The Football League Show tends to have AI's about 77 to 80. Match of the Day has similar, if a tad higher.
Last edited by D.M.N. : 08-01-2011 at 16:09

I like Jim Beglin as a summariser. I don't find Tyldsley as bad as some do. The studios don't seem that different to me. Not sure how Townsend can be criticised when you have Lawrenson and Hansen boring people on BBC1. That or Ian Wright trying to speak in coherent sentences.

I used to like the BBC titles but find they've made them all generic under a Sports banner now - I wish they'd break out and be a bit more individual about them. I like the England titles on ITV1 but agree the FA Cup ones leave a lot to be desired.

They must be seriously considering it. Shifting to in-season can be a very variable business - you might have thought it would have worked for So You Think You Can Dance last season, but it didn't. I've always been surprised that considering their increasingly dismal ratings, NBC hasn't moved America's Got Talent. They could have easily run it last autumn and I think with careful scheduling might well have boosted their numbers substantially. Too late now though, with the XF tanks arriving in 2011.


It is nice to see, and this week a good line up of shows have got good ratings. They ran an almost identical set of new dramas this time last year IIRC (just replace Zen with Wallander) - albeit on different days. Though that was a bit of a departure. In 2009, the drama line-up was unbelievably dismal right up until Easter.

As for last night in particular, Hustle was very solid. It has quite a young skewing audience, so I wondered if Fridays might not hit it a little harder than other similar drama staples. Also good stuff for Laconia to sustain a very respectable high 2's audience for its concluding part. With recent success and more commissions coming through, things are finally looking up for BBC Two drama.

Another cracking audience for Graham Norton, whose been a notable improvement on Ross. Speaking of whom, doesn't quite look like he's found himself a new hit format - though the reaction to Penn and Teller seems quite positive. The persistence of ITV and their 'Entertainment Fridays' is to be admired, but its not getting them anywhere...


After so many years, Bargain Hunt is still a ratings beast in daytime - it really towers over any competition. There was newspaper speculation that it was heading for the bin last week, but its nonsense. It'll be the last show standing out of all the BBC's property/antiques porn.

I notice the BBC's ditching of Murder She Wrote / Diagnosis Murder etc. has only led to more Cash in the Attic and Escape in the Country in the schedules, so not exactly an improvement for the viewers anyway. It baffles me how the BBC does so well in daytime with a line-up so poor even Channel 5 would reject it.

And a shame Penn and Tellar didn't get more last night. It was absolutely brilliant and a genuine celebration of the craft by those who love it rather than yet another celebrity vehicle made by those who don't seem to understand it. I wonder how much better it might have done in a 8.30-10pm slot.

At best now it might get a second show from ITV rather than a series, though to be honest not sure it could maintain a series of more than 3-4 episodes anyway (considering everything has to be an hour long nowadays!).

I think it's down to no other channel offering any real alternative.

I remember when it was Pages from Ceefax...

Worse still Radio Times are claiming that next Thursdays is a repeat of episode 1 again. When my Sky series link has set to it and suggests it is a new episode.

I am still confused and how many viewers will just give up?

Did the planning department from BAA Heathrow set up the Come Fly With Me schedule?

pretty sure that the new episodes are on Thursdays not, but i agree it is very confusing.

It depends. Does Hollyoaks have deals internationally as lucrative as the Channel 5 Neighbours deal?

That is bizarre. Don't ever recall seeing a PG film on so late on one of the big 5, especially a premiere. They're really wasting it there. Even that Wednesday in a few weeks time when they plan to repeat Indiana Jones 4 would have been better.

What would you put on in its place? The BBC appears to have found the recipe which pulls in the majority of viewers. it says something when even third or fourth time repeats of Homes Under The Hammer wins the slot. And that fewer watch This Morning surely says something isnt happening that should be with that show given that its live with the many options that throws up. And lavishing money on drama in the afternoon surely isnt the best idea given the amount of available audience-even of there is a marginal repeat value.

Well TFLS unfortunately is made by an independent production company not BBC Sport, as a certain percentage of there programmes now have to be made independently, which is a terrible shame. But the programme isn't THAT bad, the Beeb's coverage of the Football League is so much better than ITV's coverage.

not that im aware of.

Last year EE was in the midst of an exciting Whodunit plot and was up substantially on 2009 levels because of that. I don't think it's fair to compare with the same period last year when EE was riding a wave of momentum in the build up to its live anniversary episode which pulled in 16m+ viewers.

Yes the +1 is going to make things very complicated next week. Hopefully they will get reported separately, but as C4 ratings generally inc. +1, I fear ITV1 ratings will be reported the same way. I don't think it will take much off the main ITV1 audience to start with, but over time I can see it growing just like ITV1 HD has. As for an ITV1 HD +1 service... will make it impossible to calculate full series averages soon etc unless ITV inform BARB to bundle all the figures together! I'm waiting to hell to freeze over first!

There's always some reason why we can't compare to previous year's. Last year it was a big storyline, it was snowing, it was sunny, it was a different slot, it was up against tough opposition, half the UK population emigrated for a week...

Yes it was a repeat from S1. The episode in question (Red Rum) was watched by 2.4 million when it was first shown back in June 2009.

Do you know when it returns Dan?

No news yet but I'll keep you posted. My guess would be mid to late February based on the US airings.

I don't think it's too bad either, although it could do with less talking and more action. It annoyed me earlier in the season when Northampton Town beat Liverpool and they only showed about 30 seconds of it!

Er - this is going to artifically inflate ITV1's overnight figures, not decrease them!

You should be delighted!

As for "making it impossible to compare series averages" etc, well it will be impossible if ITV1, ITV1HD, ITV1+1 are lumped together because you'll be comparing apples with pears.


Not ITV Sport is it?

I think it's woeful.

ITV's The Championship was bad, but better than this because it didn't have the pointless studio element and Lizzie reading emails out for absolutely no good reason.

Just show the frigging football!!

I might bookmark this so I can bring it out when we comment on Corrie's figures this December.

I don't think so. The other episodes this week have only been slightly down (0.2-0.4m) compared to the previous year's ratings (which were boosted by snow). Yesterday's 1.2m drop was a one-off anomaly and not a fair representation of how the show has been holding up overall. Corrie was 1.0m down y-o-y on Thursday. Does that mean its storylines at the moment are pushing viewers away?


Graham Norton's been rating really really well but I don't think his ratings have been a “noteable improvement” on Ross's. Despite facing tougher competition in the form of Celebrity Big Brother, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross' first episode last year had a 21% share, better than Graham's 19% share yesterday (Graham had 0.2m more viewers but his show finishes 15 mins earlier). The 2009 ratings I found for Jonathan Ross’ from October onwards were:

23/10/09- 3.52m (25.1%)
27/11/09- 3.69m (25.5%)
11/12/09- 3.34m (24.0%)
18/12/09- 3.81m (27.0%)

Over the same October-December period in 2009, Graham Norton’s show averaged 3.6m (21%). Viewership-wise it seems to have rated similarly overall (although with higher peaks – 2 episodes getting 4m+) but share is lower as no episode of GN’s regular series had 23%+. In 2010, Jonathan Ross’s final series from January to July averaged 3.2m (22%) so it’ll be interesting to see if Graham Norton will match that. To have even come close to matching Jonathan Ross’ figures is an excellent achievement for Graham Norton and the BBC but I don’t think it’s accurate to say he’s been a “noteable improvement” in terms of ratings. But if you mean the show itself has been a noteable improvement over FNWJR, I agree.

I mean in the officials. ITV1 HD only has a top 10 which is mainly made up of Corrie and ITV1's other big hitters. So any series average will be based on SD showings alone. This needs to get sorted out and have all it bundled together in the official ratings.


As for that post. I was clearly been sarcastic. But feel free to bookmark it, after all you're the poster that doesn't save posts to re-use months later!

It was down 0.9m y-o-y (overnight was 10.6m). My point I was trying to get across was maybe the media storm surrounding EE has made some viewers switch off. I was at work this morning and overheard some people talking about it saying they won't be watching it next week as it's the funeral of the baby that's died. It's very distasteful tbh and I wouldn't blame people for switching off. As for Corrie, last nights episodes were not great by any means.

To be fair my post was abit tongue in cheek and there's nowt like a Corrie vs EE debate on the Ratings Thread.