BGT week probably wasn't the best week to fall behind with the Ratings Thread, but I've not been feeling very well. Just spent the last one hour catching up, starting on page 78!!!

BGT not doing as well this year, but it's to be expected, as there's no hype around it at all. Also, if I were ITV, I might be slightly worried about the format itself. I've only ever caught the odd episode of the show over the four years its been on, but it seems that unless you're a dance troop or a very young/very old singer, you've got no chance of winning the show. I could see people becoming sick of this, with all the semi-finals becoming bygone conclusions. Nevertheless, ITV will still be happy with 10m over two hours in slots where they've been struggling to get 3m recently.

Regarding Corrie, ITV made completely the right decision, even if it did ruin their big week. It was strange seeing how opinion changed from around 6:30pm on Wednesday (when it was first announced that night's ep would be pulled) to later on in the night and the next day when the news finally settled in. Also, their rescheduling of it next week seems to be quite neat and will have them back on track by the time the World Cup comes round (could you imagine old George Dixon trying to do something like that?!).

BBC One have had an alright week, with Waterloo Road, Watchdog, and to a certain extent, Holby City, being the only victims. Remember as well, they've a much weaker line up this year, as they had Ashes to Ashes and the 'proper' Apprentice last year. It was good to see Junior Apprentice's figures too, so hopefully it'll make a comeback. Maybe run a six episode run of the junior version in Feb/early March, with the normal version helping to support the summer line-up in July/August time.

Does anyone have the figures for Thursdays Five News at 5pm, and the 7pm news special. Thanks

God!! It must of took ages!

When i go on Holiday for a week , i struggle to go through all the posts - takes about a week to catch up!

It's moving too fast for me now, I can't keep up. I just have to miss a lot of it out.

Hope you're better Craig. Sure you spotted the pattern of ratings in and then pages of people telling us how they'd schedule it better!

Just found out that after next week Waterloo Road has been taken off yet again.There's only three episodes left in this series, clearly the BBC have no repect for viewers of this show.


The BBC is a joke under Jay Hunt

No need.

There is absolutely no evidence that CDWM's popularity is waning or that people are growing sick of it. The Sunday repeats on More4 are a multi-channel powerhouse.

OK so maybe new episodes are not reaching their full potential on first play, but these will fetch many more viewers in repeat form.

Viewers tend to prefer to watch it at teatime / early evening rather than primetime, that is all.

Just because they aren't showing any signs of waning now doesn't mean they won't in a few months time. Its best to jump the gun and get in there early.

I think they should consider going back to the 5 day format and just saving celebrity specials for prime time.

I get what you're saying but on that logic every programme should be pulled once it becomes successful just in case it might lose viewers in the future.

Although of course a large cross over audience I think the primetime versions probably attract quite a few viewers who never watch the daytime ones, and vice versa. As said too they repeat excellently - and remember with daytime especially on C4 viewers are used to seeing the same programme churned out week after week - and arguably each new week of Come Dine with Me is fresher than the likes of Countdown and Deal or No Deal.

I just don't think it's a show that people grow tired of really. A bit like Escape to the Country on the BBC, I don't see a problem with it running all year round. Especially since it's still very successful and C4 are not exactly brimming with shows that you could describe as that.

But if there are less prime time ones on then they become more 'appointment TV' and more people will watch. The Christmas special with Sherrie Hewson (which was hilarious ) was watched by 3.9m but the ratings atm are about 1.5m under that for the celebrity ones. Very good for C4 still, but clearly not reaching its full potential in its first showing and could easily be getting 3m+.

I don't think the ordinary series works as well in the hour long format, and I don't think the celebrity version works as well in the 5 day format.

Christmas specials of most shows rate higher though - 2.4m is no disaster. It's also worth noting C4 usually air the primetime version at 8pm and they've been head to head with some major competition (Dancing on Ice, The X Factor) and still pull in respectable figures.

Eventually of course people will tire of it but for now it's a format which can produce a mass volume of episodes and still feel fresh every week - unlike something like Secret Millionaire which soon suffered when C4 began to milk it for every penny it was worth.

Shows like Come Dine With Me have a limited life span so they may aswell get the most out of them while they are successful. Wife Swap, Supernanny, Gok Wan shows, How Clean is Your House were all big hitters once with the first two getting over 5m but the audience soon tired. I dont blame C4 for starting to milk the show and its not like the channel has that many hit shows to fill the schedules.

Thats Becuase of the world cup and EastEnders has an hour Slot that wednesday to make up for 2 episodes that will be missed.

This half of Waterloo road seems dull
the car crash last week didn't come too much either

The World Cup is no excuse though - I know it got delayed a week due to Holby taking the slot but the BBC were fully aware when the World Cup was coming and should have taken that into account not just when scheduling this series, but also when commissioning.

As Brekkie pointed out, by the time I passed by the "Here's how they should have schedule BGT" posts and "Here's how they could re-schedule Corrie" posts, it didn't really take that long

Is that The Ratings Thread (Part 10) I see looming on the horizon?

They should have and they've made a real cock up of scheduling this series, as all 20 episodes were supposed to air in one batch, so these episodes should have aired in January/February, as the way they were commissioned was for there to only be a 2 week break for Christmas, but as the start of the series was delayed because post-production took longer than expected, it had to run through Christmas, but delaying the second half of the series for three months and then missing weeks here, there and everywhere is ridiculous and they've treated this series very badly. I guess the ratings for the rest of this series don't matter too much though as a further two series (20 episodes in each) have already been commissioned.

Is it not about time the BBC got rid of Holby and Waterloo Road anyway? These sorts of continuing dramas are rapidly going out of fashion.

Oh that is a controversial subject. I think if they were on ITV they would have been axed as they dont seem to want "drama serials" anymore because of the cost, thus Heartbeat, The Royal and The Bill are all but gone.

Holby and Casualty still do very good business and are very handy at filling an hour. Waterloo Road is in a bit of trouble with its ratings falling, being messed around with scheduling wise and a lot of main characters leaving so that may well be finished within the next year or two.

Holby City is still popular, pulling in 5-6m most weeks. Most 9pm shows on BBC1 and ITV1 struggle to get that sort of average.

Waterloo Rd has been commissioned for 40 more episodes so that's not going to be cancelled any time soon. It's quite a risky commission, though, given its ratings recently have been quite low and there's a risk it won't recover too well.

I think the second half of the run was saved so that it didn't get in the way of Masterchef. It kinda makes sense to split the run each year having a Waterloo Road/Watchdog combo in the autumn and the spring, with Masterchef in the winter, but they really need to get their timings better.

I remember when WR appeared in the press pack for the week following Easter, we all said "We at least it'll be done and dusted by the World Cup." Well, they were hit by political events one week, which saw Holby bumped forward a night. But then that Holby two parter just completely screwed up the scheduling! And for a show that runs year round, do we really need two episodes in a week?!

There really needs to be some more forward planning from George Dixon and co., rather than the strategy of getting by week-on-week which they are currently pursuing.


I don't think they're going out of fashion, but looking at the BBC One schedules is quite depressing sometimes, as there is very little room for anything new pre-watershed.

I think Holby could take it's five million viewers with it to Wednesday, which could free up space on Tuesdays @ 8pm opposite ITV1's flop-zone. They could still run their 20 eps of Waterloo Road there, but could use the lack of opposition on the other side to TRY OUT SOMETHING DIFFERENT! Of course the arrival of Masterchef on BBC One makes this even more difficult now.

You would always run the risk that ITV1 could move some soaps into the Tuesday 8pm slot, but Jay Hunt should be taking more risks with the channel.

It could possibly be a lack of ideas though. Looking at Sunday's, you've Countryfile - which was on at 6pm in the winter - pushed all the way forward to 8:15pm and not finisihing til 9:15pm! Surely they could have found SOMETHING to put in there. They could even have held back HalcYon River Diaries for a couple of weeks to run there. Or they could have rested Antiques Roadshow whilst Lark Rise to Candelford was on, which would have given them more episodes in the bag at this time of year.

As I said above, more forward planning it needed, rather than just stumbling from week-to-week.

Casualty and Holby both get around 5-7m a week, why would they cancel them????

Waterloo Road I always thought was an effort to get younger viewers to watch BBC1, and the demo is very young, it gets about 4m average I think? But as far as I can make out about 40% 16-34 demo though people who have those stats can never colobrate this but imply it, so I may be wrong??

Wednesday used to be flop zone on BBC1 a lá Tuesday nite on ITV1 so if they are consistenetly geting circa 4m that's a huge improvement.

I tink if ITV1 found a programme that got them 4m on Tuesdays they would not cut it but maybe I'm wrong, would not be the first time

Why did that happen?

I dont know the exact details, but I think part a liverpool football stadinum fell down, the Sun printed an image (possibly with a headline) that the city took offence too, and it seems the people of liverpool have mostly stuck to there word, and now dont buy The Sun.

It's actually the Hillsbrough disater in Sheffield in 1989.

FA Cup semi-final, massive crush as fans were pushing to get into the stadium before kick off, that left about 100 dead.