Don't know the average, but it peaked at 4.3 million viewers and a 24.2% audience share.

Source: Media-Tel.

Do you know how Panorama did on Monday night at 8:30 on BBC One?

Many Thanks.

Solid peak there.

I reckon Ronaldo draws alot of interest-alot wanting to see how he reacts when the team got dumped out and quite a few revelling in it.. In truth Portugal were poor.

Emmerdale a bit bad......
The Bill

Even with England gone, there's still a healthy appetite for the World Cup and 10.21 peak audience for Portugal v Spain will please the BBC. Barring yesterday afternoon, the other knockout matches have been good.

2.4m (10%)

Cheers for that!

Apparently ITV have not submitted a bid for Five. That's a relief at least. A joint bid between John De Mol, Big Brother creator and Greek broadcaster Antenna gives Big Brother fans some hope:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...nnel-five-sale

The creatively bankrupt teaming up with the financially bankrupt. Five should go from success to success with that backing.

Fives problems are all about scale. THis does nothing to address that problem. The fact that ITV aren't interested suggests that Five doesnt have much future at all.

They were interested, since they are said to have considered a bid. But not interested enough to submit an offer. I'd suggest that has more to do with the financial climate than anything else.

That's fine. What could ITV bring to the party anyway? ITV1 is not exactly going from strength to strength is it?

It highly likely it will be a European broadcasting company that will buy Five as ITV, BSkyB and Richard Desmond would face regulation problems.

I imagine Talkback Thames will be sold seperatly rather than together as it's bound to attract companies like Endemol, Shine Group etc due to its backcatalogue and formats. Shine already has a relationship with Fremantlemedia as they distribute some of their shows and formats like Masterchef in Australia and Merlin.

Unrivalled Business success and decision making just look at On digital/ITV Digital, Friends Reunited, the Fa Cup deal......... It goes on and on.

Merging the back office, sales and management structure. Buying power from independents and overseas.

The programming budget for five is basically locked anyway. There are long term deals for CSI, Neighbours, Home & Away, etc that tie up the vast majority of the discretionary programming budget.

Five's non-programming costs are too high relative to revenue. This deal wouldnt address that.The market isnt big enough for a stand alone Five in its current format of 1 terrestial plus 2 FTA digital channels. Thats the sad truth. And it aint going to get better for that business model next year or the year after.

I struggle to see how a Greek tv company that cant access capital markets is going to be able to bankroll fives outdated business model.

A catalogue of failures. I'd forgotten just how bad ITV's track record is so thanks for the reminder.

Some other interesting stories doing the rounds today...

(1) BARB launches new virtual online meter trial:


Source & more: http://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2010/...l-meter-trial/

(2) Flagship news programmes on the rise, except Channel 4 News:


Source & more: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/b...015570.article

the attempts at diversification havent worked for ITV but the core channel management has worked well. They have 3 m/c stations that generate close on $200m of profit per annum and ITV1 is profitable. Without going through the painful re-organisations that ITV has done over the last 5 years the station would now be bankrupt

Like last year's farce, designed to keep 2nd April's EastEnders behind Coronation St?

All that effort, then a Christmas EastEnders episode wiped the floor with the rest of the year's soap ratings!

Exactly. I wish people would quit with the sour grapes, just because their favourite channel is getting lower ratings through its own choice.

The BARB list might miss the match out altogether, like they did with EastEnders one year.

It will do this year as i think most of the oldies go to bed about 7 on xmas day

I expect EastEnders to be bad tonight as well and even though it's a big epiosde is doesn't seem to have been promted and the Gap between Fri and tonight won't help and seeing a weds at 8:00pm is not it's normal slot i think Unders 7m(or just 7m)

Corrie will do better as it's on after Emmerdale

Channel 4 should have put a bid in for Five and switched a lot of the channel content over, e.g. dramas and imports off to Channel 4 with cheap documentaries off to Five. The ratings would most likely then be the right way round- Five deserves C4 ratings, with C4 deserving Five's. Five could basically become a FTA E4/More4 hybrid and manage to sustain about 1m viewers on average.

Also quite surprised ITV or Channel 4 didn't bid for it, they could have stripped it of its good programming, kept the Freeview slots if needed and then sold it again.

I hope Endemol aren't successful in buying Five and put Big Brother on it, that show has been flogged to death as it is and bringing it back is just public humiliation for all involved. Even Davina has said she doesn't want to do it if it goes to another channel.

So Dragon's Den returns to BBC TWO on Wednesday 14th July at 9pm.

Undercover Boss is on C4 on Thursday 15th July @ 9pm.

And I see in tonight's Evening Standard that ITVs event A:3K has now been delayed (due to England's dismal performance) until June 2011 - it was due to take place on July 17th at the 02.

So long as everyone knows that the World Cup ratings aren't of any use in comparisons, then I don't see why it matters. It has been discussed so often that I think everyone is well aware of the situation!

Its not "getting lower ratings". Its just about a league table.

People need to seriously lighten up about this and the usual guff from the newspapers and twitter. Are they seriously expecting Piers Morgan to twiiter to Alan Carr that his series average audience is 2.34531 times higher?