They were shown on Sky Movies. Never spotted them on Sky1 or Sky Box Office.

Plenty of medicore ITV light ent shows often get decent ratings too. Last night's pairing didn't, but other offerings do. Family Fortunes and Mr and Mrs, for example.

Yes the guy has just remained calm-good on him, but it hasnt made for great tv unfortunately. I guess we will find out tomorrow how much event status The Open has as there has been no hook to pull people in today-unlike last year.

Both big brand names, though. It's a lazy way of doing it but remakes tend to work. Family Fortunes in particular can benefit from where it sits in the schedule.

(Plus, from what I saw of 101 Ways... last week, mediocre would be lavishing praise on it!)

It's a difficult one to call to be honest. But I have been amused at how people on this thread have been gradually increasing the threshold as to what they would consider to be an "acceptable" rating as the week has gone, seemingly based purely on the number of times they've seen it advertised! No doubt these same individuals will take great delight in dismissing its ratings tomorrow if they don't meet their ridiculously high standards.

First it was anything below 1m would be a flop, then someone raised it to 1.5m, which was soon followed by 2m, and now we're up to a cool 2.5m. We'll probably have hit 4m by morning if this keeps up.

The truth, as if often the case, is somewhere in between. Back in 2004 they spent about 5 times as much as they are spending on DSB on their first reality TV series Back To Reality, which launched to 1.2m viewers and that was on a cold winters night. Later that same year, The Farm debuted with an almost identical audience. Both of those figures are officials, so the overnights would have been lower still. Based on this, and taking into account numerous factors such as the 7pm timeslot, 90 minute runtime and competition including Coronation Street, anything above 1.5m would make this a "hit" in my book.

I think Odd One In and Magic Numbers will stay in their slots for a few weeks, but I'm not sure there'll be time to show all the episodes. ITV will now be back-scheduling from Christmas, so we might find a couple of editons of each of the two shows used over the Christmas period instead.

Speaking of The Farm, this will go down as Five's most controversial moment, though round about the same time they were showing Cathouse, a sex tips show made in a legal brothel. Obviously a million or so would be tempted to watch these shows.

The pacing is all wrong. Very slow for the first half hour, then (comparatively) rushed for the second half hour
I think the sadistic element draws people in, though.

Still going on about the ITV Saturday night disaster, I think ITV are missing the obvious thing to do. They have a of a lot of Emmerdale and Corrie to burn off because of the World Cup. Instead of wasting money and resources on commissioning new shows, they should have used it as a good opportunity to catch up and to get a decent rating at a traditionally tough time.

The reason why people have been upping their predictions is simple, as I don't think anyone expected Five to be pushing it so much. It's been very heavily advertised, more than anything I can remember on Five (more than FlashForward) and therefore 2.5m seems a perfectly reasonable number to expect of it. If you want to lower your expectations so that you can lavish praise all over it whatever it gets tomorrow morning then feel free to, but if it is below 2m then soemthing has gone wrong.

It will appeal to a totally different audience to ITV's much older skewing dramas and it has a half hour head start on them. Nothing else on against it can be classed as significant competition for it. It will also have a ~2m lead in (Nemo will probably peak at above 2m by the end but lets be conservative) so a drop from its movie lead in would be poor considering the amount of hype it's had.

The reason why the two reality shows you've mentioned only debuted with 1.2m is because they were crap and unoriginal, and it was obvious from the marketing, which is the complete opposite of DSB's marketing which makes it look fun and fresh.


Odd One In may have a couple of episodes held for Christmas but Magic Numbers is live so if there is no time to show them all (dunno why there wouldn't be) then they'll just shorten the series. If ratings don't improve (and I doubt they will) then they should cut it to 5 episodes so something new will be starting on the night X Factor starts (if XF starts on the same Saturday as it did last year).

The TV landscape has changed a lot since 2004 though, it would have been impossible for Five to have a hit back there, whereas tonight, they could have a hit. A lot changes in six years.

But soaps on a Saturday is just so wrong and the ratings would reflect this. They would pull in decent audiences of course but the episodes would probably be about 2m down on what they could get on a weeknight.

ITV would still probably choose 5-6m for Emmerdale and Corrie over getting 2-3m on new shows.

You don't really lose track by missing one episode so it probably wouldn't affect overall viewership.

Anyone else thinking DSB will actually get above 2m now??

you can not air a soap on a saturday, but its beyond stupid,

Take Me Out

One good reason why not? Just because its never happened before? There isn't much going on in either soap and no episodes would be that pivotal, so as already said 5-6m for a show that needs to be burned off to catch up over a new show getting 2-3m makes sense. Besides it would only be over about a 4 week period anyway.

Hopefully.


It makes no sense when said programme can get 2/3m more. Of course, I wouldn't object at all to moving Coronation Street out of its stupid Thursday slot.

But the savings ITV would make in not having to produce innane shows would outweigh the benefits of the extra 2m viewers anyway.

Oh. I didn't realise one of the shows was live. That throws a bit of a spanner in the works.

*hands the long forgotten Ratings Thread tin hat to open_ended*

it just seems wrong

FlashForward had a very similar marketing campaign across other TV channels, billboards, the internet, etc. But it's far easier to draw in viewers for imported drama.

As for me, I'm not lowering my expectations at all. I've been consistent all week in saying that anything above 1.5m would make this a success. I stand by that. And I will only "lavish praise" as you put it if I feel its justified.


Corrie is always significant competition. Admittedly it doesn't and never will match the younger more attractive viewer profile of EastEnders, but it's still fairly broad in the audience it attracts as one of the most popular shows in the country and therefore has the potential to hurt DSB whilst it is on.

Nemo will rate well but again you can't compare how well movies rate on Five compared to everything else. Movies, sport, factual ent and US drama are examples of areas in which Five already secures big audiences on a regular basis. The same cannot be said for light entertainment. So although it would be lovely if it was to build on its lead-in, it's largely irrelevant. Nemo won't be there to prop it up next week anyway.


With respect, that is your opinion. In the industry Back To Reality was regarded as a well made programme, and its under performance was put down to the fact that it started just a week after I'm a Celebrity had finished. The same can't be said about The Farm, which was much less popular with viewers and critics alike. However it did develop something of a cult following.

After tonight's episode Coronation Street is now back on track.
Tonight's episode is the one that would originally have been intended to air as Friday's second one.

Emmerdale is on schedule as well.

Realistically, regarding DSB, if it gets over 2m then Five will take that as a victory.

If it gets under 1.5m then they would be disappointed, and under 1m would be a complete failure.