I think there have been trailers for it quite regularly but it's a problem it shares with Total Wipeout and Top Gear. Episodes are shown all the time and you can't tell when repeats are over and new episodes start.

Still a very good performance by MOTD and by Sportscene as well.Interesting to see what the live BBC1 Scotland game this afternoon gets.

Not a great rating for yesterday's tea-time Six Nations match, I would've expected a 4m+/20%+ rating because in an even earlier slot this time last year, France v Ireland averaged 3.8m (21%) up against the FA Cup on ITV1, so I think yesterday's match should've rated better than that. Total Wipeout did well to build on its low lead-in and run TV Burp pretty close and from then on, it was business as usual for BBC1. A strong rating to finish off the series for In It To Win It and Casualty remains steady. Brilliant for MOTD - if we go through the record books, it'll be difficult to find a better rating for it since the turn of the century.

Decent start for TV Burp - the show seems to have peaked but it's still pulling in solid ratings in an otherwise poor ITV lineup. Primeval's next series will surely play out in a pre-7pm slot because as has been said before, not only is it rating appaullingly but it's messing up the rest of the evening too. I still can't believe its ratings have tumbled so much in the last couple of series (from almost 6m in series 2 to 3-4m this year). Take Me Out is on too late for what it is - it should experience a boost next week with the better lead-in but ITV will have to think carefully about how they'll schedule the next series (if there is one).


I would hardly say it was a "poor" start. Sure, it's not a "brilliant" rating but I think 5.5m (+0.22m) is decent enough and it's in line with what the previous series opened with (5.65m) and in line with the overnight series averages for the 2009 and 2010 Winter runs (5.5m and 5.6m respectively). Don't forget, the Winter/Spring series don't rate as well as the Autumn series.

When actually up against Total Wipeout, it probably beat it by more than half a million, and then TW probably rose up to about ~6m once up against Primeval. Also given that TVB and TW have similar audience profiles, I'm not surprised TV Burp didn't manage a 6m+ rating like it has done in the past. I also suspect Total Wipeout was dented a little bit by TV Burp because Wipeout was getting 4.5-5.0m this time last year in 5/6pm slots (so would've probably had 6m in the 7pm slot had it not been for TV Burp).

Not hard to imagine that the rugby would have done very poorly indeed on ITV - I guess it would have got about 2.8m.

Sure the 5 England games would do well but for ITV to pay £2.7m per match when 10 of the 15 matches are going to get under 3m seems like madness.

indeed. The revenue per game projections they did on previous bids were well belong the cost the rights eventually went for.

Why not move it back to a 3pm kick off then? Rugby union, except in Wales, has always been a minority sport and can never attract the same ratings as football.

ITV have turned down Simon Cowell's planned Top Of The Pops-style show:

As opposed to the Emmy Award-winning Little Britain Abroad.

Good. Top of the Pops and CD:UK were binned with good reason.

Totally agree about TMO, the scheduling hasn't been good this series. I've said before that i think it would do well on Saturdays in the Autumn as a lead-in to The X Factor, with Harry Hill hour shifting to Sundays from 7pm. TMO could run from October-January in the 7pm hour before Push The button or another Ant and Dec show would take over in February.

As for Primeval, it really has collapsed over the last few years. I guess the switch to Spring knocked a million off series three, and those viewers didn't return for this series. This series launched with 4.5m which was in line with series three so it looks like some viewers were put off by the opening episode, or found it had been too long since the last series for them to either remember or care about the characters, so didn't bother tuning in again. Running episode two of this series on a Sunday won't have helped either.

As for the next series, the continuity announcer last night said it would be back later this year so I think they'll show it either in the Autumn at 6pm against Strictly or in the Summer. If they do go for the Summer (and I think that's most likely based on the way Watch are running it) then they may as well keep it at 7/7:30pm as they'll have nothing better to show, and whilst 3.5-4m is bad, it's not as bad as Magic Numbers and Odd One In were last Summer, and they've already paid for it so they may as well let it run in that slot instead of paying for another show to fill the slot that would probably rate no better than Primeval (look at ITV's awful Saturday Summer shows in recent years). It's not like it would be ruining the night for them either as I doubt they'll have anything to ruin there.


Yep, Total Wipeout had an identical slot on the same night two years ago and got 6.6m, whilst last year TV Burp returned with 6.6m against the weaker SYTYCD so it looks like they knocked about a million off each other.

I don't suppose ITV would bother given the rights came up for renewal in early 2004, straight after the Rugby World Cup, and I don't think ITV even bid. I remember after England won the World Cup, the Media Guardian ran the most cynical article ever about what a success the World Cup had been for ITV, commending them on their brand building and how quickly they got the adverts on after the final whistle, swallowing all the guff from the ITV press office, failing to point out that they wouldn't be showing another rugby match for another four years.

Of course the Six Nations have been on Sky and ITV in the past, the notorious deal they signed with England alone in 1997, which almost got England kicked out of the tournament. So you got England home matches live on Sky with, initially, full delayed coverage on ITV immediately after the final whistle at 4pm, with all the other matches on the Beeb, but they did the autumn internationals in 1997 like that and the ratings were awful, so even before the Five Nations they'd cut the coverage down to just an hour of highlights. In addition, they also always showed them at 4pm, even when there was a live match on the Beeb, and didn't even repeat then, so to see the highlights you had to miss all the other games.

France vs England was also part of this deal, for some reason, but the Beeb had the rest of England's away matches, and in both 1999 and 2000 they showed England away matches opposite the FA Cup on ITV, and thrashed them. Much like that FA Cup deal, when ITV had second choice live matches but the Beeb kept highlights, it made the Six Nations look a mess.


No, Who Dares Wins is still going, I think they've already filmed another series. Of course Knowles has also done the boring Guesstimation while Who Dares Wins was running.

Radio Times said last week that the (last ever?) episodes of Primeval will run on Watch in April.

Presumably to be temporarily renamed (no one will) Watch.

The series actually picked up with the last three episodes. Had anyone stuck with it. It was just so tired and repetitive in the first two or three episodes that seemingly did for it.

Though the 'cliffhanger' last night was rather weak - diluting the big 'shock' by running on into a further scene that was effectively someone getting in a car and driving off with a co worker. Just seemed to fizzle and not likely to have viewers desperate for a return whenever it is back.

I think if ITV were really that bothered they might have re-edited the ending but I guess they know it is a dead duck.

You have to wonder why ITV bid for the England/FA Cup rights as Im sure they would have found out the revenue gained was less than the rights cost.

DS have updated with more ratings: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...ason-high.html

Key rating surely is You've Been Framed getting 5.5m, surely? OK, it was against the last half an hour of the Rugby programme, but a clip-cam recorder show beating two new programmes will not impress ITV bosses.

Saturday 5th February Roundup
BBC One
14:00- Live Six Nations Rugby Union: 2.88m (22.5%)
16:45- Live Six Nations Rugby Union: 3.84m (19.3%)
* peak: 4.79m at 18:25
19:00- Total Wipeout: 5.41m (23.4%)
* 19:00-19:30: 4.47m (19.3%)
* 19:30-20:00: 6.35m (27.5%)
20:00- The National Lottery: In It To Win It: 6.47m (27.2%)
20:50- Casualty: 5.81m (24.0%)
21:40- Come Fly with Me: 3.51m (15.6%)
22:10- BBC News: 4.52m (20.9%)
22:30- Match of the Day: 5.24m (31.8%)
* peak: 6.22m (30.9%) at 22:40

BBC Two
19:30- The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse: 2.11m (8.9%)
21:00- Faulks on Fiction: 1.32m (5.6%)
22:00- The Tudors: 1.4m (6.6%)
22:50- Nurse Jackie: 535k (3.1%)

ITV1
18:30- New You've Been Framed!: 5.47m (24.3%) , +1: 206k (0.9%)
* 18:30-18:55
19:00- Harry Hill's TV Burp: 5.50m (23.8%) , +1: 220k (1%)
* 19:00-19:25: 5.61m (24.3%)
19:30- Primeval: 3.60m (15.4%) , +1: 110k
20:30- Take Me Out: 3.96m (16.4%) , +1: 160k
21:45- Benidorm: 3.11m (14.1%)

Channel 4
19:00- Fantastic Four: Rise of Silver Surfer: 1.6m (6.8%) , +1: 272k (1.1%)
20:50- The Million Pound Drop Live: 2.39m (10.2%) , +1: 274k (1.4%)
22:10- Kiss The Girls: 1.06m (6.8%) , +1: 201k (2.2%)

Channel 5
19:00- NCIS: 1.07m (4.6%)
19:45- NCIS: 1.17m (5%)
20:40- CSI: Miami: 1.31m (5.4%)
21:40- CSI: NY: 2.14m (9.7%)
22:40- CSI: 938k (5.5%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 23.9%
ITV1: 16%
BBC Two: 7.7%
Channel 4: 7.5% (+1: 1%)
Channel 5: 6.1%

Ratings include HD where necessary

Sources: DS, MattJ

This probably had a lot to do with Michael Grade being such a romantic - bringing back News at Ten was another hearty move - though it could be argued the original relaunch proved a slow-burning success. Formula One was a good fit for ITV, fulfilling ITV's remit for event TV and bringing in shed loads of ABC1's and probably a decent proportion of 16-34s. The only problem was the volatile timings - although with ITV's unstructured weekend schedule it was never a problem. Many will disagree, but the evidence suggests that ITV and North One Television nurtured the Formula 1 rights and exploited the revival of the sport with Lewis Hamilton's win. It mystifies me that ITV packed it in just as audiences were increasing.

From a ratings perspective, the FA Cup is a disaster for any major commercial broadcaster. Why?

It's a very simple one - ITV doesn't pick the draws and no matches are really set in stone. The FA Cup simply isn't important either.

There's been a lot of talk about ITV perhaps bidding for Six Nations coverage in 2014. It would probably be a wiser move to go for an exclusive Six Nations package in exchange for FA Cup - the matches are all set in stone and Friday night coverage is certain to perform quite well on a night where ITV struggles.

There won't be any Middlesbrough v Portsmouth clashes - it's just country vs country.

It wasn't about making money directly from having the rights, so much as (i) stripping the BBC of rights that enabled them to deliver regular big 7-10m audiences for FA Cup and England matches and dent whatever ITV was showing, and (ii) being able to present themselves as "the home of football" - presumably in the hope that the upmarket male ABC1 audience would shout "hurrahs" from the rooftops at the news and become all warm and receptive towards ITV generally.

On (i) they have had an unqualified success. Not sure about (ii).

Indeed, that's a really impressive rating for YBF, and it clearly benefited from the rugby post-match analysis. The schedule shifts 10 minutes earlier next week so TV Burp should be above 6m starting against the rugby analysis and with a head start on Wipeout. ITV should have done that this week too.

Also, looks like TV Burp did dent Wipeout (and vice versa) and Wipeout benefited from facing Primeval in the final half hour, as DS notes:


Says it all really.

EDIT: Just seen rzt post. Crikey, I didn't think it would have shot up by that much against Primeval. Not only is Primeval a flop, but it also has a completely different audience to the rest of ITV's Saturday night schedule. Push The Button should do a much better job next week.

Just seen the breakdown - Total Wipeout rated nearly 2m better in its second half-hour. Added it to my previous post.

I know it's not high calibre programming, but the fact TW is capable of such great numbers - 6.4m last night, up to 8m in the past - in primetime surely means that's where it belongs?

EDIT: Do you have a breakdown for MOTD?

BBC Question Time presenter has signed a new 5 year deal with aunty. There were reports he could be leaving because of relocation from London to Glasgow. He said 'he had a offer from Sky News to present the Royal Wedding', but turned it down. I'm guessing he could be around for the next General Election?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...-Dimbleby.html

No, the only problem (as every F1 fan will tell you) was that there was adverts during the race.

DS's 3.82m tape-checked rating for Take Me Out doesn't include HD, by the way. Including HD, it would've been 4.0/4.1m.

Many will indeed disagree, PJ.

I think you will find it was the BBC which nurtured Formula 1 in this country throughout the 1980s and 1990s, alongside Mansell-mania and then Hill, delivering ever-growing audiences for what could have been a minority sport (and once was).

The sport itself struggled in the period between Hill winning in 1996 and Hamilton in 2008 because of Schumacher's total dominance and the lack of other top-class drivers. It always had that competition and excitement in the 1980s and since 2007 (certainly now), but had a barren run which coincided with ITV having the rights. The German's dominance, ITV's frustrating ad breaks (and regular foul ups), and then James Allen replacing Murray combined to turn off the less committed UK audience, until the very end of ITV's contract.

Yes, it was madness of them to give up the rights but I doubt they would have foreseen how attractive and compelling the past couple of seasons would be. When it came to ditching rights that brought upwardly mobile male audiences but only of 3m or so on the typical race weekend against paying similar to wrest the BBC's 7-10m-rating FA Cup and England rights, it must have been a no-brainer.

They also needed to ensure they kept the Champions League too, if I recall, as there were rumours the Beeb was on the verge of snatching those.

So it was farewell F1.

PJMillar does make a good point about the six nations... you know exactly what matches you are getting, its more of a sure bet than the fa cup