Possibly. But on the other hand, Midsomer Murders' ABC1 rating is high for ITV1 - that's what most dramas are judged by rather than 16-34s. And taking last night's demo numbers into account, ITV would make more advertising revenue with MM's 2.8m ABC1s than WR's 1.0m 16-34s. (Although I suppose WR is a cheaper show to make).

Also with Midsomer Murders, they repeat it umpteen number of times over many years so in that respect it's better for ITV and its portfolio of channels than Waterloo Road which isn't repeated and if it was, it would repeat badly.


Yeah it did yesterday but Traffic Cops doesn't usually skew that young. It only skewed that young last night because the older viewers were locked into watching MM. Usually when Traffic Cops gets 4-5m (or better sometimes), its audience is of an older age profile than yesterday.

Almost too small to count!


Freudian slip?

Motorway Cops ... Traffic Cops ... they are practically the same show I suppose. Both surprisingly effective slot fillers for the BBC.

Looking at MTV's BARB Top 10 chart from the last few weeks, Jersey Shore's overnight rating would've been good enough for second place for the week (only behind Teen Mom). With timeshift perhaps, it would've been top. So relative to how the slots usually perform, it seems to have done pretty well for the channel. I never realised MTV's ratings normally were that low though!

Just read that 5* have aquired both Better with You and Shit My Dad Says, two good picks ups i feel, although i suppose it depends on whether or not either of them make it to a second series! (I really hope Better With You does!)

Neighbours is doing well!

I think all three of the pickups confirmed today were good ones, even Parenthood which is holding its own on Australian primetime. All of them have the potential to rate well for 5* standards, even if they are not recommissioned.

I think the channel has a good set of programmes now, especially recent additions Malcolm in the Middle and The Mentalist. The challenge seems to be persuading people to watch anything other Home and Away on it in great numbers!

I guess if 5000 is the slot average for MTV then 37,000 is pretty good.

But I can't help comparing it to The Hills which got over 300,000 on MTV a few months ago

They should do well enough although I wonder if 5* will air them at 9pm or 10pm like they did with Archer which I hope returns.

They should pick up Mad Love if it does well although that one would be perfect for E4 or Sky Living.

Parenthood seems an odd one considering most of the dramas picked by Fiver in recent months were action dramas.

The Mentalist seems out of place on Fiver, I imagine it was moved to boost ratings for the channel. Human Target which was previously on Fiver has been moved to Five USA so maybe they're reshuffling content ahead of the rebrand. Five USA is rebranding but just as 5USA.

And intensely irritating she was too. She made Mad Melaine Philips sound normal!

Expect big numbers for Marchlands tomorrow. Whilst it wasn't very good - typically plodding middle of the road stuff - BBC1 will probably struggle to get above 3.5m at any point in the 9pm hour, with the crap scheduling of an Outnumbered repeat. I'd expect Marchlands to get an easy 6-7m, largely by default.

If the Beeb had decided to marry up CFWM and Not Going Out, they should have launched them together on Christmas Day night and kept them together on NYD and successive Saturdays, or moved them together to Thursdays for 4 weeks - allowing either a 9pm hour long series to start tonight, or 2 x new 30 min comedies.

Stupid...

I wrote to them about Breakout Kings (us tx: 6/3/10). No plans apparently, but my suggestion was logged.

A couple of ITV bit's....

Breakout Kings will probably end up on Five USA, probably waiting to see how it does. There's a few cable dramas that would do well on the channel like The Glades or Rizzoli and Isles.

Can't wait...

Changing Gardens Force?

Celebrities on Spades?

The Hoe Factor?

Britain's Got Trowels?

Rzt had it down as Traffic Cops on his demo sheet.

As you say, they are all the same. Cops. Cameras and Roads.

It seems bizarre that BBC1 aired 2 or 3 new episodes of Motorway Cops in January - at 10.35pm. But a month later is airing repeats in a prime 9pm slot.

George's legacy?

I bow down to your superior prediction skill. Come to think of it, this could be why I'm struggling in the prediction game. Waterloo Road didn't see the boost I expected from the EastEnders lead in and Midsomer Murders performed excellently. Good figure for the Unforgettable... I wonder how long it'll be until ITV schedule a series up against EastEnders?

As for tonight, I have to agree with Robbie - bizarre scheduling from BBC1 not to end Come Fly With Me and Not Going Out together as it's landed them with a very strange Thursday night line up. Marchlands should benefit from it.

Rather late in the day but NBC has pulled Chase from the schedules. It looks like it's a reaction to the strong ratings posted by Minute to Win It at 9pm last night and that will now take the slot. This move follows the decision earlier in the week to cut The Cape to 10 episodes.

Tvbythenumbers notes that it's yet another flop against Jerry Bruckheimer. He was also behind ABC's "The Whole Truth" which only managed to air 6 episodes.

Indeed, since 2005, Bruckheimer has produced 10 new series for broadcast TV. Only one, CBS' Close To Home, has made it to a second season (and it didn't go any further). Only two have actually completed a full first season 22 episode order (Close To Home and the 2005 series, E-Ring).

Talk about dining out on past success!

Hardly a surprise to see Chase get yanked. Much like at ABC, the only joy for NBC at the moment is coming from comedy or unscripted programming. So I can hardly blame them turning to more of it. The drama slate is a real mess. At least ABC have a couple of (albeit fading) veterans to fall back on. NBC have... well, SVU.

Even SVU was struggling at points in the fall! But the MITWI lead-in helped last night.

MITWI will ensure that Wednesdays are solid for 3 hours which is a relief for NBC. The Thursday comedy line-up is doing alright and Tuesdays aren't awful. Much like the past few seasons, it's just a case of NBC waiting for another chance in September.

The NBC pilot which most interests me just now is Playboy - another period drama (this set in the golden years of the Playboy empire). I've seen some good reviews of the script ,but given the content, it'll be interesting to see how they do it for broadcast TV.

They've got the Wonder Woman remake as well and Kyle Killen's (Lonestar) new sci-fi series called REM which was Bob Greenblatt's first pick-up. It's described as an Inception-style thriller about a cop who wakes up after an accident to find he is living in two different realities

Marchlands got 5.9m (25%) according to Attentional's ScreenWatch blog, and I don't think that includes HD or +1. Good start for it.

I'm a bit hungover, apologies in advance for any typos

Emmers - 7.26m
EE - 8.96m
Emmers - 7.25m
Corrie - 8m
HO - 1.27m
Neighbours - 1.26m
HAA - 870k

HP - 4.45m
Outnumbered - 3.55m
NGO - 3.67m
Louis Theroux - 1.81m
Marchlands - 5.9m
Rome - 1.4m
10 o'clock Live - 790k
QT - 2.73m

Big Bang (rpt) - 393k
HIMYM - 277k
AI - 395k
Keith Lemon - 439k
Keith Lemon - 401k

10'O Clock Live looks to be in trouble. What did JLC get at 9pm on five?

789k is what I have (I think it's including HD)

thats not great either