Re Nigel Slater - yes. I imagine Christmas Suppers will air at 8.30 on Weds 22nd, with the displaced final ep of Simple Suppers slotting in to an early evening berth (eg 6pm/6.30pm) between the bank holidays and New Year.

Songs of Praise airs no later than 5pm on normal Sundays, so not a chance of it airing at 5.20pm on Boxing Day. In fact, I understand it's not on at all - it's The Boxing Day Big Sing taking its place this year. I reckon that will be on no later than 3.30/4pm.

Anyone know why Boxing Day isn't "Christmas Sunday" this year, with Christmas Day falling on a Saturday? Or do we not do that anymore?

I'm sure Five has shown old Christmas specials in previous years, they had a Bruce Forsyth night where they showed an old An Audience with which did pretty well for a ten year old repeat. The Morecambe and Wise and Two Ronnies tend to repeat pretty well at Christmas. I think ITV3 repeated The Two Ronnies despite being a BBC production.

Well at least Five are bothering with Christmas - no other channel appears to be. No adventure, no risk tasking, nothing special or new. BBC1's primetime schedule is finishing an hour earlier that alst year and ITV have stuck two fillers on which is bad even for them - last year we only got one, to face EastEnders.

As for last night, strange how X Factor saw a dip two years in a row between weeks 7 and 8! I guess it'll raise again for the final, and it's still a great rating. Strictly performed brilliantly too and All Star Family Fortunes did much better in a later slot.

Oh yeah, forgot about that one. I know they've shown the odd classic every now and again, but this year they seem to have pushed the boat out with quite a few. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out!

The Beeb bigwigs think we all want repeats of recent films and comedy shows like My Family, rather than 20-30 year old classics. So they dump these unwanted old relics on the lesser digital channels, no doubt thinking what remarkable money for old rope they have secured.

Another high rating night yesterday then. X-Factor falling a little week-on-week to 14.79m (48.7%), which was against my expectations but obviously incredible numbers for a weekly show. Once again nearly 32 million people watching TV at the peak results moment. Christmas Day is going to look like small fry considering only around 25 million were watching during peaktime last Christmas Day. Although (perhaps surprisingly) last New Year's Day maxed at over 30 million.

Channel 5 seemed to do well last night, with 1.61m (5.8%) for Spiderman 3 at 6:15pm and 1.93m (8%) for Beowulf at 9pm. Considering Spiderman 3 was against 90mins of talent show results I'd say that was a very good performance.




It looks as though Strictly Come Dancing is going to beat Britain's Got Talent this year then. Only another 1.32 million to go, I would have thought it could manage that easily for its final 1hr results show. That would be a fantastic achievement for Strictly if it can do it (and I'm sure Cowell wouldn't be best pleased).

Channel 5 have made a bit of effort with its scheduling also, Channel Fiver will be airing its Neighbours Omnibus on Christmas day!

thanks to Karl
http://www.neighboursboard.co.uk/ib/ikonboard.cgi

On Christmas Eve, Neighbours episodes will air at 1.20pm and 5.45pm

Spiderman 3 did very well when it had its terrestrial premiere last year so it's unsurprising it did well, Beowulf did better than I expected especially against IAC although the competition from BBC Two and Channel 4 wasn't exactly strong.

By "repeats of recent films" you mean premieres and by "comedy like My Family" you mean The Royle Family?

The Royle Family has been a fixture for the last few years since both Dibley and OFAH are over and I imagine until Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash decide to end it, it will remain a fixture. Wasn't the Queen of Sheba aired in October rather than November, that is still my favourite episode.

I would like to see them do another comedy for the Christmas Day slot either an old sitcom like Men Behaving Badly or more recent ones like Gavin and Stacey, Outnumbered or Miranda.

I wasn't having a go at the Christmas schedules, just pointing out that BBC1 bosses only tend to repeat stuff that has aired in the past couple of years. I can't ever imagine repeats of much-loved classics like OFAH, Morecambe & Wise, Allo Allo, Some Mothers, Fawlty Towers etc etc ever airing in prime time on BBC1 ever again.

And I think that's a shame.

FWIW, this is how I think BBC1 and ITV1 will shape up for TV's biggest day once finalised tomorrow:

BBC1:

3.00 The Queen
3.10 FILM: Wall-E
4.45 FILM: Shrek the Third
6.15 BBC News
6.30 Doctor Who
7.30 Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special
8.30 EastEnders
9.30 The Royle Family
10.30 Come Fly With Me
11.00 BBC News
11.10 Film: TBA
(not Starsky & Hutch - how about the first showing of Blades of Glory - currently down for 28/12?)

ITV1:

3.00 The Queen
3.10 Film : How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
5.10 ITV News & Weather
5.30 All Star Family Fortunes
6.30 Emmerdale
7.30 Coronation Street
8.30 Murder on the Orient Express
10.30 ITV News & Weather
10.45 Film : You Me and Dupree

Perhaps you should email this to the BBC scheduling department before its too late!

I hear there's a job going as well!

This is what I'd do for Christmas Eve:

BBC1:

3.15 Film : Cars (2006)
5.05 Film: Enchanted (2007)
6.45 BBC News
7.10 Casualty
8.00 EastEnders
8.30 QI
9.00 Have I Got News For You
9.40 The One Ronnie
10.30 The Graham Norton Show
11.15 National Lottery Draws
11.30 BBC News
11.45 Midnight Mass
1.10am Weatherview
1.15am Film : The Money Pit (1986)

The late Christmas night movies on both BBC One and ITV1 look to be really uninspired picks. You, Me and Dupree is one of ITV's most repeated films (9 times this year excluding Christmas showings) and as for Starsky and Hutch, say no more. I agree with Robbie, they should try a premiere there, especially if the BBC is keen to start a movie as early as 10:45pm.

I have to say ITV1 seems to have some decent films on this Christmas. Indeed, some not bad proper programmes on either. It looks like their strongest line-up in years, frankly.

What happens, I guess, when you recruit ex-BBC bosses!

And this is what I'd do for Boxing Day:

4.00 The Boxing Day Big Sing
5.00 BBC News
5.15 Film : The Chronicles of Narnia : Prince Caspian (2008)
7.30 My Family
8.30 EastEnders
9.00 Upstairs Downstairs (1/3)
10.00 BBC News
[BBC2 Top Gear special 9-10.15pm]
10.15 Match of the Day
11.45 The Football League Show

I'd save Indiana Jones for New Year's Day 8-10pm (otherwise it will just be a normal Saturday night) with Come Fly with Me following at 10pm. I would repeat the first 3 Indy films on the afternoons of BH Monday, BH Tuesday and NYE.

Rock and Chips would air at 9pm on BH Monday.

At least it's not Speed or Bend it Like Beckham! Not sure what movie they should on Christmas Day in a late slot, a premiere would be good but BBC One tend to schedule their premieres post news for some reason excluding at Christmas.

Finally, what I'd do with Bank Holiday Monday:

BBC1
5.10 News
5.30 Just William
7.00 Antiques Roadshow
8.00 EastEnders
8.30 Celebrity Mastermind
9.00 Rock and Chips
10.00 Live at the Apollo
10.30 BBC News
10.50 A Question of Sport
11.20 Film: Wild Hogs (2007)
1.00 The Graham Norton Show

I think 16 episodes was too much, 22 episodes is going to be overkill. I think they should either cut it back to 8-10 episodes or if they must have a long series, 13 episodes maximum.

I do think once David Threfall leaves, that should be the end of Shameless and I imagine the fact he hasn't left is the reason it's still going.

hello peeps

BBC1 (inc HD)
TOS - 5.03m
EE - 9.65m
Panorama - 2.85m
Accused - 3.84m
AQoS - 3.51m


BBC2
UC - 3.33m
Miranda - 3.65m
IHAotDB - 2.56m
The Trip - 1.23

ITV1
Emmers - 8.39m
Corrie - 10.26m
IAC - 8.97m

C4 (inc HD)
DonD - 2m (rounded up)
HO - 1.18m
Coppers - 1.39m
CMQN - 811k

Five (inc HD)
Neighbours - 1.42m
HAA - 912k
TGS - 1.13m

E4
Scrubs - 178k
Scrubs - 192k

edit: added AQoS
edit: ITV1 doesn't inc HD, my bad

pure guesswork, but I reckon the snow will see higher ratings tonight for Emmers and EE

Wow at Miranda! 3.65m on BBC2 oppisite Corrie getting 10.3m!

Edit: Corrie was not on yesterday at 20:30 haha my bad! () but still a great rating.

It's a shame that it will be hit next week by the Corrie tram crash episodes

OoOH Miranda!