You're Hired certainly didn't merit an extra hour - 45 minutes at most would have been fine, given the amount of padding. That way, we could have gone to the news at 10.45 and everything would have been wrapped up by 11.

I also thought the 2 hrs of The Apprentice dragged, particularly if you'd sat through 2 hrs of SPOTY (and perhaps an hour of CF too).

I can see why BBC1 run the two Apprentice shows into one to boost ratings for You're Hired - but it is going to massively drag down the 2 hr average I think. I think a 15 min break for the news and then You're Hired separately would have been better - a 9m average for the main show, good audience for the news, and Apprentice fans like myself get a chance of a breather.

On balance - I think it was a mistake to schedule SPOTY and TA Final-YH back to back, and this may be reflected in the overnights tomorrow I fear.

In other news, more heavy snow for southern England tomorrow I see. In the spirit of the posts seen on here yesterday, this should mean HUGE! lifts for EmFm (which will be boosted anyway by lack of The One Show this week), Coro St and Only Come Rain and Horses.

Not to mention The Natvitiy, EastEnders and Accused - or, for some reason, is BBC1 not affected by bad weather?

Oh, and you can hardly start calling Come Rain and Shine names linked to Only Fools and Horses considering what BBc1 are airing the Wednesday after Christmas.

For reference when the numbers come through tomorrow:

2009
Sports Personality of the Year 2009
Average: 4.7m
Peak: 7.2m

The Apprentice Final
First Hour Average: 9.8m
Second Hour Average: 7.7m
Peak: 10.4m

Obviously, I'd expect SPOTY to be up (it was vs TXF final last year), but the lack of household names in contention might hold it back somewhat. The overall series trend would be for The Apprentice to be moderately behind last year. I think thats very likely especially in the second hour - neither candidates were particularly interesting interviewees. It was much weaker than You're Fired usually is.

I think The Apprentice could do really well (at least from 9-10pm) with the SPOTY lead-in, especially as it ran past 9pm. Although You're Fired did drag a bit. I guess with the largely unknown contenders for SPOTY, they played their trump card by getting Beckham in so that should have lifted interest and ratings.

Exactly, and I think that's what puts people off Millionaire, along with its poor format - and maybe Chris Tarrant nowadays, whose other formats have somewhat made him seem cheap and nasty. He was huge in 2000.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? needs a prolonged (two year?) rest IMO, then needs to go back to its original format, and should be LIVE too to add that element of surprise.

Everybody says it's tired and there's no way of turning it around, but look at Strictly Come Dancing and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here - pulling in massive ratings this year after lots of so-called Ratings Thread know-it-alls wrote them off.

It's potentially a top gameshow, but needs to be stripped in the 9pm slots and stripped back in length (two weeks of consecutive episodes per year, all of differing lengths depending on what else ITV has on its schedule).

This kind of flexibility helps ITV - similar to how I'm a Celebrity helps ITV when it airs for half hour on a Saturday, then two hours say on a Tuesday - a boost to nights more in need.

Cut back on the celebrity charity specials too, it cheapens the show and takes the whole point out of the show really. It should be completely about normal people.

Not sure if the Australian format would work here but I prefer it, it's a lot faster and it has less of the chitchat and decision making that seem to take up a chunk of the airtime. I do like how the people holding the cases get $500 if they correctly guess what's in the case.

Previous Sports Personality of The Year overnight ratings:

2000 - 7.2m (28%) - 19:00 to 21:15 *peak: 9.8m
2001 - 7.1m (28%) - 20:00 to 22:10 *peak: 9.4m
2002 - 6.6m (26%) - 20:00 to 22:15
2003 - 6.5m (30%) - 20:00 to 22:15 *peak: 8.3m
2004 - 6.1m (24%) - 20:00 to 22:15 *peak: 7.2m
2005 - 4.9m (18%) - 20:00 to 22:00 *peak: 7.1m
* note: was against Royal Variety: 9.5m (37%)
2006 - 5.8m (22%) - 19:00 to 21:00 *peak: 7.2m
2007 - 6.8m (26%) - 19:00 to 21:15 *peak: 8.6m
2008 - 6.6m (26%) - 19:00 to 21:15 *peak: 8.4m
2009 - 4.7m (17%) - 19:00 to 21:05 *peak: 7.2m
* note: was against X Factor Final
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With the relatively poor competition and bad weather, I think there's a real chance of yesterday's SPOTY being the most watched edition since 2001 (or very close to that anyway). The peak at 21:00 will be particularly high due to both SPOTY and Apprentice viewers watching at that time.

Certainly the premature Beckham "lifetime" achievement award has created a major talking point for the coming days.

Suspect this will generate more press coverage, debate and discussion in this week's papers than whether the chap who won X Factor last week got to No 1 with his lame karaoke cover (I assume he did?).

Father Ted is trending worldwide on Twitter. I've seen that episode a million times, it's just a tradition. I hope it does well again.

The Apprentice certianly dragged during the Your Hired hour. At one point I thought they were going to do a best bits of everyone connected on the show to fill more time. Enjoyable stuff nonetheless.

Cant help but think ITV have missed a trick by scheduling Atonement so late. It could have really done well by tapping into the Dowton Abbey (period, costume drama) audience. It wouldnt have got 9-10m but could have got 5-6m in the 9-11pm slot.


A fantastic episode. Its tradition to watch it nowadays, even just for the lingerie department scene.

It's the sign of a fantastic comedy, and it just gets better with age in my opinion. There are so many things that just don't catch your eye first time, but make you laugh the 20th time you watch Father Ted (hence its longevity) - there's always so much going on.

That's why I think it'll be getting a bigger rating than last year - but then again - maybe not...

Paul - sorry, while you're here, you couldn't give the Ipswich v Leicester football rating from Saturday could you? Two reasons for the interest: first, I'm an Ipswich fan so it'd be interesting to see how it did, and secondly there seems to be quite a bit of debate about whether it should've gone on due to the conditions so I'm wondering if there was a boost to figures as people tuned in to see what the fuss was about.

I think it was on Sky Sports from 5.15 to I guess around 8.30. If you can't do it no worries, and thanks.

This is something I agree with, definitely - would reach the ABC1/16-34 audience - the book's a bestseller with teenagers.

There's a problem between ITV and movies - and I don't know how it's going to be solved. Obviously News at Ten is restrictive, and sandwiching in a news bulletin is never a wise move, but these 10.35pm starts are really putting people off.

You're right though - with Atonement it's two hours - but then again would it have been complimentary to BBC One's schedule, which also appeals to the 16-34/ABC1 audience, doesn't it?

Versus The Apprentice the only thing which I think would excel is really low-brow entertainment - look at how well I'm a Celebrity did. So, I probably would've slotted in some daft comedy flop.

Just had a look, assuming it was on Sky Sports 2 - I only get Sky Sports 1 on my 'Overnights Report' but do get 'Top 50 Multichannels' so I know it was definitely sub 300k - but that's probably no real help to you as that would be hardly surprising?

I'm sorry I couldn't be more help

That's ok - cheers. I wondered if it would be boosted by the lack of football on ESPN but obviously not!

Atonement would have skewed older and Apprentice younger so would have complimented each other well. It just seemed very good Sunday night fare. Its critically acclaimed, great cast and very British. It could also have meant ITV keeping the David Suchet documentary to fill another slot.

Just reaslied the next series of TV Burp starting in Feb is the last one on his current contract after that


I wonder what the plan is.

I'd be stunned if he doesn't get a contract extension for the show.

As the C word is integral to the plot of the film, would it be allowed to be shown before 10pm?

It's not as though they could have cut it out.

I think it would have boosted ratings if people knew beforehand that he'd be getting that award. Was it public knowledge? Also one thing that could really boost The Apprentice is if Sir Alan hired them during the live show.

overnights are delayed..... snow joke

*groan*

Anyone want to predict Xmas Day?
It looks like a shit line up anyway

BBC1
1800 Dr Who 9.9
1900 SCD 8.5
2000 EastEnders 11.4
2100 Royle Family 10.9
2200 Come Fly With Me 6.5

ITV1
1800 Emmerdale 7.5
1900 Coronation Street 9.0
2000 Family Fortunes 4.0
2100 Poirot 4.5

The Apprentice final averaged 8.3m (32.2%) - peaked with 10.5m (38%).
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To compare, last year's final averaged 8.7m (37.0%) over two hours, peaking at 10.6m (41%).

Probably sat in a depot somewhere in the frozen Midlands with most of my Christmas presents...