Fearne Cotton said it would be back on last night's show.

Predictions for The Inbetweeners tonight? Last week received 2.6m on E4 (which is huge, 2nd highest multichannel rating).

It is incredible that it is hitting new highs in its 7th season. American Idol peaked in its fifth - and it wasn't following on from 2 seasons of Pop Idol and 2 seasons of Popstars. In 2004, as X Factor struggled out of the gate, it would have seemed ridiculous to suggest that in 2010 it would be comfortably beating the soaps. I think taking too long a break could cost some momentum, which might be the turning point. Little things as well associated with the move - for example, a final in March is likely to draw fewer viewers than one in December. I'd also question how worthwhile the move is if they lose Cheryl anyway. No, she's not making genius observations, but the press coverage is invaluable. And no, Cowell isn't good enough to do it all again with some new pretty young thing.

I think Cheryl gave the show second wind. I'm not saying that she directly brought 4m viewers in (or even 2m) - but she gave the press a new angle. A bit like when people went to work and talked about "that pri*k Cowell with his high trousers and catty remarks". And working with that, they've made the show bigger every year. They have several acts from the show topping the charts. The guest stars get better. The whole thing seems to be growing so strongly that it can shrug off some bad press. Had series 5 been crap, it's possible that the "Cheryl effect" would have burned out and amounted to nothing more than higher auditions ratings. But they capitalised on it with the strongest series yet, IMO.

Eventually, there will come a point where everything seems to be working the other way - which is how American Idol has seemed for the past few years.

I think people want the same things in their drama as they do in their reality TV. Compelling stories, tension, strong returning "characters", surprises, the occasional laugh and yes, some eye candy. And The X Factor provides that even if the drama is camp and ridiculously OTT. I often find that it's those who hate the show that take it most seriously.

The producers seem to have stayed one step ahead so far making the right changes when they had to. And it's not like the producers are changing around every year like the early years of Big Brother - it's almost exactly the same team at the top since the very first series (who all previously did either Pop Idol or Popstars).

That included +1, though still an amazing rating.

I reckon 2m tonight.

Just a few things that have got me thinking today...

Downton Abbey's trailers have been really good, and even if it isn't any good, it'll get loadsa viewers I think - 7m+.

Does anybody remember the great Flood trailers? They looked exciting, did everything a trailer needed to do - and it got over 7m despite the fact it was a really bad movie with really bad reviews.

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Something like School of Comedy, which I'm watching now (it's after Inbetweeners on E4) would do very well on BBC1 or ITV on a weekend evening - NOT in a really late slot. It's nowhere near risque enough, who will watch it? Teenagers won't, grannies, mums and families will!

tagged

The US TV season officially begins tonight. So here's a little preview with some my (probably wildly inaccurate!) predictions.

8pm:
ABC - Dancing With The Stars
CBS - How I Met Your Mother/ Rules of Engagement
FOX - House
NBC - Chuck

A pretty quiet hour in terms of changes. RoE finally gets a fall slot but it did solid numbers in the same period from January earlier this year. It should equal or top the 3.2 debut of Accidentally On Purpose in the timeslot last season. House dominated this hour in premiere week 2009 and while it'll be lower this year, should still win. DWTS went for stunt casting. Among them, Bristol Palin stars and Sarah Palin is apparently a guest in the audience.

9pm:
ABC - Dancing With The Stars
CBS - Two and a Half Men & Mike & Molly
FOX - Lonestar
NBC - The Event

NBC have plugged The Event to death including on last nights NFL broadcast which had 22m viewers at one point. A 4.0 would probably be good enough but with this kind of show it's all about the 2nd, 3rd, 4th... episodes. FF started out with a 4.0 last year - and ended up going as low as 1.4.

Lonestar gets a House lead-in but lacks the hype of The Event which should see the latter come out on top this week. It has been well received by critics and gathered attention with a strong trailer at the upfronts in May. But it's going to need some sort of sample audience to stand a chance of surviving. Definitely at risk of being squeezed out in a tough slot. It'll finish 4th, the question is how far behind it will be.

Mike & Molly won't match The Big Bang Theory (which built on its lead-in last year). While it can afford to do a bit worse, CBS have been ruthless in the past with shows which don't have good retention from TAAHM. That statistic will be key to M&M's future. The fact that it's a Chuck Lorre series (creator of TBBT & TAAHM) might mean they go a bit easier.

10pm:
ABC - Castle
CBS - Hawaii Five-O
NBC - Chase

CBS has to win. Anything else would be embarrassing. Probably a shoot out between H5O and The Event for top new show of the night though H5O will most likely beat The Event in viewers.

Chase will be very vulnerable if The Event doesn't do well - whereas H50 should bring an audience on its own given the hype and the name.

I agree the Downton Abbey promo's is one of the better trailers i've seen in a while. The last year or so none of the promo's have really been that great, but in the last couple of months they seem to have improved a lot.

Plus they are going all out for Downton Abbey - DA breakbumpers been shown a lot tonight - a week before it starts!

Also is it just me or does the recent and upcoming ITV drama's seem more "BBCish" - i.e more BBC style. Just me then

It doesn't even 'do well' on E4. BBC1 or ITV1? really?

Well it is shit, it'd probably fit right in.

Including +1 I cant see the Inbetweeners doing worse than last week, both episodes have been quite good so far and defo looking forward to next week.
Spooks tonight was OK, looking forward to how it did against Bouqet of Barbed Wire. I think its lost its way from the series a few years ago.

Exactly, with the likes of You've Been Framed, Total Wipeout - stuff like that. It's too poor for E4.

Blurbs for the new series starting in the US tonight:

CHASE:

THE EVENT:

HAWAII FIVE-O:

LONESTAR:

MIKE & MOLLY:

Because not every channel has a +1 so it wouldn't be fair. Obviously if you have two channels instead of one playing the same output with one a delay, then it will increase share, especially if it's available on Freeview as well. So instantly every channel that doesn't have one (and that's quite a lot) is disadvantaged. So I won't be including them.

Plus Channel4+1 is getting significant enough audience share / reach to make the top 10 in its own right, and E4+1 is not too far off.

TXF getting a raw numbers boost from the unusually high numbers watching TV last night, but the share continues the downward trend. It's starting to look like a "40% share" show than a "50% leviathan".

I stand by my view that Joe Maddison should have been pushing 7m all things considered and despite rzt's protests to the contrary. A major much-hyped wartime drama - eagerly anticipated by the ITVistas on here all summer - in a prime 9pm autumn Sunday slot with no major ratings-grabbing BBC1 competition, two bankable stars, and a TXF lead-in should have delivered more.

Superb figures for Countryfile, easily beating The Cube despite it being the TXF warm-up, and AR did OK although it's capable of better with lesser competition.

The Battle of Britain doc did better than might have been expected.


No, you can't predict 7-7.5m for it George, no new ITV drama has got that for years.

I don't really see why everyone is getting over-excited about the ratings potential for a new Sunday night period drama, and predicting 7m+ audiences. BBC1 has been getting 4-5m for recent period dramas in the same slot. I don't see why ITV, with no recent pedigree in the field, will be any different. Nearly 5m switched over/off after TXF before Joe M came on, so the same will probably happen next week.

8pm
1st - DWTS
2nd - HIMYM/ROE
3rd - House
4th - Chuck

9pm
1st - DWTS
2nd - The Event
3rd - T&AHM/M&M
4th - Lonestar

10pm
1st - 5-O
2nd - Chase
3rd - Castle

How the mighty have fallen...

- an episode of Corrie 12th in the ITV top 30, beaten by all 6 episodes of Em Fm

- David Jason having two new primetime shows on the same night ranked only 18th and 20th with audiences in the 4m+ region

The high number of people watching TV last night in the 8pm hour was actually probably due to The X Factor itself pulling in people to watch TV who don't usually watch at that time.

In the last few weeks with a regular ITV lineup against the same sort of competition on BBC1 and the other channels, ~24m people have been watching TV. The X Factor probably helped increase that number by 3m. The same sort of thing happened the week The X Factor launched: 23m people watched on launch night in the 8pm hour despite the week before, only 19m people watching. The additional 4m people were for the most part X Factor viewers who wouldn't usually watch TV at that particular time.

As for the share being low, it's up from last year's equivalent episode by 2 share points! The show has hit 50% in its history only three times outside of finales so it was unlikely to happen yesterday, especially given the audition shows rate lower than the live ones. The auditions stage as a whole averaged a 46% share, the same as last year, so there has been no year-on-year decline in that respect.


Lol, I wouldn't call it a "protest". More like a difference of opinion. At the end of it all, you weren't right and neither was I [although 6.1m is closer to the average 28-person consensus of 5.4m than the 7.5m you (over)predicted ].


You should've read my posts more clearly - I said no new one-off drama for them had managed that in the last few years. Of course, Collision, Above Suspicion, Unforgiven, Whitechapel and Flood have all managed 7m+ in the last couple of years.


I have a feeling Hawaii 5-0 will rate very well, not only easily winning its slot, but also getting a better demo rating than The Event which I think will underperform due to a lot of people not bothering with such a show due to their previous experiences with that genre. Is it going to be another 5+ season show with loads of questions but few answers? I can see that being off-putting to a lot of people. Starting mid-way through DWTS, up against the CBS comedy block and with a poor lead-in, won't help matters.

Fantastic for The X Factor. The Cube/Joe Maddison's War worked off it well and recorded good ratings. BBC1 had a great night considering the opposition. Are Channel 4 trying to take Come Dine With Me the same way as Big Brother - saturating the schedule until people are sick of it?
Last edited by Fudd : 21-09-2010 at 00:00

I don't know. But ITV seem to be adopting the same strategy with the Cowell shows, with hopefully the same effect...

Can anyone logically explain why we must be subjected to 75-90 minutes of pre-recorded auditions on a Saturday and a Sunday night?

Desperation?

Has anyone tried watching ITV2 lately and if so what do you think of their current ad campaign? I only watch Hell's Kitchen USA on the channel but every ad break is such a chore at the moment because they are ramming these ridiculously long "you know you want to" promos down people's throats, reeling off their all-filler-no-killer autumn programming which simply serve to remind me why I DON'T watch the channel as a rule.

Struggling to see the point of the campaign as well. You know you want to - yes, it's trash, but we know you are struggling to resist it? Even in the so bad it's good sense I can't see any appeal so that doesn't work.

I'm just glad there have been some major turkeys already this season - Jedward, Saturdays, Fearne Meets - all tanking and comprehensively thrashed by their BBC Three opposition. Long may it continue!

It's only repeats, it would be more worrying if it were new episodes. It's a solid performer so I wouldn't be too worried.

With the US Fall season underway, I expect annoucements of shows that have picked up. Five have been quiet with new US imports but Undercovers hasn't been picked up yet and they recently did a deal with Warner Bros so it wouldn't surprise me.

My short predictions (in viewers/demo - for selected rankings):

8pm (viewers/demo - for selected rankings):

1 - DWTS (ABC)
2 - House (FOX)
3 - HIMYM (CBS)
4 - Chuck (NBC)/RoE (CBS)
5 - RoE (CBS)/Chuck (NBC)

9pm

1 - DWTS (ABC)/2 1/2 (CBS)
2 - 2 1/2 (CBS)/DWTS (ABC)
3 - The Event (NBC)
4 - Lonestar (FOX)
5 - M&M (CBS)

10pm

1 - 5-0 (CBS)
2 - Castle (ABC)/Chase (NBC)
3 - Chase (NBC)/Castle (ABC)

BONUS:

CW Predictions:

90210 - 1.4m with 1.0
Gossip Girl - 1.3m with 0.8

I'm not too worried about The Mentalist generally, it will do really well when the new season starts. But I think the repeats would be better suited to Saturdays in between NCIS and CSI where they might actually go up a bit. On Fridays it is clear that it will continue to suffer for as long as New Tricks is airing in that slot.

Regarding Undercovers- it'll be interesting to see if that comes off. I think that could be a good pickup. It's surprising how quiet they have been so far but at the same time I think they are right to be cautious after last season. Not that I think FlashForward was as big a flop here as everyone seemed to make out at the time, but they got behind it in a fairly massive way as if it was the next big thing with specially made idents and everything, only for it to not take off at all in the U.S. - and that, ultimately, is what decides the fate of these shows - so it's knowing what will work both here and in the U.S. that is the trick, and there won't be an abundance of shows that meet that criteria.

Britain's Got Talent definitely showed signs of being stretched out beyond breaking point this year and ITV really need to be careful not to damage it further in 2011. The X Factor's doing fine though.


Money.