I wonder why BBC1 have suddenly gone for a Tuesday night hour long for EastEnders? I think it's the right thing to do - and'll really strengthen BBC1's performance agakinst ITV IMO - but why the emphasis on Thursday's in the recent past?

The soaps did really well last night, though the 8.30pm share for Coronation Street looks strange compared to it's rating. Who Do You Think You Are? performed excellently, but Identity improved on last week which'll please ITV. Big Brother did well - though not the powerhouse for Channel 4 that it was it can still pull it 2.5m regularly which shouldn't be sniffed at. I reckon it could outrate most of ITV1's shcedule tonight.

In the same slot on a Sunday last year against The Apprentice final, the conclusion of the launch night (and subsequently an eviction) drew a whopping 1.9m to Channel 4 so basically a scale:

Under 2m- disaster
2-2.3m- as expected
2.4m-2.8m- brilliant
2.9m+ do a uturn on a commission for series 12

I'm expecting 2.1m.

May be helped with a fairly big housemate leaving today though.

That's what I'm expecting, no idea what it is though.

New housemate/interview with Caoimhe/both

Below are the top 10 cable channels for the week with a selection of their top shows. The number in brackets is the rating in the 18-49 demographic. Additional demo's are provided underneath where relevant. Scripted series are in italics. The top 3 are all driven by scripted programming, with USA and TNT each broadcasting 5 original series just now.

Deadliest Catch had the highest 18-49 rating on all television last week, topping the MLB All Star Game and America's Got Talent.

USA was back on top this week with its scripted big hitters all on air. Disney also passed the 3m mark with big ratings for Sonny With A Chance and Hannah Montana. TNT will be pleased with their top 2 drama ratings.

#1 – USA – 3.25m (0.9)
Burn Notice – 5.65m (1.8)
Royal Pains – 5.20m (1.6)
Covert Affairs – 4.88m (1.6)
WWE Raw – 4.78m (1.7)
White Collar – 4.29m (1.2)
Psych – 3.68m (1.1)

#2 – DISNEY – 3.05m (0.5)
Sonny With A Chance – 6.12m (0.9)
* T12-17 – 6.2, K2-11 – 7.5
Hannah Montana Forever – 5.40m (1.0)
* T12-17 – 5.4, K2-11 – 6.2
Wizards of Waverly Place – 3.63m (0.7)
* T12-17 – 3.1, K2-11 – 4.4
Suite Life On Deck – 3.47m (0.6)
* T12-17 – 2.9, K2-11 – 4.3

#3 – TNT – 2.63m (0.7)
The Closer – 7.66m (1.5)
Rizzoli & Isles – 7.55m (1.6)
Leverage – 3.93m (1.0)
Memphis Beat – 2.95m (0.7)
Hawthorne – 2.65m (0.7)

#4 – FOX NEWS – 1.96m (n/a)
The O’Reilly Factor – 3.60m
Hannity – 2.51m
On The Record With Greta – 1.98m

#5 – TBS – 1.89m (0.8)
Meet The Browns – 2.31m (1.0)
Meet The Browns – 2.36m (1.0)

#6 – ESPN – 1.86m (0.7)
Home Run Derby – 6.42m (2.6)
ESPY Awards – 2.61m (1.3)

#7 – DISCOVERY – 1.67m (0.7)
Deadliest Catch – 8.55m (3.9)
After The Catch – 6.85m (3.2)
Mythbusters – 1.12m (0.5)
Dual Survival – 1.45m (0.6)

#8 – HISTORY – 1.52m (0.5)
Pawn Stars – 4.63m (1.7)
Pawn Stars – 5.17m (2.0)
Ice Road Truckers – 2.50m (0.9)
Top Shot – 1.74m (0.7)

#9 – ABC FAMILY – 1.46m (0.5)
Secret Life of the American Teenager – 3.09m (1.2)
* W18-34 – 2.5, T12-17 – 3.3
Huge – 1.89m (0.7)
* W18-34 – 1.5, T12-17 – 1.9
Pretty Little Liars – 2.69m (0.9)
* W18-34 – 2.5, T12-17 – 3.4
Make It Or Break It – 1.56m (0.6)
* W18-34 – 1.1, T12-17 – 1.8

#10 – NICKELODEON – 1.45m (0.3)

Others:
MTV - The Hills Finale – 2.95m (1.7)
* W18-34 – 4.2
MTV - The City – 2.33m (1.4)
* W18-34 – 3.5
HBO – True Blood – 4.86m (2.8)
* #1 drama of the week with A18-49

www.twitter.com/travisyanan

Fox News fourth?! Words fail me.

Its a shame they had to extend tomorrows out of all shows, I think if it stayed 10pm-11;10pm tomorrow would have got something like 2.8m with Caoimhe leaving, but with an extra 30 mins, probably 2.2m.

That's quite common. They can't compete with the big 3 (TNT, USA, DISNEY) but with a consistent all year round line-up of original content, they're regularly in the top 5 and always top 10.

MSNBC is slightly limited in primetime because their 10pm show is a repeat while FOX run "On The Record" and CNN have Anderson Cooper.

Although they won't let anyone know in their coverage, I suspect MSNBC will be cheering on the Republicans this November. With the Democrats controlling everything, they're in a tricky position.

BREAKING NEWS

Australia: MasterChef hits series high of 2.4m.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.49m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.43m
19:00 Home and Away 1.10m
19:30 Minute to Win it 0.87m
20:30 Packed to the Rafters (5/22) 1.91m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.29m
18:30 A Current Affair 1.28m
19:00 Two and a Half Men (R) 0.97m
19:30 Top Gear (R) 1.04m

Ten
18:00 The Simpsons (R) 0.57m
18:30 Neighbours 0.69m
19:00 The 7pm Project 1.21m
19:30 MasterChef Australia 2.40m
*equivalent episode last series averaged 2.19m.
20:30 NCIS (R) 0.89m

ABC1
19:00 ABC News 1.07m
19:30 7.30 Report 0.72m
20:30 Greatest Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones (6/6) 0.96m

Normally we'd all be praising Packed to the Rafters' rating, but Masterchef has eclipsed that somewhat. I'm pretty ignorant on Australian TV - have any other cooking shows been tried out over there? It's just I'm surprised other channels (and Ten) haven't looked to schedule more, like Hell's Kitchen, Iron Chef and Ready, Steady, Cook, considering the success of Masterchef.

Yes! In fact, Wikipedia notes that "Its success is despite initial belief from critics that the series would be a dud based on the performance of previous prime time cooking shows, as well as general cynicism against a new reality show format."

How wrong they were. As for future cooking shows in the pipeline, I haven't heard much on that front, but spinoff series Junior MasterChef launches later this year on TEN after the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Celebrity MasterChef last year was nowhere near as successful as the normal series though, it's worth noting.

Maybe they will try it again tomorrow, along with the Caoimhe interview. Even so, I'm a die-hard fan and have to say that 100 minutes is too long.

Thanks.

No wonder they're shy of trying anything else then. Maybe now might be time to try again and piggyback on the success of Masterchef - especially over the summer where it'll be cheaper to air than drama.

The BBC allways had the hour-specials on a Friday but once corrie moved to 8:30pm they begain having any on a Thursday and thats sort of stuck with them now.
There has been a few EastEnders Tuesday hour-longs and we do get them from time-time

I guess the storyline just fell ontonight so thats when they had the hour-long ?

Yeah, it's got to be worth a try. Perhaps an aussie version of Come Dine With Me could work.

TEN's schedule for Sunday confirmed as follows:

1830 Modern Family (New Episode)
1900 Rules of Engagement (New Episode)
1930 MasterChef Australia - Finale Night
2100 MasterChef Australia - Winner Announced
2130 Undercover Boss (New Series, U.S.)

Interesting albeit rather unoriginal idea to gift Undercover Boss the biggest lead-in of the year, replicating what we saw in the U.S. with the Superbowl.

Looking at the figures for Australlia, it looks like they really need to sort out Neighbours. Home and Away is getting over 1 million, surely that should be Neighbours' target too?

It's just ahead of the Simpsons which is pretty terrible!

Australian Come Dine With Me's already on one of the Foxtel channels so that format would be out of the question until their contract is up.

That's like saying Hollyoaks should be targeting Coronation Street's ratings.

Home and Away has always been more popular in Oz. It's on a better network at a better time - and its just generally more watched.

Holy sh*t! Masterchef is tearing it up. 7PM Project doing good business too, even Neighbours increasing ever so slightly.

Packed to the Rafters doing very well too, shame NCIS only had a 41% retention.

So they're having a 90 minute show split from the 30 minute result, but running one after the other on the schedules rather than having an all in one? Guess they're looking for a big audience in the 9pm show.

Because it was timed to coincide with the dedication of the new cemetery and the final interment of the last soldier that they'd found in the mass graves on the 94th anniversary of the battle. It was a very moving documentary.

Just a shame there isn't much on ITV1 Tuesday nights for EastEnders to crush. Bit of a waste last night really. (The Bill is already on its arse and in its coffin or it would have counted at one time)

I suppose technically EE won last night factoring out HD. I know it's generally included but if you think about it Corrie used to win even without HD, albeit marginally in more recent times compared to its comfortable victories of the past, so looks like the gap has decreased some more recently. Good news for the BBC and EE which is firing on all cylinders at the moment. Emmerdale is good too. Shame about Corrie which seems to be in some sort of chronic rut.

Excellent rating for WDYTYA.

Tuesday 21 July

- EastEnders pulls in best figures since 4 May, with a massive 42% share. Despite this, BBC Three also notches up a brilliant repeat rating of over 800,000
- However, it was Britain Goes Camping that won the multichannels for BBC Four, followed by Underage and Pregnant for BBC Three.
- The Bill ahead of CSI: Miami by just a fraction