Anne Widdecombe on ice

There is no doubt that the show is being harmed by the BGT and X Factor clashes and could do with being moved out of the line of fire. But, the show always seems to bounce back straight away. The question is what else could the BBC show in Casualty's slot and get the same figures? It will be interesting to see what the new BBC1 controller and schedulers decide to do about this matter, if anything.

The demise of Casualty tends to be overstated at this time of year - and has been each December for the last several years.

The fact is, it's been relatively steady at about 5m (in officials) opposite TXF all autumn. They're not great numbers, but in the circumstances, few shows could hope for much more. By the time we get to January, it'll be back up against Take Me Out or All Star something-or-other, and pulling 6m and more again - frequently winning its slot and being one of the top two or three shows of the night. In summer, it'll be pretty much the only show breaking about 4m on Saturdays across all the channels.

I am partial to the idea that the episode order could be cut down to about 40, allowing the show to go on hiatus while XF is on air - but to be frank, I can forgive the BBC for not doing it. It'd alienate the hardcore and would be dangerous for such a long running show - tinkering around when nothing massive was wrong in the first place did nothing for The Bill, did it?

Casualty provides a valid alternative for those who can't stand TXF and there are a good few million. At least the BBC isn't wilting like it used to in front of strong ITV shows. I can remember when ITV was showing Game For A Laugh and the best the BBC could come up with was an obscure seventies film.

Havent they used up every possible illness, disease and accident scenario by now though? I watch it ocassionally and the set up is so obvious you can see it coming several miles away.

Hmmm, I know where you're coming from, but couldn't the same be applied to the soaps. Casualty, when not against you know who, is still a reliable banker for the BBC.

Casualty never used to be a soap though, it worked much better when every episode was more of a standalone affair.

This is all true. But when the show is out of the crosshairs of Britain's Got Talent/The X Factor and it doesn't clear 7 million in overnights alone based on the competition it suggests that the show's must see status is diminished.

Thanks.

Lol.

But it's kept around to get a solid 5 million viewers when it could have more impact being a slightly shorter series with more event episodes. People don't really talk about it anymore. I remember when there was a siege in the hospital and Charlie got shot, that had people talking for weeks

Cheers - thought we'd have heard if it wasn't the case, but those reports on Dancing on Ice seemed to skip around the issue.


I quit watching Millionaire due to the celeb specials, but I think the way Million Pound Drop is using celebs is much better actually - just slotting them in every now and again. For the next series "in the New Year" though I'd limit it to one pair at the end of the series.


C4 have actually signed up Million Pound Drop through to the end of 2012 now according to an insider on Bothers Bar.


You must be gutted at how poorly Strictly performed!

And Total Wipeout so frustrates me - it's absolutely awful compared to the US version in practically every sense, but still brings in these fantastic figures even for repeats.


LOL - that made me giggle.


Although when they're paying most of them £40k+ it makes no sense to sign up 16 only to dump 4 of them after their first appearance. Maybe it's because I'm viewing Dancing on Ice as a fan rather than an outsider as I am with Strictly, but I don't see the sense in any of the changes announced to DoI so far. Having just three scores will be ridiculous - I think with Dancing on Ice generally it's been more about the scores than the comments.


P.S. I don't suppose the BBC have taken a lead from ITV and been open and transparent about the Strictly voting - it would be interesting to see if it generally is the person with the lowest votes who leaves considering the person lowest on the judges scoreboard didn't go anywhere until a couple of weeks before the final.

Wouldn't the ratings have been worse if Tinie Tempah had turned up?

Yeah, they could have run the schedule a bit later than billed, starting with EastEnders at 7.35pm.

Although, that wouldn't have been good for the Ratings Thread stopwatches, which need to be saved for BBC One's Christmas night.

With all this snow around, you just can't get the batteries...

Whats this? Is there a rumour that the BBC are going to make people late for ITVs train which leaves at 9pm sharp.

The utter rotters if they do something so downright sneaky again this year on Christmas Day

I think the repeat slots for EastEnders and Doctor Who are five minutes longer than the original slots.

Also when it attracted 16 million viewers there wasn't as much competition and ITV was showing Family Fortunes, which was on its last legs. However, the BBC know it has a loyal following and with opportunities for actors diminishing due to reality shows it is a good opportunity to land a part in Casualty.

In fairness, airing a 1970s feature film on a Saturday evening in the early 1980s perhaps wasn't that desperate a move.


Yes, having predicted what I felt was a robust 12.3m and 13.1m in the RPG, and said on here yesterday that it won't beat 13m and I would eat my hat if it ended up with 14m let alone 15m, I am utterly distraught....


There will be so few punters on the ITV platform, they might as well send a replacement minibus...

I'd hope ITV will be ready for them this year with some dirty tricks of their own.

I do hope there are some ITV employees reading this who can prepare some nice surprises

Indeed, sir!

Not just more difficult - more dangerous. There have been regular injuries and the same thing has happened in the US where they have just launched their version 'Skating with the stars'.

Must put a few people off even for £40,000.

It's not like it matters -BBC1 will thrash ITV1 on Christmas Day anyway. I wish ITV would take more of a risk on Christmas Day and be a bit more experiemntal than 2 hours of soap-gameshow-crime but there we go.

Anyway, back to last night and the superb figure for Strictly Come Dancing. Coronation Street's timeshifts will probably mean it'll have to settle for fourth - but it still means it'll defeat Britain's Got Talent which no one would've predicted this time last year.

I'm in two minds about Casualty. I think it should have performed slightly better than that but then it suffered from ridiculous scheduling - why does the lottery always have to air before it? Why not let Casualty benefit from the strong lead in - either from Merlin or Strictly - than some gameshow with a load of balls revealed at the end? (I know the gameshow wasn't on last night but...)

ITV1 didn't hold up at all. Lazy scheduling gets lazy results. I suppose Take Me Out did reasonably and should see an increase next week, but otheriwse very poor.

Just looking at the key 9pm slots for next week and ITV1 should really win Mon-Thurs-easy BBC1 competition for all of them and I'm surprised at some of the BBC1 programmes, particuarly a New Tricks repeat and Panorama special. There's actually a decent range of programmes Mon-Fri on ITV1 which all look very watchable and imo their Christmas programming does look better this year.

Channel 4 announcer before Deal Or No Deal -
"Countdown fans please note that from January 10th the show will move to a new regular start time of ten past three".

ITV flopped without Simon Cowell, just shows how overly dependt ITV are on him at the weekends.

As for Casualty I thnk the short Lottery show is hurting it, it certainly cant take advantage of the SCD lead in with the Lottery in the way.

It will be an unusual week because BBC1 is only turning up for Fri/Sat/Sun - thanks again, George Dixon. Although it's the week with Christmas weekend in it, ITV could well have many of the top shows of the week.

With Come Rain or Shine attracting viewers of a certain vintage who will be dutifully waiting for their second dose of Corrie of the day (like they wait for nursie to dole out the second round of medication), and those who will tune in to see effectively a reprise of Jason's Del Boy role, I can see a 9-10m audience here - which may well outrate some or all of the BBC's big guns like Dr Who, Royle Family and Upstairs Downstairs and possibly even make the 2010 top 10!.

And the BBC's white flag at the threat of a live Millionaire special is bewildering. So that will rate highly too I expect, with a Corrie lead-in and I imagine plenty of trailers all evening.