Some more ratings from Digital Spy and Media Guardian:

Channel 4 [inc +1]
17:30 - Celebrity Coach Trip: 2.26m

ITV2 [inc +1]
21:00 - Peter Andre: The Next Chapter: 887,000 (3.6%)
22:00 - I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here Now!: 973,000

ITV4
18:00 - Grand Slam of Darts: 438,000 (1.9%)
22:30 - Richard Bacon's Beer and Pizza Club: 84,000 (0.6%)

BBC4
20:30 - Johnny Kingdom's Year with the Birds: 167,000 (0.7%)
21:00 - Birds Britannia: 229,000 (0.9%)

FX
22:00 - Burn Notice: 16,000 (0.1%)

Channel 4 have also announced Celebrity Big Brother's replacement today. Well, OK... not replacement, but it'll probably be airing in a similar slot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...s-and-fearless

100% of 800,000 is better than 75% of 800,000.

The majority of the money you talk about was used to buy 25% of their breakfast schedule. That's real extra income they are now getting. Plus, it represents an asset on the balance sheets.

In addition, the transition from GMTV to Daybreak has seen increased young and male ad-friendly viewers.

I think that Channel 4 show sounds great.

Like The Games, but more extreme and exciting.

Very solid once again for The Apprentice. It's not taken off in the overnights this year (I think its struggling for tabloid space, and hence, buzz) but it timeshifts very well, so the average for the first 5 episodes was just minutely below 2009 (7.98m vs 8.02m). Thats pretty strong considering ITV have been running 2 hour dramas and events against it to good effect.

The 8pm hour is poor for BBC One though. Those shows just don't suit the slot - by 8pm, it feels like there should be something more substantative being offered. There's nothing inherently wrong with the programmes, but they ought to be either the 7pm hour, coupled with TOS, or on BBC Two.

Football did OK for ITV, though nothing more. C5 had an unusually good night, particularly pre-watershed where you don't usually expect to see it. And it's surely a bit grim for Channel 4 to see Grand Designs at 2.1m, no? Mind you, everything seems a bit grim ratings-wise when it comes to that channel at the moment.

The Games was a good format, unlike IAC or BB. They have to actually have to train to be successful.

source?

Because not even ITV are trotting out that excuse anymore

The only piece I saw about male viewers were in a piece rzt posted from from a marketing magazine, who speculated that because Chiles presented football all football fans would watch Daybreak.

The last solid breakdown I saw was here http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...-adrian-chiles
Based on a week where Daybreak was averaging 800k 19.7%

If Daybreak was getting these new young and male viewers ypu talk about then ITV would be boasting about them.

Looking at the schedules for week beginning 12th December, the only possible slot I can find for the Royal Variety Performance is Sunday at 8pm, displacing Antiques Roadshow. Can't find anywhere during the week it can go without displacing an episode of EastEnders or Holby City.

That could be a very interesting battle - X Factor Final vs Royal Variety Peformance...

Just wondering if you can please post the link to the DS ratings report. I can't seem to find it for some reason!

Edit: Ah, found it!: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s108/...vs-france.html

To be fair that analysis was back in October.I don't quite see the logic of all football fans watching because of Adrian Chiles, the BBC usually gives a better and broader round-up of football (and other sports) in the morning.Chiles does not even present the sport on Daybreak. GMTV finished with an average audience of 820,000 so really nothing has changed, the BBC audience is stable at 1.5-1.6 million.

Didn't that happen last year?

yes I dont know where these new male viewers have come from

No, I think the X Factor final, last year, was up against Sports Personality of the Year. The Royal Variety was on ITV last year.

My mistake - the line from ITV was that Daybreak had stopped the year-on-year decline in male and young viewers that GMTV had had in recent years.

BBC ONE Christmas Day Prediction

2.00pm Top of the Pops
3.00pm The Queen
3.10pm FILM: Santa Clause 3
4.50pm FILM: Cars
6.50pm BBC News
7.00pm EastEnders
7.30pm Doctor Who
8.30pm Strictly Come Dancing
9.30pm EastEnders
10.00pm The Royle Family

This will throw everything up in the air...

Royal Variety Performance "IS" on Thursday 16th at 8pm. HIGNFY will move to Friday...

That makes sense, I guess. Don't see it making much difference to HIGNFY, because I imagine ITV will have filler documentaries on that week to be honest. (unless there's any 5 x 60 or 4 x 60 minute dramas they haven't shown and can be stripped?)

Yes, ITV will probably need a pile of cheap filler that week as the bills for IAC, Corrie and XF will land on the proverbial doormat.

I agree - or bring forward the premiere of a series due in January in a similar strategy to Glee.


Sounds better now we know a bit more and it's got two decent hosts at the helm. Always preferred The Games to most other celeb reality shows too. Is Famous and Fearless an Endemol show?

One welcome development is the decline in fortunes for ITV2 Katie Price based programmes. The last series of What Katie Did Next before she changes channel has struggled to get above a million viewers( Katie and Peter averaged 1.8 million) and Peter Andre The Next Chapter only got 887,000 viewers last night. This is one sign her fortunes are flagging now and Cheryl Cole is hotter property.

A few bits of commissioning/re-commissioning news today:

BBC1 developing a 90-minute adaptation based on Jo Brand’s comic novel The More You Ignore Me: http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/c...020684.article

ITV commission 3-part thriller drama 'What To Do When Someone Dies' starring Anna Friel: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...-thriller.html

The Million Pound Drop is back on C4 over 4 consecutive nights during the Christmas period: http://www.atvnewsnetwork.co.uk/toda...572968bcfc00,0

ITV2 are looking to use 'The Only Way is...' brand and have a new show set in another region of the country, after the success of 'Essex' (which is also coming back): http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/b...e?referrer=RSS

To be fair ITV2 has done zero promotion of this series, compared to mass promotion in previous years.

They told her they didn't want to promote it any more as she had left ITV, which is fair enough, but she seemed miffed on Twitter.

Her ratings will be low on Sky Living, although probably saved a little by the move up the Sky EPG. Still, a bad long term move.

Over kill for MPD. It should have been brought back next March at the earliest.

I seriously hope ITV2 doesn't become the Bravo of the UK (in the US they have 6+ variations of The Real Housewives of....). I wonder where they'll pick. Somewhere exotic like Swansea maybe

The week before Christmas always used to be a dreadful week of telly, for some reason everything had always finished so it was fillers, repeats and films all the way. The one I most remember is the week before Christmas in 1997, because I remember ITV showed repeated films at 9pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night, and it was Police Academy 6 on the Monday which is appalling. And the Beeb were hardly any better, but this used to happen for most of the nineties.

I also remember that week in 1997 because I was at university at the time and, for some reason, my course broke up for Christmas a week after everyone else's, so only the two dozen or so people from my course were rattling around our halls of residence, and on the Thursday my friend and I ended up watching Animal Hospital for the first and only time because nobody else was around and there was nothing on telly.

A little slice of life in those simpler times. Only one of my flatmates had a mobile phone, too!

It's going to be hard to replicate and I think ITV2 might be better sticking with Essex.

I remember in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the inevitability of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em appearing somewhere on BBC1. And from 1988 to 1990, sometimes a film repeat on Saturday nights, when All Creatures Great and Small had finished its twelve-part run.

I think 1989 must have been one of the worst years for December repeats.