Her bold claims sounded impressive until she followed it up with (and I quote):

"I predict that Price will surprise everyone with a new show that challenges everything you thought you knew about her."

Not really much I can add about X Factor this weekend. Doesn't mean we're necessarily on for a record-breaking series - there's so far to go and the bar was set so high last year - but there's certainly none of the drop off some were expecting.



I always notice that Countryfile seems to perform best in the early evening, so I think - if anything - the 6.30pm start time actually helped it. I think its one of those shows with rather a casual audience, so a less competetive, earlier slot suits it best. I imagine it could wind up in the 6pm hour quite regularly this autumn with Strictly maybe returning to Sundays.

Secret Britain has been something of a surprise summer success, but I think ITV1 will be satisfied with Horsepower. Heartbeat tops the day again which is a tad embarassing in the circumstances but that argument was raked over a few pages back and I think on balance it seems justified to wrap it up at last.


There are some interesting tidbits in there, but wrapped up amongst layers of classic "TV exec speak". It's particularly galling to hear the criticism of derivative TV considering what many of them fill their schedules with.

I can sort of understand with UKTV and Living, where they can only really commission the cheap stuff - but when Julian Bellamy dismisses "the middling and derivative", you wonder whether he's ever seen the endless property porn on his own channel. Same with Zai Bennett given the observational rubbish ITV2 has made it's name in.

I'm not really criticising them for making the shows - they have to look after their numbers, after all. But the pretense that they're all turning their noses up at that sort of TV comes across terribly false. Credit to Peter Fincham for being honest about the practical constraints of commissioning for ITV1 and needing to hit the mass market, not a niche.

Yeah, the ratings from any decade of Last of the Summer Wine's run have always compared well with other programmes of the day. It was only in 2007 that it began to struggle to make the BBC1 Top 30 on a regular basis, although it has returned to the chart for the final series.

I've been enjoying this year's series too, and it's nice that it was written with an awareness it would be the final series, although the writer stepped back from a "No going back" ending in case the BBC changed their minds again, as they did in 1996 and 2009.

I think she was talking about pay TV in general (more likely Sky1) rather than Living where the call seems to be for more UK reality/entertainment series. Although Living have commissioned their first UK drama recently so perhaps they do have plans to go down that road.

Yeah, there was a documentary called 25 Years of Last of the Summer Wine in 1997, followed six ( ) years later, in 2003, by 30 Years of Last of the Summer Wine.

The budgets are interesting to me-BBC1's budget bigger than all of ITV's channels-and when you think about it J Ross pay isnt much more than a pin prick in that(for numerous series and presenting one-offs)-and the half a million more for Christine Bleakley even less. So is the sports rights budget separate or part of the whole-given that sports can end up on any of the BBC channels?

Yes I thought there was-and well put together if I remember.

It would be nice if they updated the documentary to cover the last seven years, and showed it at some point over Christmas, but I don't think they have any inclination to do that.

That made me too, especially considering he has recently commissioned '' new and original'' formats like Help my house is falling down, Stand up for the week and coming soon a new retail based show with Mary Portas. Where do they get all these new ideas?

Fairly good night for both BBC1 And ITV1 ( except Stephen Ballon Adventure)

The X Factor getting some more promotion abou the Autotune on ITV News I see!

And on The One Show. Any coverage on Live From Studio Five?

You're onto something. Given they had earlier timeslots in the recent couple of weeks, 101 Ways is not performing the levels to what Total Wipeout had last year. To compare.

Total Wipeout (4th July - 29th August, 9 episodes)
4.34
5.05
4.68
3.96
4.76
4.81
4.45
2.60
3.56

101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow (10th July - 28th August, 8 episodes)
4.19
4.05
4.11
3.41
3.54
3.39
2.82

Ratings Trivia-- what caused Total Wipeout to fall so low for episode 8? TXF again?

Usual drivel from most of them. Don't like the more female orientated direction they seem to want to take E4.

Yep, TXF was the first episode of the series and both clashed for 40 minutes. Total Wipeout started at 18.40, TXF at 19,00.

ITV1 now promoting Daybreak.

Good for BBC One and ITV1 with Secret Britain and Horsepower, it's clear Horsepower hit SB but I'm sure ITV will commision more documentaries with Martin Clunes, he's a good host and although I didn't see Horsepower, I thought Islands of Britain was a very good documentary.

Poor for DSB but Terminator 3 did well for Five considering they've shown it a lot. Vexed fell but I think it may get renewed as it's not often that a BBC Two drama does well that isn't a one-off.

Reading the channel controller interviews, it's a surprise that Jeff Ford wasn't interviewed but I guess he's only just got the job as director of programme so a strategy isn't in place especially with a change of ownership.

Donkey power, more like!


Pfffffffffffffffttttttttttt!

Not the best of nights then for ITV's Commissioner-in-Chief, Mr Partridge - "get back to the Travel Tavern, and send us more Cowell, and quickly..."


Recommissions for both due then?

All early reports. More details should be released tomorrow.

Link 1: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/23...en-again/60743

The Glades (A&E) - 3.3m
Mad Men (AMC) - 2.4m

Link 2: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/23...mo-highs/60764

Army Wives (Lifetime) - 3.91m (season finale)

Link 3: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/23...premiere/60773

Keeping Up With The Kardashians (E!) - 4.7m (season premiere)

In other news:

Link 4: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/23...he-stars/60813

Meanwhile, Jersey Shore's The Situation is reported to be signed to season 11 of ABC's Dancing With The Stars. This should do huge ratings favours again for ABC after Kate Gosselin's appearance in season 10.

I'll give it till Christmas...

It's a truly awful name. Why not just call it "ITV Breakfast"?

Or "The Breakfast Factor"?

"Britain's Got Breakfast"?

To many people it will be GMTV for a few years, i think TVAM is the same if you were around that era, even people today sometimes say TVAM

I think they should have called ITV1's new breakfast show..The Crack of Dawn..

It's a shame that Dexter didn't get more viewers on Friday, but for me it wasn't convenient to watch it then so I watched the Sunday showing.

I think there's a balance. It's good to have people talking about the show and the occasional speculative "fix" claim is fine. What's not so good is if all the "mystery" is stripped away and how the show is made becomes a bigger deal than the show itself (am I making any sense?!) It's not as if the show is in a position where it needs to take whatever publicity it can get. It can afford to be picky and I think it might be better if this went away quickly!

I doubt this will have much impact either way this week, however. The press are loving it but I doubt anyone will tune in specifically to see if they use autotune again! Given the hype on the first episode this year, I'd expect a fair drop from that but nothing too major (10%-ish).

And have Dawn Porter as the host?

Ratings have gone up for GMTV lately, ITV should have just overhauled it under the GMTV name rather than renaming it Daybreak.