Corrie viewers would have given it a chance.

However I would definately not put The Prisoner on Fridays against Ashes To Ashes. It would go sub 2 million very fast as both audiences must be quite similar.

I read somewhere that despite being a 'cult classic' the original Prisoner also didn't do well in the ratings. (Does anyone have the figures to confirm that?). So I found it a bit odd that they were remaking it, especially such a high budget production.

The show's a ratings flop everywhere. But somehow ITV have been able to sell it to over 100 territories so I guess this is how they'll mainly make their money back.

If next week's Prisoner drops to around 2m (perhaps even lower), ITV might be better off shifting the last 3 episodes to late-peak (after 10pm) and drafting in a show in the post-BGT slot, though I dunno what that show could be. Perhaps the They Drink it in the Congo pilot or a couple of new episodes of Comedy Rocks.

Can I just add I watched The Prisoner last night and found it quite enjoyable but I can see why its not going to be a mainstream success.

In America, The Prisoner dropped from 2.2 million to 948,000 between Episode 1 and 2.

If we have the same drop here, it will go from 3.2 million to 1.4 million! Highly unlikely, I know.

I don't think the main factor was people turning to ITV2, turning the TV off or audience crossover. It just didn't seem like something that belongs on a Saturday night.

The Whole 19 Yards did alright and I think it could progress like The Cube or Take Me Out and do well across its run. You have to think that Ant & Dec are limiting their own opportunities by sticking to shows from their own production company. If they had been able to rope in 6m + viewers to one of those shows, ITV would probably better off as well.

While the Friday entertainment attempts are failing badly, they have managed to find a few decent performers to sit around XF/BGT recently. But they still need something for January-March on Saturday nights.

I'd imagine it'll make a lot of money worldwide so I wouldn't be surprised if ITV make a profit on it overall even if the ratings go sub-2m. It is so un-mainstream I can't see it doing any better than that.

I agree that a shift to 10pm or later would be for the best, and your suggestion of Comedy Rocks is good as it's cheap and I'm sure they could put a couple of episodes together pretty quickly. If they can't even do that then they should bring Kitchen Burnout to Saturdays and run repeats on Fridays, as surely they're not going to put up with The Prisoner getting 2m on Saturdays at 9pm for another five weeks?

Primeval'll be back next year - that's usually good for around 5-6m.

I'd personally split Dancing on Ice over two nights to allow more freedom on Sunday's and to boost Saturday's further - especially after jamming it all on one night harmed it this year.

I thought it was originally axed because it WASN'T getting 5-6m!

Channel 4 is a much more youthful channel than ITV1. Large parts of their output after 6pm and at weekends is aimed at teens and twentysomethings, daytime veers mainly towards a better educated older audience and racing fans. ITV1 seems mainly aimed at an older C2DE female audience, as shows like Coronation St fare well among this type of audience.

I'm only really quoting this because I love that description of Tonight's The Night. I'm liking the trailers, though, because the number to call if you want to be on is surely the least memorable phone number in the history of television, it's blatantly someone's office number, and you don't see enough phone numbers like that on TV these days.


As has been said, that's still way more than most matches on Sky. In addition to the live matches, though, buying the Football League as a whole was of great benefit for the Beeb because they get loads more content, they have loads of goals they can show on Football Focus and Final Score so it's certainly improved those programmes. In addition they got the Carling Cup and the final and the Manchester Derby got massive ratings, making it probably worth the money with just those two matches.

I'm not sure the live matches would have cost that much, I know the Football League specifically offered a package of ten matches to make it suitable for a terrestrial broadcaster because presumably they wanted the exposure. Plus of course it's given the Beeb more HD programming, and provided more work for their sports department.


Well, there was this article in The Guardian yesterday...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...nt-itv-ratings
...which suggested ITV wished to launch four new shows "off the back of" Briatin's Got Talent but I don't know how you launch Kitchen Burnout "off the back of" Britain's Got Talent when it starts 24 hours before it.

I think after Push The Button performing below expectations ITV won't particularly want anything from Ant & Dec's production company. Ant and Dec hosting The Cube or The Whole 19 Yards would be great for ITV but they don't seem to want to.


They've got Primeval returning next year, so with that, Take Me Out, TV Burp and Mr & Mrs they've got a decent enough schedule. Bringing Dancing on Ice (the performance show) over to Saturdays would really help though.


The last series averaged 5.0m (5.2m excluding the episode that aired against Doctor Who), but that was April-June, and it'll do better earlier in the year (as the first two series did).

Just checked the overnights, the last series averaged just under 5m (4.99m) in the overnights, though the avearge was affected by episode 3 rating just 2.7m - if I remember correctly that was on ridiculously early for some reason.

Series 1 rated at 6.39m, series 2 at 6.28m. Quite a drop from 2 to 3 really, but then Series 2 was aired beween January and February, while Series 3 was broadcast between March and June.

Mayeb Marco Pierre White will pop up on stage halfway through the auditions to advertise it?

Im amazed at all the fuss about ratings, more ratings than another program doesnt means its any better , theres alot of dross that ive seen on tv with high ratings. In the end of the day its rating that make channels money, unfortunately the quality of british tv has nosedived beyond belief.

Bmac
In the old days something like University Challenge would attract 13 million viewers and Mastermind once attracted 20 million. Now a lot of high rated shows are mindless dross aimed at the lowest common denominator. Large parts of the population rarely bother with the television now as it is so downmarket and unwatchable.

Doctor Who needs to be on later, at least 7pm like it used to be.

and CSI NY didnt compete with Casualty until this series, that to me seems to be the problem.

I think after what happened last year with Boyle they were never going to put their trump card on episode one. I expect the big moments will come in the latter half of the audition episodes - I doubt they'll be saved completely for the final one, but around the 4th-6th episode.


More Talent often gets more than 2m IIRC - it's much more successful than The Xtra Factor. And the fact they're two completely different shows should have helped The Prisoner. Put on something too similar and ITV2 will probably be beating ITV1.




The BBC isn't a commercial subscription operation though. A better deal for the BBC, ratings wise at least, would have been more extensive rights of the Carling Cup. The live Championship games were commissioned for all the wrong reasons really and if the BBC still had FA Cup, England or European rights they wouldn't have been interested.


Talking of the BBC though and questionable scheduling - the London Marathon next week starts at 8.30am on BBC2, then moved to BBC1 at 10am.

It's Match of the Day and Andrew Marr as usual on BBC1 so I see no reason why they couldn't be shunted to BBC2 as usually happens.

Although they often switched from BBC1 to BBC2 at midday or so after the main elite races, first time I can recall them starting coverage on BBC2. Seems pretty stupid really.

Television viewing has been growing since 2006 and is hitting record highs so I don't think "large parts of the population rarely bother with the television now". With round the clock current affairs, old quiz shows and documentary channels, there's arguably more shows that would appeal to the University Challenge audience.

I think television is becoming more niche now, which is fragmenting the audience. ITV2 in the main is aimed at young women, a pensioner is unlikely to find much to interest them, whereas ITV3 is aimed mostly at over 40s, a twentysomething woman probably won't be watching Foyle's War repeats.

I think that's definitely true for digital channels. But ITV1/BBC1 and even C4 still seem to get a very wide audience.

More on volcanio 'disaster' in Iceland, and one show in America that is set to be massively affected is WWE Raw on USA Network. They're supposed to be live in New Jersey on Monday, but the Raw talent are 'stuck' in Ireland.

The SmackDown talent are back in America, so for one week only it looks like WWE Raw may be on MyNetwork TV on Friday and WWE SmackDown on Monday on the USA Network.

OK, they'll probably have to go by their TV names (Raw on Monday, SmackDown on Friday), but in effect it'll be the 'opposite' talent that's working the shows.