An ITV insider made an interesting observation re: Daybreak's launch figures:

So we all agree, judging from the ratings - that TV is shite now?

Ten years ago, rubbish like Family Fortunes would get 13m and Corrie 19m week in week out.

Now it the multi channel age 5m is a huge hit, while just a few years ago, it would have been dropped like a stone.

Is this all down to digital channels? As looking at the BARB website, a channel like Discovery only gets 40k for it's top rating programme. I can't see how that would dent Corrie to 7m.

Has anyone done their sums over Multichannel affecting "The Big Five?"

Or are people just watching more DVD's and playing on various consoles rather than watching the dross on TV, which TV cannot afford anymore to make as no one is watching? A Catch-22 situation.

As I see it, there are a number of quite separate factors involved, comprising (but not restricted to):

1) The growth in digital channels, meaning that the available viewers are more likely to be spread over more channels at any given time.

2) The growth in timeshifting via PVRs, especially now that series linking has paved the way for series stacking (meaning that there is a greater possibility that series are watched weeks or even months after their live airings, with the consequence that such viewings will not get caught in the BARB ratings (which, as I understand it, only cover timeshifts up to seven days).

3) The changes in the way that TV programming is consumed, not restricted to point (2), but encompassing VoD services, catchup services and other forms of delivery.

4) The changes in our lifestyle, meaning that for some, the TV is no longer the central point in the household.

5) Many more competing forms of leisure activities.

Think you should have done your research before making your opening statement. As for as C4 drama is concern, This is England 86 is a breakout hit, even if it didn't meat your personal expectations. Considering some quality C4 dramas have struggled to break 1m, this did excellently.


Completely agree with you there - on both counts actually. Daybreak is doing absolutely fine and you need several weeks worth of figures really before any judgement can really be made.


Thanks for all that info rzt - very interesting. Hopefully it gets at least a second series as Shane Meadows has said there is more to tell - but I fear it might be confined to one more four-part series rather than a recurring 8+ episodes a year franchise.

The good thing for the BBC is the fact they have an opportunity to see how Merlin holds up against The X Factor, before the time comes to schedule the first "proper" edition of Strictly Come Dancing.

If Merlin holds up as well as it did for the part of autumn 2008 where it clashed with The X Factor, (and I hope it does), then all well and good, but, if it struggles, it'll have to move to 6 or 6.15pm again.

I know no-one on this thread entertains that possibility, but no-one agreed with me when I said The X Factor would do fine against Strictly Come Dancing last year. Instead, nearly everyone thought SCD would win.

Not at all.

Bcak then we had 4 channels (as Five didnt come about until around 1999 or something, right?)... or 3 if we go way back. Everything decreased as time went on, not because of the quality, its because now we have hundreds of channels.

Back then, Eastenders got 25m+, now it gets 8-9m.... Neighbours was hitting 20m at one time, now can just go over 1m. Hollyaoks even up to a few years ago, was getting 3m+, now it gets 1-1.4m.

If they were to air Blind Date now, they would be lucky to hit 7m.

Look at ITV2 now, it gets 1m+ for some of its programmes, Sky Movies combined would get 1m+ across a night, E4 gets around 400-600,000 a night (Glee was hitting 1.7m), Sky1 can reah 1m too... and then even adding the smaller hundreds of programmes getting as little as 50,000 each, add them together, may reach around half a million, Sky Sports big events sometime spushing 2m... add all the multichannels together, and we could have a combined audience of 5m+ being taken away from terrestrial TV.

Lets not forget, now almost all the population has some sort of recording service such as Sky+ or 4OD.

I'm pretty sure that last year, Brits watched more TV than ever before. Multi-channel now accounts for 45% of TV viewing.

There are quite a few "1%" (or thereabout) channels around. BBC3, BBC News, Cbeebies, Dave, E4, Film4, Five USA, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, More4, LivingTV, Virgin1, Sky1, Sky3, Sky News, Sky Sports 1...

Between them you've got more than 20%. Plus quite a few more which get 0.4-0.8%

And all the 0.1/0.2% channels add up as well.

If we take "reach" i.e. the percentage of people aged 4+ who watched three consecutive minutes of television (any channel) in a given week, then-

For the first 34 weeks of the year only, television reach has been at its highest level for 6 years. (93.6% for this year vs 94% for the same period in '04)

The low point always comes in the summer. This year reach fell to a low of 91.9% in week 31. That is the highest low point since 1997 when the minimum was 92.2%.

But with so much to choose from these days and not always "live" that viewing gets split a million or more ways. The net result is that it is much harder to achieve the big mass audiences that were commonplace among the main networks as recently as 10-15 years ago.

Week Ending Sunday 5th September

Cable Scripted Programs With Ratings > 1.0 (A18-49)
1. Camp Rock 2 (Disney) – 7.96m (1.5)
2. Covert Affairs (USA) – 5.26m (1.5)
3. The Closer (TNT) – 7.61m (1.4)
4. Rizzoli & Isles (TNT) – 6.42m (1.3)
5. White Collar (USA) – 4.44m (1.3)
6. Secret Life of the American Teenager (ABCF) – 2.91m (1.3)
7. Psych (USA) – 3.70m (1.2)
8. Leverage (TNT) – 3.74m (1.0)
9. Meet The Browns (TBS) – 2.39m (1.0)
10. Meet The Browns (TBS) – 2.32m (1.0)

Slower week on the scripted front. HBO's Sunday trio took the weekend off for Labo(u)r Day and USA's Thursday block wrapped up 2 weeks ago. That left the door open for Disney's Camp Rock to top cable viewing.

However, it's slightly disappointing rating, IMO. Last summer's original movies were Wizards of Waverly Place and Princess Protection Programme which had 11.4m and 8.5m respectively. This was a much hyped sequel (the first had 8.9m) with some of Disney's biggest stars. The highest Disney original movie remains High School Musical 2 - 17.2m in 2007.

Cable Unscripted Programs With Ratings > 1.0 (A18-49)
1. Jersey Shore (MTV) – 6.54m (3.3)
2. Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo) – 3.85m (2.0)
3. NASCAR Sprint Cup (ESPN) – 5.52m (1.8)
4. WWE Raw (USA) – 5.10m (1.8)
5. Teen Mom (MTV) – 3.24m (1.8)
6. Project Runway (Lifetime) – 4.00m (1.7)
7. Keeping Up With The Kardashians (E) – 2.88m (1.4)
8. American Chopper (TLC) – 2.59m (1.3)
9. Top Chef (Bravo) – 2.57m (1.3)
10. Swamp People (History) – 2.79m (1.1)
11. College Football (ESPN) – 2.51m (1.1)
12. Real World: Back To New Orleans (MTV) – 2.00m (1.1)

MTV claimed the #1 show in adults 18-49 on ALL US television last week. It was 10% ahead of America's Got Talent. MTV again had 3 shows with 1.0 or more. The 11pm Aftershow for Jersey Shore is also doing well with more than 4m viewers. MTV was 3rd among cable channels (behind ESPN & USA) in the key demo.

Broadcast Original Top 10
1. America's Got Talent (NBC) - 11.50m (3.0)
2. Big Brother (CBS) - 7.87m (2.9)
3. America's Got Talent Results (NBC) - 10.47m (2.5)
4. Wipeout (ABC) - 6.93m (2.4)
5. Big Brother (CBS) - 7.19m (2.4)
6. Big Brother (CBS) - 6.54m (2.3)
7. Bachelor Pad (ABC) - 6.21m (2.0)
8. Masterchef (FOX) - 4.70m (2.0)
9. Minute To Win It (NBC) - 6.15m (1.8)
10. Lie To Me (FOX) - 5.33m (1.8)

With the "big 4" at their weakest right now, the #1 channel among adults 18-49 was the Spanish language Univision which had a 1.6 rating in the key demo.

Sources: Tvbythenumbers and www.twitter.com/travisyanan

In more immediate US news, the second season premiere of Sons of Anarchy on FX has become the joint highest rated scripted broadcast on basic cable this year (True Blood isn't basic cable). It had 4.13m (2.1), down a bit from its first season premiere which had 4.29m (2.3).

America's Got Talent - now finally nearing the end of its fifth season after its longest run ever - achieved its highest ratings since the first live show in July. Its 3.2 overnight is likely to be adjusted to a 3.3 in final ratings. But will it be enough to beat Jersey Shore?

The USA scripted block of White Collar and Covert Affairs was up to 4.7m (1.4) and 5.4m (1.6) ratings respectively. A&E's Hoarders aired 2 episodes to launch a new season and had 3.7m (1.5) at 9pm and 3.8m (1.6) at 10pm.

There's also the first signs of life on broadcast television. The CW kicks things off after what has been another very long summer for them. They've got the return of their only reality hit, America's Next Top Model and then the Ashley Tisdale starring Hellcats premieres at 9pm. It's like a cheerleader version of Glee, apparently. It seems unlikely to last long but it should outlast The Beautiful Life which had the slot last year and got axed after 2 episodes.

Anual Share - 1988

38% - BBC1
11% - BBC2
42% - ITV
09% - CH4

Anual Share - 2009

21% - BBC1
08% - BBC2
18% - ITV1
07% - CH4
05% - CH5
41% - Multi-Channel

That ITV figure's plain depressing. C4's done well to keep the drop slim.

Ah, The CW - starting their TV season three weeks ahead of everyone else. In my opinion, ANTM could see a definite rise for tonight's premiere, mainly because of the hype that they have been getting. Firstly, the controversial promo with one of the contestant, Ann. Second, the prize standard has finally gone up - Fashion spread for Italian Vogue and a cover for Beauty in Vogue, both BIG prizes. So, no more fixed winners hopefully! On the other hand, ANTM has been waning down in recent cycles and unless the contestants (or Tyra) shows personality, their average is likely to go down.

Hellcats will do either very well or flop like hell, for their premiere. Afterwards, I think it will struggle. I don't think it will be axed after two episodes like The Beautiful Life last season. Having said that, it will be a miracle if they make it to renewal. Conclusion, I predict 18 episodes (like Privileged).

Nice bit of in-programme promotion for Derren Brown during BB. Live linkup towards the end should improve retention.

Derren in all honesty should probably outrate BB, so it was kind of odd that they were sort of propping him up in that way, but if it keeps the BB viewers around for the second show then that can only be a good thing.

Had to cringe at Derren feigning excitement at being on BB though.

Yes and ITV1's share is dropping much faster than BBC1 this year as the trend continues. In fact it carries on ITV will be below 16% in a couple of years. Surely at some stage the bottom will be hit though?

I did hear Jedward's show is tanking, not surprising as only their most diehard fans would be interested in seeing them move home, but how has that other pop stars related ITV2 show The Saturdays 24/7 been doing and, just a bit of schadenfreude is this must be the most banal five minutes of television I saw tonight while looking for a DVD, Paris Hilton's New BFF? None of these shows have been mentioned by 16-34s at work so I assume no one is watching them.

That will probably have to wait until the wheels truly come off the Cowell bandwagon and he's getting beaten by Holby City in a Tuesday night slot.


Well, there had been the odd trailer shown now and then on ITV, every so often...


Well The One Show is certainly not working out at 6am based on...



Closer than expected in the 9pm slot - BoBW should have won easily with c6m I would have thought.

A 100,000 drop is pretty good for an ITV show from launch to second show - better than most new shows for ITV.

Not much to say about last night - much of muchness really.

Was it even live though or were they just saying that? I think the 2 BB shows will have got 2.6m and 2.3m, Derren Brown should be pushing 3m, probably around 2.8m.

One of my favourite Derren Brown shows tonight - I'd expect it to easily be above 3m. Would also be interesting to see a minute by minute breakdown of BB to see how the first ad break performed.

For those who didn't see it, at the end of Part 1 viewers were told to stay tuned for Big Brother's Best Bits. The sponsor bumper then played out and then the ads played out, but were framed by Big Brother style graphics - with a classic BB quote shown in between every other advert. Now, these best bits only equated to 4 x 5-sec clips, but I'm sure would have kept more than usual watching throughout the break.

Man Arrested for Assault after injuring crowd members and member of security during Ultimate BB Vanessa's eviction to get to the stage... he's been arrested and it was pre planned. The bands name is The Ruskins.

IMO, the 2nd show tonight will be low because it was on late.

Story of the night:
* ABC's The Gruen Transfer is the most watched non news programme;
* Seven's Four Weddings underwhelms on premiere;
* Nine wins the night with some solid ratings all round;
* A night of mostly reruns puts Ten a distant fourth.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.41m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.51m
19:00 Home and Away 1.05m
19:30 New: Four Weddings 1.01m
20:30 City Homicide 0.85m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.33m
18:30 A Current Affair 1.15m
19:00 Two and a Half Men (R) 1.00m
19:30 Two and a Half Men (R) 1.18m
20:00 Hot Property 1.10m
20:30 The Farmer Wants a Wife 1.22m

Ten
18:00 The Simpsons (R) 0.64m
18:30 Neighbours 0.58m
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.84m
19:30 The All New Simpsons 0.80m
20:00 The Simpsons (R) 0.82m
20:30 Lie to Me (R) 0.73m

ABC1
18:30 Poh's Kitchen 0.44m
19:00 ABC News 1.26m
19:30 The 7.30 Report 1.07m
20:00 The New Inventors 0.76m
20:30 Spicks and Specks 1.36m
21:00 The Gruen Transfer 1.48m

Corporation Shares
Nine/GO! - 30.2%
Seven/7TWO - 26.3%
ABC1/2/3/24 - 22.1%
Ten/ONE - 17.1%

to be fair, the drop could have been bigger, 100,000 maybe 1/10 of the auidence for Daybreak, but I thought it would be more like 200,000


off topic slightly, but I love that show.

Also, more people using the internet and more shift working.

A bit slow to report this, but the major earthquake in New Zealand on Saturday created a huge surge in the number watching TV news bulletins in the country.

TVOne's flagship news bulletin One News posted an impressive average of 902,000 viewers across the 6pm hour. I believe that is the highest TV rating recorded in New Zealand this year and well up on the 587,000 that watched the same bulletin the previous Saturday.

With the population of the UK roughly 15 times that of New Zealand, it is roughly the equivalent of a BBC News bulletin pulling in 13.5m viewers over here.

A half hour One News Special that followed the regular bulletin at 7pm posted a similarly strong average of 843,000.

Across the day TVOne commanded a huge 37% share of the TV audience with regular news updates throughout the day pulling in large audiences. The previous Saturday it had just 20.4%.

One News continued to rate strongly in the days that followed, averaging 824k, 831k and 796k consecutively over the next three nights. It has now settled down to around 700k, more in line with its usual performance.

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake damaged 100,000 homes when it struck Christchurch at the weekend and preceded over 80 aftershocks.

Source: http://www.throng.co.nz/ratings/tv-r...september-2010