But under Ofcom rules in a 65m slot they're still only allowed three internal breaks of 3'50" (3'30" advertising).

C4 put True Blood into a 70m slot so they're allowed four internal breaks.

Most people I've spoke to say the opposite with regard to talent. There only seems to be a couple of standout acts this year, namely Cher Lloyd and Gamu Nhengu. And surprise surprise, that's exactly who This Morning presenters Holly and Phil are backing. They also add Matt Cardle's name into the mix but there doesn't seem to be as much buzz around him.

The acts being kept in for entertainment value rather than talent per se are definitely on the rise though. But I don't think there's any one act left that will excite the press anywhere near as much as we saw with Jedward. Could be wrong though! Nicolo Fiesta is certainly an interesting character.

ABC:
7pm – Extreme Makeover: Home Edition – 5.54m (1.5)
* Down 29% vs same time last year
8pm – Extreme Makeover: Home Edition – 8.40m (2.5)
* Down 19% vs same time last year
9pm – Desperate Housewives – 12.83m (4.2)
* Down 11% vs fall 2009 premiere
10pm – Brothers & Sisters – 9.64m (3.0)
* 71% retention from Desperate Housewives
* Ties last seasons premiere

CBS:
Ratings subject to significant changes due to football overrun
The Amazing Race ~ 11m & 3.6/3.7 (up vs last fall)
Undercover Boss ~ 11m & 3.6 (down a bit from its run earlier this season)

FOX:
8pm – The Simpsons – 7.76m (3.7)
* Down 12% vs last season premiere
8.30pm – The Cleveland Show – 6.60m (3.1)
* Down 37% from series premiere
9pm – Family Guy – 9.13m (4.5)
* Down 13% from last season
* #1 non-sports broadcast of the night in key demo

NBC:
Ratings subject to significant changes in final numbers
8.30pm-11pm Sunday Night Football – 15.96m (6.5)

Tvbythenumbers

NBC won the night among A18-49. CBS, thanks to football overrun, should come out ahead of FOX. ABC will be 4th but probably quite satisfied with the ratings for their 2 returning drama's.

Looking forward to seeing how the season five premiere of Dexter did on Showtime last night.

Aah, OK, I stand corrected. I thought TB ran in a 65m slot as well (although I'm sure something did run for 65mins on c4 - Red Riding, perhaps????)

K

Living TV are treating Shortland Street appallingly. It began airing on the channel with double bills at 3pm weekdays, repeated 10am the next day. The 10am repeats were dropped after just two weeks. After 4 weeks, they moved the programme to 12pm weekdays. This week, week 6, it has been taken off the main channel completely and is now exclusive to Living Loves, weekdays at 6pm.

They really haven't given it much of a chance have they? Expect it to be one of these shows that gets cancelled as soon as the rights come up for renewal - probably after one or two years. It may get shunted to a graveyard slot before then.

Presumably its figures were just too low, even by Livings standards. Which must be loooooooooowwwwwwww!!

oh what a surprised it failed, I predicted this would happen.

No. I think EastEnders Live: The Aftermath got about 4.5m on BBC3.

With Cher Lloyd in the girls category it does make me wonder why Cheryl has been given one of the best two groups yet again..but that's for another thread.

I do think there's an interesting mix who will create a buzz though. I would say Diva Fever, but I really can't see Simon putting them through. The newly formed groups look interesting, as does the Tesco worker (forgot her name) And then there's obviously Cher, and as you say Nicolo. Probably not on the same level as Jedward, but with ratings already up massively, 13.5m+ certainly isn't out of the question in a couple of weeks.

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Looking at the BARB officials, amazing for The Inbetweeners-I didn't think a multichannel comedy was capable of that. Infact not much on CH4 itself it capable of that nowadays

Huge timeshift for XF sends it to almost 13m inc HD and interesting for BBC1's weekly drama battle:

9. Holby City- 5.54m
10. Casualty- 5.42m
11. Waterloo Road- 5.28m (inc HD)

Surprising to see them all so close after timeshift. Obviously Holby has the easiest slot and 5.42m against part of XF is excellent for Casualty, but with Casualty clashing with XF and BGT for around half the year now it seems, Holby looks set to take the No1 title on a permenant basis very soon.

ITV regions just used it as an afternoon filler. Much like Cell Block H: (Granada showed the whole run, while we in Carlton London land, never saw the end).

Like Cell Block H, each region was at a different point.

I am sure that I read on here that HTV Wales & West skipped a few years to catch up.

I have never seen it, maybe it just isn't very good?

(and I know one is Aussie while one is from New Zeeland).

To play devil's advocate:
a) Living did give it good advertising
b) the ratings on the first day were appaling
c) 6pm isn't that bad a slot

and D; to reiterate my point - is it any good?

You have to be a glutton for punishment to sit through all the ad breaks. I can't believe anyone with a PVR would watch ITV off air.

Has anyone done one of those nice graphs for last night so we can see the "ad-dips" in TXF and DA?

K

The BBC dabbled with period dramas in the Sunday 9pm slot in the early 1990s, e.g Scarlet and Black in 1993, without great success. Then in 1995, Pride and Prejudice attracted around 10m viewers, and suddenly ITV's interest in period dramas was revived after years of neglect, with Moll Flanders in 1996. ITV did a few more Sunday night period dramas in the next few years, but with underwhelming ratings, and it wasn't long before they more or less vanished again.

I might be wrong, but I'm sure Moll Flanders (think BBC period drama but with added breasts) attracted 12m in 1996, whereas BBC One's Rhodes starring Martin Shaw (it's that man again) sank to 2.8m after a few weeks!

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Very good start for Downton Abbey. Was the Scot in the Arctic thing on STV a repeat of the Billy Connolly documentary from BBC One?

BBC One holding up very well last night. I still think a bit of Sunday night comedy wouldn't go amiss, though.

With regards to the official BARB ratings for w/e 6 June 10, I noticed last week the BGT ratings had changed slightly.

Also looks like some Corrie figures have changed too. The Monday episode at 19.00 originally said 8.17m, but now its been amended to 8.21m. Same goes for the episode broadcast at 21.00. Originally said 10.73m, now its been amended to 10.74m.

EDIT- Also for w/e 13 June 10, the 19.30 Corrie originally said 9.76m, but has now been amended to 9.77m. Makes you wonder how often these numbers change from when the are originally put up!

EDIT 2- another one for w/e 13 June 10. Emmerdale's Tuesday episode now says 6.45m (previously said 6.43m)

Not just that, they based the advertising for SS in magazines and on TV around Adam Rickitt to try and jog the memories of people in the UK and get them to watch it.

The controller of Living probably never realised that stuff like I Breathe Again was over 10 years ago, and the UK public are more interested in the likes of the 'nation's sweetheart' Cheryl Cole now than they are with Adam Rickitt. So forcing Adam back on the UK public was going to be an epic fail for SS in the UK given now he's long forgotten.

That, and the fact they skipped loads of episodes put people off it.

Remarkable timeshift for The Inbetweeners. It sits in 2nd place in the All Time Multichannel list:

01 … 4.54m … EastEnders Live: The Aftermath … BBC Three (19/02/10)
02 … 3.46m … The Inbetweeners … E4 (13/09/10)
03 … 2.86m … Friends … Sky One (13/01/00)
04 … 2.77m … Live Premiership Football: Man Utd v Arsenal … Sky Sports 1 (24/10/04)
05 … 2.74m … Red Dwarf … Dave (10/04/09)
06 … 2.64m … Terry Pratchetts Hogfather … Sky One (17/12/06)
07 … 2.58m … Without a Trace … Five US (12/02/08)
08 … 2.55m … Bionic Woman … ITV2 (11/03/08)
09 … 2.53m … Britain's Got More Talent … ITV2 (30/05/09)
10 … 2.52m … Xtra Factor Result … ITV2(08/11/09)

Thanks to Andy Parish for the list


Good analysis. STV's figures were:

9pm A Scot in the Artic 357k 17%
10pm Cheetah Kingdom 173k 10%

So yes, the 200k drop-off at 10pm was due to STV. They probably caused a bit of the dip in the 21:45 quarter too since A Scot in the Arctic probably finished a bit earlier than 10pm. Downton would've average 8m if STV aired it.

Last I saw it had grown to around 20,000 which doesn't seem all that terrible to me for a pay TV station in the daytime, and with an upward trend, certainly not bad enough to justify taking it off Living completely after 5 weeks. I'd like to know how well its replacements are doing but I strongly suspect they are not doing much better.


It used to be quite regular in the Anglia region, I think airing every weekday for a while.

As for whether it's any good or not, I saw some of the episodes from the current serial killer storyline when they went out and they were very well done.


All fair points. Except with c, 6pm is more competitive with other soaps like Home and Away, Doctors and Hollyoaks airing at that time which might dent it. Plus being on Living Loves it's easy to miss.

Also given the amount of changes to its scheduling in just 6 weeks, I wouldn't say its guaranteed to stay in that slot by any means.

5 weeks just strikes me as a really short amount of time to give it. Shows like this need to be given a chance to build their audience, especially given Shorty's long term absence from UK TV.

There is also the fact that George Gently may have rated lower if STV had shown Downton.

Alex Reid's fight on Saturday was one of the most watched programmes in Bravo history with 600k (including +1).

Only Spartacus has bettered that, IIRC.

And another multichannel rating from the last week: Richard Bacon's Beer and Pizza Club launched with only 180k (inc. +1) on ITV4 last Wednesday, below the slot average.

I wonder which of Inspector George Gently and Downton Abbey will timeshift better.

Ordinarily, I'd expect it to be the ITV show because of the ads, but maybe starting against a certain talent show will mean Gently gets the bigger timeshift.

Be nice if Gently and Abbey could clear 6m and 8m respectively.

The creator of Grey's Anatomy has just tweeted:


Although the ratings are down, they can still bring in some fantastic numbers.

Not ratings related, but for anyone interested in TV, this F1 blog and accompanying video is facinating stuff:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jakehumph...n_f1_pres.html