Wonder how the rugby union will do tonight on BBC One? I predict about 5.5 million. The soaps on ITV1 will be largely unaffected as people who watch the soaps generally don't watch the Six Nations and vice versa and it's a smaller sport than a football international.

Bit of scheduling news to start with - in addition to the 1st leg on 17th February, Channel 5 are showing the 2nd leg of Liverpool v Sparta Prague on 24th February. It is a 6pm kick-off which means Five News and Neighbours are being brought forward by 15 minutes that night and Home and Away is displaced to the Friday where there will be a double bill from 6pm. OK! TV will be off air on both the 24th and 25th to accommodate these changes. Five News at 7 will be off air on the 24th.

Onto last night's ratings, very good for Marchlands as expected. Meanwhile Not Going Out did admirably to increase on its rather weak lead-in.

Not the best of nights for C4, especially 10 O'Clock Live. JLC on C5 was also low but that one will be over next week, whereas 10 O'Clock Live has another 11 weeks to go. And despite the drop for Justin it was a good night for C5 on the whole. The 8pm factual rated well and the movie at 10pm did excellently considering it finished at half past midnight.

Some commissioning news:

- BBC1 order new 3x'60 blue-collar comedy drama, 'Sugartown', based around a decaying seaside community in the north of England.
- BBC2 have recommissioned gameshow 'Pointless' for two further series, each series to be 60 episodes.
- Grandma's House is poised to return for another 6x30' series on BBC2 later this year.

In terms of scheduling:

- New BBC1 legal drama, 'Silk', is almost certainly going to start its 6-week run on Friday 25th February. It's likely to face Benidorm which is set to return in "late February/early March".
- 'Waking The Dead' will probably return on Monday 7th March for its new series as the DVD is out on 4th April.
- New BBC1 sitcom, Mrs Brown's Boys, is set to have a 10:35pm slot according to BBC comedy controller.
- Next series of 'Law & Order UK' and new medical drama, 'Monroe', are set to air on ITV1 in March according to cast members. The only issue with that though is that one of them might have to face Waking the Dead so I wouldn't be surprised if either of them is delayed by a month or two.
- Paul O'Grady Live returns in April according to its tickets website.


You always know when it's not a good night for Channel 4 because C4Sales doesn't update with the ratings!

Bit of a surprise as the ratings weren't very good from what I can remember and it got a bit of a kicking at the Comedy Awards. I know this news will please smile371 though who was asking recently if it would be back.


LOL, very true!

Actually it doesn't start until 7.45 so will have no impact on Emmerdale. However, people expecting Eastenders and the BBC's factual and entertainment programmes at this time who don't want to watch T6NC might drift over to the smaller channels.

same as every year I'd guess - about 6m

ITV are showing the Man Utd v Crawley 5th round FA Cup match on Saturday 19th February (kick-off 17:15).

Once again ITV goes for the Man Utd match even though the Leyton Orient v Arsenal match was probably the better match due to LO being at home. I don't think it's the best decision by ITV as it's going to screw up the rest of their Saturday lineup. TV Burp will probably have to start part-way through Total Wipeout and rate worse than usual, that'll have a knock-on effect on Push The Button and Take Me Out will be starting too late (about 9-ish). They could've saved all that hassle by picking the Arsenal Sunday 4pm match.

I liked Grandma's House but it's going to be a totally different due to the death of Geoffrey Hutching.

Wonder when Vera or Lewis will air? I think Vera will start in March when DoI finishes.

Orient aren't non league though?

Pretty poor for Skins, I know it's quite a 'cult' series but I still would've expected better than this. I think they should call it a day at the end of the current generation.

Its done well and the figures are still good for E4 but I dont know how long it can continue without repeating itself. I agree it should after series 6.

True. But with Man Utd being at home, I can see it being pretty one-sided whereas I imagine the Orient v Arsenal match would be more competitive and more likely to keep viewers watching.

Plus I think for ITV, the Sunday 4pm kick-offs are better than Saturday 5:15pm because they don't tend to affect the rest of the schedule like the Saturday ones. And they rate quite well anyway - last year one of the Arsenal FA Cup matches on a Sunday at 4pm averaged 5.5m. So the Arsenal match would've probably rated well anyway (almost as well as the Man Utd one will) and not have a negative effect on the rest of the schedule.

I was close. However, non soap, non RU fans like me will probably drift over to the minor channels tonight. It will be interesting to see how Five does.

Isn't this the first time the tournament has started on a Friday? Wales v England is a top fixture to start with as well. Last year only England v France in the final week was shown in primetime, the rest of the England games k/o'd earlier.

So I think we could be looking at a very high rating tonight. Low 6s very likely.

It's the third year of Friday night start-off as far as I remember. Can't wait!!

Not sure if Fridays are a particularly good idea for Silk. As shown with Hustle, they're fine for returning series with established audiences but I don't think launching a brand new drama there is a particularly wise idea. I suspect Benidorm may get the better of it if that goes there too. I'd like to see Benidorm get a different slot this series but it does do very well on Fridays so I can see why they'd want to keep it there. I hope they give it a week off on Comic Relief night as that would dent its rating badly.

Outcasts is back down to one episode for its third week on the BBC Press Office but of course that could change. WTD does seem a good bet for Mondays/Tuesdays, which like you say could cause a problem for ITV with their dramas. I suspect they'll put Monroe on Thursdays in this case as it's a new drama which they'll want to do well. That would leave Law and Order on Mondays, where WTD would dent it. Hopefully the return to the stronger Monday slot with the better Corrie lead in will keep it at a decent level. Could be an idea though to hold it back for 4 weeks until WTD is done.



I agree, it's really not worth it although Total Wipeout will be on early that night due to Let's Dance and no rugby, so TV Burp may not have to air against it. It still messes up their schedule though so it's a stupid decision on ITV's part.


Yep, I think Vera will launch on DOI Final night like Lewis did a couple of years ago to benefit from the good lead-in. Lewis will then probably return when Vera ends.

Yikes that's a big drop from last week's premiere of 823k (+1: 113k).
Last night's rating is, I believe, Skins lowest ever overnight rating. Previous lowest was 578k (+1: 123k) for episode 8 during series 2 (year 2008).

Maybe the audience havn't taken to this generation as well as the previous ones, although there is still time for it to bounce back up again. In the 500k range though it is still respectable for a cult show on E4 and probably still sustainable given the demographics it has.

Did it finish on a Monday in Australia, too?

Yeah I know what you mean, it's not the best night to launch a brand new drama series. I think, however, it could pull it off and do alright in that slot because it'll have an older-skewing audience and be an alternative to ITV1's comedy/entertainment. it has a good cast and sounds promising so I hope it does well.


Yeah I think they may delay L&O until WTD finishes. Although with the better Monday Corrie lead-in it could do okay, they could easily air it a few weeks later and in the meantime maybe air a two-part drama like The Reckoning which could do 4-5m and not have any long-term effect on the show because it's just a non-renewable two-parter.

Also worth noting that Scott & Bailey, another new ITV crime drama, is set to air in the Spring so that will probably takeover on Thursdays after Monroe and before BGT week.


Wild at Heart finishes on the DOI quarter final weekend, so if ITV are clever enough, they'll have 1 combined performance+results DOI show for the semi finals (like the final) and then launch Vera at 9pm to give it a DOI lead-in for two weeks to help establish an audience for it.

Yep, bad scheduling last night. There was nothing to stop them showing Not Going Out at 9pm, if Outnumbered was all they could find to pair it with.

I think on any other weeknight it would definitely do well, but Fridays are more of a risk. I agree though that it sounds really good so hopefully it'll do well.


Running shorter, non-renewable stuff against WTD does make most sense but Anthony Horowitz's new drama Injustice is also on the ITV Drama trailer running at the moment so I think that'll be shown in the Spring, which could put a spanner in the works of delaying Law & Order: UK.

I think Scott and Bailey will do well as crime dramas tend to do well for ITV and it has a good cast and writer. It's written by Sally Wainwright who wrote the 3 parter Unforgiven a couple of years ago and stars Suranne Jones, who again was in Unforgiven. If it's as good as that drama was then it should do well. I'm not as sure about Monroe but again the cast is pretty good and the writer's written some great stuff in the past so we'll see.


That would be a great idea but bear in mind that ITV and clever don't go together too often. It would give Vera a great launch though as I think it's got the potential to do really well for ITV.

Also, another bit of commissioning news: Dragons Den has been recommissioned for a further three(!) series.

I did wonder why they didn't just double bill it last night to conclude the series. I'm not blaming them for the Outnumbered repeat though, to be honest. They need to clear the Thursday slot so can't slot a new comedy there - and what other 30 minute filler is there?

Some more interesting schedule moves coming out. Silk on a Friday doesn't look a great idea on the surface of it. Especially as its interrupted by Comic Relief. WTD looks nailed on for Monday and Tuesday and the estimated start time indicates Outcasts should continue at 2 a week.

Having looked at the schedules again, I probably shouldn't have said Silk is "almost certainly" destined for Friday.

Because I've just seen that Lark Rise to Candleford finishes the week before so there's a potentially free slot on Sundays. They could have South Riding at 8pm and Silk at 9pm or vice versa depending on what's pre-watershed material. That would probably be better than the Friday slot.

ITV seem to do crime drama better than The BBC for some reason, DCI Banks was successful and is coming up and the fact it was recommisioned before the pilot aired suggests that the people at ITV like it a lot. I agree, it could do really well and you can bet Brenda Blethyn will be interviews on TV and radio.

Hilary Devie should be good although I'm sad James Caan is leaving but I guess him and Duncan being the same show wasn't working.

It makes me very happy indeed Got to admit it was a bit of a suprise as well, as you say the ratings were not great at all. Although i have noticed that BBC2 seems to recommision alot of comedy, even with fairly poor ratings; Things like Psychoville and Beautiful people never did that well (around 1m i believe) but got recommisioned, mainly due to critial success i assume.


That is going to be something which is going to effect the show in a massive way