ABC:
8pm - Movie: Transformers - 4.81m (1.8)

CBS:
9pm - Criminal Minds - 12.81m (3.1)
* Season finale
10pm - CSI: NY - 11.90m (2.7)
* Season finale

NBC:
Repeats

FOX:
8pm - Amercian Idol Finale - 24.2m (8.2)
* Lowest finale audience since season 1 & lowest 18-49 finale rating ever
* Down 16% in viewers & 18% in demo vs last season
* Largest audience since February
* First hour - 19.7m, Second hour - 26.6m

Tvbythenumbers - includes Idol spoiler

Not great for Idol, continuing a fairly limp end to this season. The season started strongly with Simon Cowell's resignation announced the day before the premiere, guest judges and the arrival of Ellen Degeneres. However, since the Hollywood stage 15 weeks ago, only 2 week-to-week gains have been recorded for the key Tuesday performance show.

FOX and 19 Entertainment must now continue their search for a successor, which FOX Chairman Peter Rice says is the biggest decision facing them just now. Elton John turned down $33m a year, now talk turns to Madonna. After 7 years in which the panel did not change, there will now be 3 new judges and only 1 original remaining (Randy Jackson).
__________________________
Last night was the last night of the US TV season (although NBC and ABC just gave up). As usual, summer is a quieter period after all the activity of May. Each network is anchored by reality series. CBS has Big Brother 3 times a week, NBC has America's Got Talent, ABC runs Wipeout and The Bachelorette while FOX goes with So You Think You Can Dance and Hells Kitchen. A handful of scripted series this year as usual, but most (probably all) will fail. ABC have 4 hours over Sunday & Thursday, NBC have one international co-production and a comedy to burn off on Thursdays while FOX air Lie To Me and The Good Guys on Mondays.

Cable channels will lead the way in scripted content. Last summer, The Disney Channel topped the ratings one week with The Wizards of Waverly Place movie beating all the broadcast competition. The last scripted show to launch on one of the big 4 in summer and be a success was The OC all the way back in August 2003.

IMO FOX should give up finding a successor to Simon and replace Idol with The X Factor. I imagine it will happen anyway if Idol continue to decline in the ratings.

Criminal Minds and CSI: NY held up amazingly well considering they up against Idol. It will be interesting how the new pairup of Criminal Minds and The Defenders does as I think Defenders will be a flop and likely be replaced by the Criminal Minds spin-off at midseason.

S1: 23.02m (10.8)
S2: 38.06m (16.8)
S3: 28.84m (12.0)
S4: 30.27m (12.5)
S5: 36.38m (14.2)
S6: 30.76m (11.5)
S7: 31.69m (11.4)
S8: 28.86m (10.0)
S9: 24.20m (8.2)

I think the same as if Channel 4 have a hit that features the host of BB, then this would fit the slot well. Also it would mean Davina, who could be jobless after September, would be known as someone other than the woman who used to do BB.

If XF is a success and Idol declines more, I think that's ultimately what will happen. But for now, every other network would jump at the chance to pick up Idol if FOX cancelled it and they can't take that risk. I think Idol has at least 2 more years to go even if XF is a hit.

UK TV Guide has updated for week beginning June 5th for ITV1, confirming:

Saturday 5th June
18:00 - You've Been Framed!
18:30 - The Whole 19 Yards
19:30 - Britain's Got Talent - The Final
22:00 - FILM: Batman Begins
23:30 - ITV News and Weather
23:45 - FILM: Batman Begins

Sunday 6th June
15:00 - Britain's Got Talent - The Final (R)
17:30 - Regional News and Weather
17:45 - ITV News and Weather
18:00 - Soccer Aid 2010
22:00 - Piers Morgan's World Cup South Africa
23:00 - ITV News and Weather

Monday 7th through Friday 11th June
- all schedules as expected, no extra soaps. Taggart repeat is on the Friday @ 9pm. 1 extra episode of Emmerdale on Tuesday making it 1 hour long.

Nice to see ITV schedulers showing their inability to schedule, again. You do not, under any circumstances, schedule a film after potentially one of the biggest peaks of the year.

And nice also to see Piers Morgan infecting ITV's World Cup coverage.

I think The X Factor will harm Idol more than help it especially if audiences don't respond well to Simon's successor and two musical shows per year could cause fatigue although saying that other reality shows like DWTS, Biggest Loser etc have two seasons a year.

I actually think apart from the England game is could have got 2-2.5m in the 9pm slot this week - the problem is though with the earlier slot I think the expectations would be more 3-3.5m, and whether it would have got that is questionable. However, the brand and show is established now and a second season at 9pm should work - if C4 can shoehorn it in the schedule in a week they know it's got a shot of performing.


No way it would replace the entire BB, but I could see it running for a week or two in January, then perhaps return in May and September - indeed Millionaire followed a similar sort of scheduling pattern in it's first year on air.

I think ITV's film awards have given Junior Apprentice a boost for the rest of its series. However low it falls next week will still be higher than it would otherwise have been.

BBC3 done well last night, beating channel 4 and BBC2 in the 9pm hour:

19:40: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (film rpt) - 1.33m (6.1%)
22:00: England's Worst Ever Football Team - 894,000 (5.8%)

just notice something on the BBC Press website



Formula 1 could move to BBC 2, I suppose, its not mentioned however

Just checking the ratings for American Idol and 24 million would equal about 5 million in Britain. Our successor, the X Factor, usually gets double that in relative terms. Perhaps either the Americans have so much television to choose from they're flicking around with their remotes or maybe they're not as obsessed with these shows as we are.

ooh Digiguide had an update, was not expecting that.

EE is moving to 7pm

Tuesday 7pm - 8pm
Friday 7pm

no clash with England World Cup on ITV, and Holby City still gets to air, with The One Show being off air, it seems logical.

Digiguide does not have Doctor Who on it, know the C4 channels of the Five channels, but ive seen the Five schedule, nothing note worthy to mention.

It's the former - American Idol has been the biggest show on US TV for the last 6 or 7 years. It's massive, and basically propelled Fox to the top of the network pile.

US TV is basically about 5-10 years ahead of the UK in terms of the development of cable. Shows on basic cable can be huge hits, and - in the summer - can sometimes top broadcast stuff, as I understand it. Plus, of course, you have to remember that broadcast viewing in the US is split between four big networks, and one small one - rather than two big, and three small ones here in the UK.

Interesting about EastEnders... what that does mean is that confirms why there was 4 episodes the week before, to 'make up' for 3 episodes in this week quite clearly.

As for Doctor Who, what is the provisional BBC1 schedule then?

Doctor Who, a few posts above

just notice something on the BBC Press website



not sure what BBC plan is here, maybe move the Grand Prix to BBC 2

on Digiguide its TBA from 17:40 - 1930, Lottery until 20:20, then TBA until 21:20 then Casualty

Well I know that, but what does it show on DigiGuide? If there's a TBA from 7:30pm to 8:15pm, then it'd go there.

I'm not quite sure on the F1 contract, I know it says races can only move in unprecedented circumstances, not sure whether that applies for Qualifying as well. If its in the contract the Qualifying has to be on BBC One unless unprecedented circumstances prevent it from doing so (Royal family death or something on that scale).

EDIT: Just seen your post above - what's on BBC2 at the same time?

The POTC film is a very good ratings baker for BBC3, it got 1.5m just 2 months ago.

These football/World Cup shows always do well before the big tournaments and the Worst Ever Team programme was very enjoyable.

6% share for BBC3 over 4 hours is very good indeed.

The cable revolution took off about 15 years before the digital revolution in Britain and has fragmented American television audiences far more than here. Sport was the first to see the potential in the mid eighties and within ten years the three main networks had become about as relevant as ITV Sport was here in the mid nineties and news channels took large chunks of the audience away from ABC, CBS and NBC News as the coverage was better and a rolling service. Also not to mention such well known international brands as MTV, which could only have happened on cable, and Playboy.

BBC 2

17:00 - TBA
17:30 - Dads Army
18:00 - 06:00 TBA

lots of space on BBC 2 and Dads Army they can cancel, infact im amazed they bothered to schedule it.

Might as well have the whole race on BBC 2.

The major broadcast networks are also more competitive than in the UK where BBC2/C4 are bogged down by public service requirements and Five don't have the budget. BBC1 and ITV1 are the only channels who consistently chase big ratings and have the means to do it. In the US it's quite common for FOX, NBC, CBS and ABC to be airing expensive scripted content in the same hour and they all win a handful of primetime hours a week (even NBC!). Bigger players fighting for a smaller share of the overall pie thanks to cable.

The CW is only the 11th most watched channel in the US behind the likes of ESPN, USA Network, TNT and, dare I say it, FOX News. And yet its original drama output in the next season will top 200 hours.

In some ways it's disappointing because you don't often get huge ratings like we see here. But then there's also a huge amount of choice for viewers. And perhaps hope that the growth of digital channels here doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing and that they might be able to up their output of original programming in the long run as ratings increase.

Just for fun then.... not serious at all.

US Ratings translated to UK Ratings
ABC
20:00 - FILM: Transformers - 0.96m

CBS
21:00 - Criminal Minds - 2.57m
22:00 - CSI: NY - 2.39m

FOX
20:00 - Amercian Idol Finale - 4.85m

UK Ratings translated to US Ratings
BBC One
19:00 - The One Show: 20.44m
19:30 - RHS Chelsea Flower Show: 15.96m
20:00 - Waterloo Road: 20.44m
21:00 - Junior Apprentice: 25.93m

ITV1 (inc. ITV HD)
19:00 - Emmerdale: 31.91m
19:30 - Coronation Street: 40.39m
20:00 - The National Movie Awards: 13.96m

Channel 4 (inc C4 +1)
21:00 - Desperate Housewives: 5.98m
22:00 - The Million Pound Drop Live: 11.97m

Five
21:00 - NCIS: 10.47m
22:00 - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 3.99m



Source: UK population of 62,041,708; US population of 309,359,000.

So basically, American's have no right to smile even if their programmes do get over 20m.

...and what's happening in Emmerdale to make it (sorry), trend on Twitter?

Don't forget Got To Dance. That was a success, and has been recommissioned, meaning even if The Million Pound Drop had not worked out, she would still have had something coming up after Big Brother ends.

She's also got that new ITV1 series.

Yeah she actually has a few things coming up. Davina won't have a problem post-BB - she was on 5Live the other day and she said as soon as the axe was announced the job offers came flooding in.

And nice to see MPD doing well - my family's hooked.