I'm sure you appreciated the exchange between Jim and Joe last night about the big cuts in 2010 - "aye, Last of the Summer Wine, The Bill....".




Comfortably ahead of Britain's Got Talent then. Cowell will be bereft!

Not that far off Coro St either - shame it couldn't just garner another 0.5m more.

How does the 48.1% share compare with TXF's share for the previous Sunday - about 55% was it?

Does anyone know what the last episode for this year for Neighbours got on Thursday?

But no news on BBC1 makes all the difference - ITV News at Ten always benefits if the BBC bulletin is displaced.


What a surprise - the same dirty tactics they use every year and there is no excuse for it. Doctor Who always scheduled in a 60 minutes slot when it always runs closer to 65 minutes (as I think the episodes are planned to run in a 90-minute commercial slot).



RobbieSykes in watching ITV shocker! Family Fortunes though suffers in the same way many other quiz shows have suffered of late - they're half-hour shows padded out to fill an hour.

With the ratings in now for ITV I'd have kept Emmerdale and Corrie from 6-8pm, then had Poirot from 8-10pm with Benidorm at 10pm.


As for C4 - a bit disappointing for One Born at Christmas, though not too surprising. It's a shame though when anyone tries to do something different and the viewers just don't respond - though then again why anyone would want to watch people in labour on Christmas Day is beyond me.


Any digital ratings likely - I'd guess the EastEnders repeat is probably a safe bet for most watched digital show of the day.

dude let it go, you are unlikely to get it now, unless Digital Spy does a soap ratings update

I must admit - HUGE achievement by Strictly to overtake BGT. That is a highly significant change to the pecking order for these reality/talent shows.

Also one I expect to see continue in 2011 as BGT will be weaker without Cowell at the auditions.

All Star Family Fortunes...
"Name a bird you associate with Christmas".

6th most popular answer, 2 people said...Mrs Claus

Vernon Kay "I suggest to those two people that you should get some psychiatric help".

I think he'll be very disappointed as well when the figure does eventually surface. Neighbours won't have done well outside its usual slot on a highly competitive Christmas Eve. However the news is largely good for Neighbours in the UK, posting Y-o-Y increases in the officials these past few months in contrast to big falls in Australia.

I'm not even sure if DW did overrun but Strictly did slightly. However ITV were also overrunning and tried to use Corrie to dent EE.

Let's not have double standards.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what happens next year as BGT will presumably dip without Cowell at the auditions but the live shows should be up with better scheduling. The X Factor will be as unpredictable as ever, and with Strictly on a roll, Dancing on Ice having a revamp and I'm A Celebrity potentially having a spin-off series things could be very different again next year.

I don't think there were any dirty tactics at play at all. Overrunning by ~5 minutes on a day when few even bother to use their remote control is hardly the crime of the century.

Channel 4 is the worst for this all year round with programmes ending at 10pm and the 10pm programme not starting until around 4 minutes past. I don't hear anyone voicing disapproval at this, even though as I say their 10pm programme rarely starts on time.

Yes the bigget test yet for the format itself. I dont think Hoff and MM were the first people in mind for judges. MM is a bit marmite and I know very little about Hoff other than that you cant escape in newspapers etc. And "Midas" Cowell being absent the back team will need all its spin and manipulation to create stories to keep the show in the news and from being a poor mans X Factor.

As I've said before I wholeheartedly believe The X Factor has peaked now, and with BGT undergoing big changes I expect both of those programmes to be down in 2011. The X Factor's big push next year is going to be in the US market and I could see the UK show getting sidelined a bit. DoI's decline already began in 2010, and I'm not convinced the changes made for next series (particularly with longer episodes) will be enough to reverse that so again I predict a fall. IAC could go either way but I think it will struggle to top this year's series which did really well and if a civilian series is commissioned it could be overkill for the format.

Overall the only one of these reality/talent shows which I think has a good chance of posting a higher series average next year is Strictly. The changes this year were very well received and I think there is scope to build on that further. But obviously a lot will depend on what celebrities they can get and who will replace Brucie if he leaves.

agreed, its unlikely to have gotten good ratings, however it is good the show is doing well despite its slump in Australia.

As for Doctor Who over running, my recording is 62 minutes long, that inculded the S6 promo, so it obviously didnt fit its slot, but it didnt over run into Doctor Who: Confidential, and that ended in plenty of time for EastEnders.

Strictly and I'm a Celeb are entirely dependent on what celebs they book.

Strictly in 2009 had far too many contestants, and soap star nobodies...so ratings were down. This year had the amusing Anne Widdecome and generally a much better cast list. And it did very well as a result.

same for I'm a Celeb. Stacey Solomon and Sean Ryder were hilarious and the viewers responded to that.

Corrie did well to rise over 1m year on year against Strictly which had more than it, and itself improved a lot from 2009. EastEnders benefitted from far weaker oppostition but deserved highest rated soap of the day. Emmerdale holding up well too. I think I might be in the minority who enjoyed both Royle Family and Come Fly With Me! CFWM did very well to out rate the Royles.

I am surprised to see anyone expecting Corrie to beat Strictly.

The reasoning as to why Strictly was bound to win is clear. This was the best Strictly line up ever with names that would never do the proper series. Moreover, it is a show with a result so viewers tend to want to watch that before today's papers spoiler it. And at Christmas nobody wants adverts interrupting programmes so the BBC is always 90% there already.

Oh, and Corrie is repeated later at night so easy to catch up with. Not sure when/if Strictly is repeated.

Corrie did very well to get the audience it did.

In fact, everybody did very well as both the BBC and ITV had some good festive offerings.

The one serious miscalculation was putting Poirot's best episode on last night. Today has a pretty dire line up all round in contrast.

It would be nice if we did not have to wait to next Christmas for another Royle Family given its high standard this year. From some of the jokes it was written fairly recently and the cliffhanger ending begged less than a 12 month wait,

Easter special please.

Come Fly With Me is an oddity. The problem is that Airline was a parody of itself already (with every episode bringing Harry Hill moments as the zillionth customer arrived 30 seconds late or lost a passport). This makes a comedy version feel unnecessary.

Indeed maybe someone will try making a comedy version of Come Fly With me one day.

The One Ronnie almost worked and was indeed an inspired idea to team him in Two Ronnies fashion with some of todays top talent. Even Matt and David were funnier on there! All it needs is tighter scripting and more work making the sketches funny and it could be an enjoyable annual event. Worth another shot as the ratings were good enough to justify that.

TXF has been running for the same length of time as SCD, and actually started quite slowly, but has never suffered any sort of fall of in ratings like SCD did last year. I do think TXF has peaked this year and Cowell realises that by 2013 it will be in its tenth series, around the same time another Saturday legend, The Generation Game, began to decline and was cancelled the following year.
IAC is more difficult to predict. The last two series have seen a recovery and it is the last surviving celeb reality show that attracts decent ratings, its contemporaries like CBB and Hell's Kitchen have been axed due to falling ratings and less than interesting contestants. Yet should it continue with decent contestants and a lack of overkill I can see it lasting until 2014 or so, but should ITV get landed with really useless celebs and decide to launch a non celeb version then it could be gone earlier.

Incidentally, did East Enders launch in HD last night? It said that it was doing before it started but the PQ looked hardly any different.

Yeah, that made me smile.

yes your marathon of ITV favourites sounds like more fun.

Your granny must be so disappointed that you watch the BBC.

There arent many times that I use these but wow.

How many more people were watching TV last night?

Biggest shocker for me is Come Fly With Me getting over 10m and somehow getting more than The Royle Family.

Emmerdale getting over 7m, 2m more than last year but DW still getting over 10m.

Strictly beating Corrie and they both got over 9m. Quite outstanding numbers between the two channels.

Oh yes I was so anticipating watching tired out clips of people falling off ladders from 1990, a bunch of ham actors who are supposed to be in Yorkshire but sound like they're from Surrey, a game show that peaked in about 1984, that I had to watch BBC One. Also I didn't quite want to watch Ercule Poirot's moustache for two hours so ITV was off limits last night.
However, this is still light years ahead of the 1993 Christmas schedule where a stupid National Lampoons film was one of the highlights and the noise of remotes switching to BBC1 was like an earthquake.

Voiceover Man said just before the start "Now on BBC1, and for the first time on BBC1 HD, EastEnders...."

I was waiting for this post as you seem to post the same thing ever year George.

If you could find another night where there are 10 shows over 7m. 6 over 9m and 18m watching just BBC1 and ITV1 in the 7pm hour then please say.

Did you not watch your "annual punishment" of Eastenders this year too?


Amazing figures. Both shows higher than the BGT Final. Who would have predicted Strictly beating BGT this year, considering there was a gap of about 6m last year.


I think the "BSI" deserve some credit for this move, they get a lot of stick and most of the time it is rightfully so but they scheduled CFWM well and promoted it well and got a great result


Unbelievable! BBC1 overruns by 3 minutes and you call dirty dactics even though ITV1 deliberately overran too. BBC1 could have overran by 20 seconds and you would have had a go.

Could Come Fly with Me see the biggest audience drop for episode 2 since C4 launched with Countdown. It could quite easily drop to 5m for New Year, which would still be more than it deserves. Even if it holds on to 7-8m for episode 2, can't see it getting above 5m for episode 3.