The promotion argument seems far more likely and rational than the idea that the halftime pundits put people off watching the entire match. Casual viewers would tune out, or at least zone out, at halftime anyway. And when it comes to rugby, the BBC have that Jonathan Davies whose voice is best suited to the Sign Zone at 2am rather than primetime TV, yet it doesn't seem to dent the ratings. I watch quite a bit of football and know a lot of people who do. I don't think I've ever heard someone say "ah damn, it's on ITV, I can't watch" or "man, this commentator is bad, turn it off." Though perhaps they realise how ridiculous it would sound. You can put sport on any channel and the "product" is 99% the same. The key difference is promotion.

I suspect Corrie's biggest problem wasn't so much the rugby as it was the loss of Eastenders and the regular pattern of soap viewers going from Corrie to EE and back to Corrie.

The Beeb are able to ( and do) promote big sporting events fantastically well-giving them more meaning imo. ITV cant do this in the same way, and there is maybe a feeling that when anything appears on ITV its a product rather than a event with history and romance.

Have to say the BBC promotional advert with the girl running from the train and rugby tackling her boyfriend must be worth a million viewers its so good.

Million Pound Drop beats Comedy Rocks

Jason Manford destroyed The One Show, and is now preparing to do the same to ITV. Or, ITV can't be bothered to put something up against Hustle. It would be much better if Marchlands went on the Friday and Comedy Rocks went on Thursday. Comedy Rocks would do much better in a comedy-off, against a repeat and a 4m or less NGO.

TMZ are picking up on rumours (which first started at AdAge) that FOX will air a 30 second promo for The X Factor during The Superbowl. There have also been rumours that Terra Nova will get a Superbowl promo as well.

Seeing as The Superbowl is likely to get 4 times as many viewers as anything FOX air this year, it's by far their biggest promo opportunity.

Glee has the post-Superbowl slot which last year brought 39m viewers to the launch of CBS' Undercover Boss.

I never understand why ITV have the two episode split when EastEnders isn't on - why not just have it an hour-long and have a You've Been Framed repeat afterwards or something.

I agree with your football argument as well - it's all about promotion.

talking of Friday nights, I know I have moaned about the Mentalist taking a break, but it has meant that it hasnt clashed with the latest series of Hustle, that is good.

If you want to know why ITV Sport has such a bad reputation I suggest you look at their choice of live FA Cup games this year:

Round 3: Manchester United v Liverpool (fair enough)
Round 4: Southampton v Manchester United (unnecessary; there were plenty of attractive all-premiership ties they could have shown to give other teams some coverage.)
Round 5: Manchester United v Crawley (now they're just taking the p***)






Survivors, Paradox, The Deep, Bonekickers, Outcasts:

All these programmes make me think of Superintendent Chalmers remark about Principal Skinner in The Simpsons: "This chap's rod-up-his-back has a rod up its back".

The producers of all these shows got the tone completely wrong.

Look at the one post-watershed UK fantasy drama to be a hit - Torchwood. The difference between it and the others is that Torchwood has a sense of humour. It can have serious bits without ever coming across as pompous.

Wouldn't 2 episodes in one go be overkill? The double with an half hour gap is already bad enough.

For soap fans, don't you think the half hour wait's a bit tedious when nothing else is on apart from Children's Hospital or Six Nations, or Mastermind?

Not exactly much choice there - an hour-long episode would be fine for when EastEnders doesn't air on Friday.

Interesting that the male-female split was only 57-43. I'd expected it to be a little higher than that. Probably more proof, if it were needed, that a slot on primetime BBC One pushes these events to far more diverse audiences - and reaches a whole lot more than just rugby fans.

DS has put an article up for last night: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...10pm-slot.html

A couple of multichannel ratings:

CBeebies
17:40- Chuggington Badge Quest: 601k (3.4%)

ITV3
Touch of Frost: 921k (4.4%)

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PJMillar, while you're here, do you know if or when DS will start reporting the ITV1+1 overnight ratings like C4+1 in its TV/Soap Ratings Roundups? Thanks in advance .

I often sit in the lounge while my wife watches her stuff like Got To Dance, DOI and American Idol. I'm aware what's going on, but not really watching.

Would I be registered as a viewer?

I don't really understand this. It's only an hour? I doubt many soap fans want the half hour gap.

There are only 15 matches in the 6 Nations.

Official rights value was not reported but (as implied by your post) generally believed to be around £40m.

So it's actually £2.7m per match.

ie around the same region as what ITV is paying for FA Cup.

Hard to see it being anything other than loss making for ITV.

Two other points to note:

1) Current contract runs up to and including 2013. So it's available from 2014.

2) It's been reported that ITV won Rugby World Cup 2011 to 2019 despite not submitting the highest bid. We don't know for certain but that strongly suggests Sky bid higher. RWC said no to Sky but would the 6 Nations?

Over the next 6 years, BBC has to make cuts of 20%. Sky revenues are growing at 15% per year - ie at that rate they will will double in 6 years and Sky has said they will increase programming spend in line with revenues. I think it's pretty obvious that Sky is going to attempt to get the 6 Nations.

The policy was that +1 ratings would only be mentioned if the airing surpassed the 200k mark. Now, it seems there's a bit of inconsistency.

We've only just started getting ITV1 +1 ratings anyway (we didn't get them straight away) and nothing is above 150k.

The only reason we wouldn't mention them is space and, as we write in a narrative form, it would over-complicate things wouldn't you agree?

We obviously merge SD and HD but merging +1 would probably cause uproar. Hopefully we'll stick to the above 200k thing for +1, because I think anything lower than that isn't really relevant.

Cheers,
PJ

Taggart, Midsomer Murders and Marchlands were above 200k in the last few days. I'm not saying merging the ratings (as you say it would cause uproar!) but just mentioning them like how you and Andrew Laughlin mention the +1 figures for C4 programmes. I don't think it would overcomplicate anything because we're used to seeing +1 ratings reported with the Channel 4 programmes anyway (it's only saying X had 2.0m and 150k on +1 or whatever). I know the ITV1+1 figures are pretty small at the moment but I like seeing a full set of figures if you know what I mean and DS is the best source for that since you do regular in-depth articles so it'd be really appreciated if you could mention them in your articles (even the ones under 200k because C4+1 ones under 200k are usually mentioned too) .

Yes the BBC leading the field by dropping next Monday's Late Kick-off in favour of a repeat of a documentary about the Superbowl. Does the NFL really have a bigger following than the lower leagues of English football ?

So including +1 that's 4.2m for Embarrassing Bodies, most watched episode ever.

2.69m for the Million Pound Drop, and the +1 rating will also make it the most watched episode ever.

Looks like being another bumper crop of goals for MOTD tonight-already 27 this afternoon. No wonder ratings are good at the moment.

Surely going to be Match of the Day's highest rating in a while. If only they could dump the Come Fly with Me repeat and put MOTD at 10pm...

Most goals ever for a Premier League Saturday
If only you could watch it for free on t'internet
When word gets round about what happened at Newcastle vs Arsenal, MOTD should get a stellar rating (as should Sky Sports' Football First Game of the Day).

The tournament could not get better promotion than it does on the BBC-it will presumably be down to whether money talks or not.

Easily 5m+ for Match of the Day. All of the games appear to be thrillers.

Unfortunately for me in one of the cases.

I'd start it at 9.40pm tonight.

They might have to in order to get all the goals in!


Indeed it would.

Maybe it's so bad, it's good, a la Waking the Dead.