The one thing I can't get see is ITV allowing Simon to drop out of The X Factor (considering the judges make the show) or pulling The X Factor away from the lucrative Christmas market. They could film the Results show Saturday night and air ir Sunday though, which'd give Simon an extra travelling day so he can spend three days in the US, two days in the UK and two travelling.

I don't think he'll 'oversee' the UK show next year - he'll be in the background in terms of production, but leave it to trusted individuals to run; he has to do that while he's in front of the camera anyway. The USA show is more difficult as it's the first series, but as I said before I think he'll spend a lot of time over there at the audition/bootcamp stage to iron everything else then will take a step backwards come the live show, simply because the schedule won't allow him to be hands on.

As expected for the Mon-Fri schedules, but the weekend ones look a little bizarre. On Saturday TWL and Impressions seem to have been slotted into slots which seem to break up the evening. Surely it would be better to go DW, Lottery, Casualty and have a more solid schedule.

On Sunday wasn't Priceless AR that daytime show from BBC2, if so is this a repeat?? Surely BBC1 could find something better than that. Also Countryfile seems to be getting later and later! I think BBC1 have messed up with Sunday nights recently and have been left with nothing to air, weeks before the world cup even starts.

However the US version of WDYTYR is nice filler whilst the world cup is on I think,

And replace them with what??? Your just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.The viewers lost on Thursday and Friday will probanly not be made up from the Tuesday move.

Itv needs news shows not the soaps rearranged again

Jay Hunt trying to save face over one of her pet commissions by playing the final High Street Dreams in primetime?

If it stays at 7.30pm on the Friday, it could drop under 1m.

Agreed, but how can they launch these new shows? The pre-watershed is taken up with soap meaning only half hour programmes can be tried out (bar Wednesday where football will constantly interrupt) and the 9pm slot is generally unsuccessful. By moving the soaps to 8pm Tuesday, there are two (currently non-existent on soap days) hour long pre-watershed slots where new quiz shows, family dramas, documentaries can be launched. In both cases they would have a half hour head start on EastEnders which would benefit them more than starting head to head.

The 9pm problem is more difficult to solve, but I think they should theme each night (Monday - thriller, Tuesday - documentary, Thursday - non-crime drama, Friday - crime) and then comission half decent programming so people now exactly where they are.

Admittedly, the problem of all this is it costs money - if this week gives them enough of a profit they might be able to start thinking about improving the rest of the year. Alternatively, it could all go to shareholders.

Considering the slot, they may as well play it out at 5pm - it'd probably get a bigger rating there.

... Oops.

They'd be better off running the George Gently repeat at 7.30, starting at the same time as the England match kicks off. Who on earth is going to switch back after the first half of the football, to watch Gently at 8.30pm?!

Sheer madness!

The best move is definitely to strip the soaps across the week at 8pm but realistically its always going to be Emmerdale first then Corrie. I bet the BBC (and they've made no secret of it in the past) would be more than happy, so then they can have The One Show and Eastenders across the 7pm hour with filler on a Wednesday. ITV would also be able to move 'Tonight' to 7pm to follow directly after ITV News and ITV have a 7pm hour which will basically be filler where they could then accomodate the soaps when they are needed to be moved (e.g. Football, BGT etc). 7pm is also a good slot if they wanted weekday entertainment shows like The Whole 19 Yards or Millionaire etc.

The soaps need a recognised time and a day, and you can't get more recognised then the same time on a weekday. They're allover the place at the minute and ITVs 9pm schedules clearly need somewhat of a boost everyday.

You could argue that, but they don't want Doctor Who anywhere near the England game. Although I'm not 100% sure if that's confirmed, could still change as we've seen in previous weeks.

I guess they think George Gently may pull people in at half time and for the final half hour (why anyone would watch the last half hour of a detective show is anyone's guess but they do) whereas High Street Dreams would have no chance.

If the soaps are rearranged then it actually opens up the schedules meaning they can make worthwhile commissions. At the minute the schedules are very clunky and allover the place, so become quite restricted when it comes to commissioning new content. The soaps in the 8pm hour immediately opens up 5 hours in the week where previously they would have awkward slots and airing crap like Dickinsons Real Deal or Countrywise.

Bad news for Pizzatheaction... from BBC News...

LATEST: This summer's series of BBC One comedy Last Of The Summer Wine will be the last, BBC confirms

I was fairly certain it was coming. The producer had been told, but the BBC had asked him to keep it quiet until August.

Bit sneaky to slip the news out today, though, given the Cumbria situation.

I actually think the BBC are very happy with how EastEnders is scheduled at the moment and wouldn't want to move the Monday/Friday episodes to 19:30. It actually wouldn't benefit BBC1 at all. In fact, it'd probably lose EastEnders viewers due to the slot change!

I agree that ITV's soap schedule is clunky, but that's their own fault for moving the soaps around all over the place in the last few years. An ITV 8-9pm soap block would mean 1 less episode of Corrie and 2 less episodes of Emmerdale per week (due to football disrupting Wednesdays). It's not something which will happen, especially since the BBC would refuse to move EE in the first place.

Sounds familiar:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rides_(TV_series)

I wonder how bad Junior Apprentice will drop tonight... anyone think sub 4m?

Possibly, but I'm going to watch it and look at who's going though on BGT on twitter/DS.

A mix of 9pm and 10pm again then. Sensible move on eviction night, though the 11.15pm end means it'll still have to be recorded and put on a delay anyway.



And although we know he turns up on Fridays and pretends he's coached his contestants all week, it makes a mockery of the concept they "mentor" the contestants if we - and more importantly the US viewers - know he is flying back and too every week.

Also along with Simon he wants much of the production team to be involved on the show too.

Not surprised it was once funny but now half the cast has changed it's just not the same

EastEnders did better then i expected and seems to have held up well against BGT and The BBC3 reapt did well too.

I think the BBC will struggle tonight with No EastEnders as i can't see waterloo road holding up at all.

The BBC should have gone with the origianl plan and aired EastEnders tonight at 7:30pm rather then the hour Monday

Corrie's figure is good also but i think had ITV aired Corrie at 8;00pm it could have got some boost from EastEnders as it seems when soaps follow they help eachother about abit.

It would have been nice for the BBC and ITV to come to an agreement for once and have EastEnders 7:30pm,Corrie at 8:00pm ,BGT 8:30pm-10:00pm
and would have benefitted both channels

And ITV would lose half an hour of BGT - not in their interests, even if ratings are down.

The BBC could easily have rested The One Show and given EE the 7pm slot for the week (and perhaps put The One Show at 7.30pm).

Oh yeah!
EastEnders at 7;00pm against Emmerdale?
I dunno theres only 3 more days now and then things shoudl get back to normal(well sort of)

I dont see why the BBC should have moved Eastenders so that Corrie and BGT get a free run for the night.


Interesting analysis. Shows that BBC1 is quite resistant and usually only crumbles against the big event shows.


Well im sure they arent too upset with the ratings but they will be asking for reduced rates next year I would have thought.


Last night's Luther was fantastic. I have watched all 5 and have enjoyed them all but some people seem to have been very critical. A shame the best episode of the series was against such strong competiton.


A very good point about the World Cup restricting BGT's coverage in the press.

A post I saw in another thread made a very valid point. It said that last year's BGT was a phenomena but this year it was just a very popular TV show.

Although I'm a fan of the Apprentice, the Junior version flopping is probably best for the life of the show.

Otherwise the BBC would be tempted to recommission the real one and the junior one every year plus the celebs one every 2 years meaning it would be overkill, and Lord Sugar would be saying 'You're Fired' practically every week of the year.