Yeah, I think you've answered your own question. But a 40% A18-49 skew for a BBC2 programme is pretty high compared to other shows on the channel.

The FA Cup match on ITV1 last week also had a similar age range - most in the 65+ demo but that's because BBC1/BBC2/ITV1's average viewer ages are high. That match also had a 40% A18-49 skew.


What time did it start and finish?

6:30-10:00pm.

It averaged 394k (1.6%). It peaked at 20:40 with 800k.

Wow, awesome peak! Average is pretty good as well considering the length of pre-match coverage. Thank you.

I think even as a Taggart fan I think the show has come to its conclusion now. Yes the stories are good, but 2.42 million is abysmal for a show which a few years ago was attracting 6 million. I can't see ITV1 wanting to show this for much longer.

I don't think the HD simulcast figures are included, so that will give a younger skew.

Richard Keys has resigned from Sky Sports.

The reason there were 2 football matches live last night was because Blackpool vs Manchester United should have been on ESPN last month, but was frozen off as Blackpool do not have a pitch with undersoil heating.
Blackpool taking a shock 2-0 lead and then a thrilling second half (United came back to win 3-2 and remain unbeaten in the league) would have helped ESPN's viewing figures.

I did this on cnnfan.org but may be off interest here. A comparison of the CNN/US ratings every hour between 5pm and MidnightET in the 25-54 demo for last Friday-Monday.

5pm - Situation Room weekdays/CNN Newsrrom weekends
Fri - 121
Sat - 175
Sun - 39 (ouch)
Mon - 140 (best MSNBC though)

6pm - Situation Room weekdays/Best of Situation Room Sat/CNN Newsroom Sun
Fri - 134
Sat - 137
Sun - 55
Mon - 123

7pm - John King USA weekdays/CNN Newsroom weekends
Fri - 75
Sat - 133
Sun - 92
Mon - 131

8pm - Parker Spitzer weekdays/documentaries weekends
Fri - 70
Sat - 198 (repeat documentary)
Sun - 238 (new documentary)
Mon - 150 (good night for Parker Spitzer)

9pm - Piers Morgan Tonight (new weekdays/repeat weekends)
Fri - 121
Sat - 168
Sun - 193
Mon - 208

10pm - AC360 weekdays, CNN Newsroom weekends
Fri - 135
Sat - 124
Sun - 153
Mon - 193 (3rd place, but kept most of Piers Morgan lead in)

11pm - AC360 repeat weekdays, 8pm documentary repeat weekends
Fri - 148 (beat 10pm)
Sat - 136
Sun - 232
Mon - 106

Midnight - Piers Morgan repeat
Fri - 173 (Piers Morgan got a better repeat rating than the first airing)
Sat - 142
Sun - 152
Mon - 88

So the best ratings at 5/6/7pmET were on Sat, at 8/11 on Sun, at 9/10 on Mon, and at MidnightET on Fri

A fairly typical reflection of CNN's ratings there. Weekends perform the same as, or even better than weekdays. This is down to CNN's Documentaries (see the boost they got from 8pm onwards Sunday) and weaker competition. MSNBC show non-news programming most of the weekend, and HLN is mostly repeats. Only Fox and CNN have new news programming in weekend primetime. While Fox had a bad weekend, CNN beat them in primetime in the demo both Sat and Sun

Another thing to point out here is Piers Morgan's midnightET repeat ratings. They were very strong most of last week, something which was hardly noticed. While 9pm is the most important, a strong midnight showing obviously boosts CNN's overall total day figures

Doing well at midnight, or the weekend clearly does not impact on the big 8/9/10pmET weekday slots, but there are positives from CNN's ratings. The big thing obviously is to see what level Piers Morgan settles at in his 9pm slot, and to see how much that boosts AC360 at 10pm

(All info taken from TV Newser)

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings is the megahit that Channel 4 were looking for but the worry is that like CDWM they are going to milk it to death. CSI was hurt by the football but I wonder if SW and Taggart are hurting it too, it's not good that both NCIS and CSI: NY are beating it but I guess they can't move it to a better slot.

Wonder if the people at Five are looking at trying and emulate it? There must be similar topics that will in bring in a huge audience, maybe British Pickers or Pawn Stars UK?

Andy Murray's tennis semi-final will be shown on BBC2 at 8.30am on Friday morning.
If he makes the final on Sunday morning, maybe it'll be moved from BBC2 to BBC1.

It did last year and it's only takes up part of daytime due to the time difference so BBC One could have the tennis with Andrew Marr and Country Tracks on BBC Two,

Breakfast Time was extremely fluffy for its first few years: it even had horoscopes, with Russell Grant. The Breakfast of today looks like Newsnight in comparison.

Back in the '80s, Breakfast Time underwent an overnight change in late '86 (or was it '87) and became nothing but news, presented in suits, from behind a desk. It was so unpopular, its running time was just 95 minutes (7am until 8.35) at one point. Silent movies were played out at 8.35am instead!

Then came Breakfast News (1989???) which evolved a lot over subsequent years. Breakfast is probably the first time the BBC has found a balance between the two extremes of breakfast telly, and prolonged ratings success.

Yep, would of hurt the Beebs MOTD figures too. Probably hit Flintoff & Taggart too, all shows with a blokey appeal.

It makes little sense how their can be so much money knocking around in US TV for frankly pathetic viewing figures. I guess all these though are topped up through a cut of cable subscriptions?


Well that's nice and easy! Astonishing though - but does anyone here actually watch it? We've all commented on the ratings but I've not seen any of us comment on the programme itself.

Have ITV commissioned My Large Obese Romani Marriage yet?


When did the Peter Kay Pop Factor show air - didn't that get around 6m?

Or more likely their guaranteed international sales, no matter how shit the programme is.

It aired in October 2008. In the overnights, it had:

C4: 5.5m (20%)
C4+1: 600,000
Total: 6.1m

I think so. It's worth every network investing to try and find a couple of "unmissable" shows as that could bump their value up for cable / satellite companies. Mark Thompson suggested the likes of ITV should be trying to push Sky for these fees in his Edinburgh lecture. But in reality, Sky are simply too powerful across both markets...

Additionally, of course, you can pack more ads into a programme in the states, not to mention additional opportunities from product placement and the like.

Off-topic, but worth a read.
Kym Marsh tweets when there was a shock winner of the NTA best drama "Not being funny! Waterloo Road??? x"
The Waterloo Road mafia are now on her case.

http://twitter.com/kymgmarsh

I think that's part of it. They also target narrower demos and sometimes score highly in them and then sell advertising on that basis (for example, a show like PLL might have more women 12-34 than some successful broadcast shows - ABCF then sell to particular advertisers based on that number). Cable also tends to skew younger than broadcast. PLL's 1.2 for adults 18-49 is higher than a few broadcast shows this season and that's not even its target demo. And they produce the shows for less than broadcast and repeat them more often. International sales aren't guaranteed for cable series and it's rare that those deals are particularly big anyway (PLL is on Viva here, for example) but I'm sure they do help and there's product placement as well.

ABC Family generates an estimated average of $0.22 each month per subscriber so that'll bring in excess of $200m a year. They probably put quite a bit of that towards their scripted output (they've got maybe half a dozen series doing 10-22 episodes and do several TV movies each year).

Some data on carriage fees here at mediaweek

FX made $936m in advertising in 2010 and then topped that up to around $1.4bn once carriage fees were taken into account.

FX is a good example because while it is far behind the likes of USA, TNT, History in total viewers, it's 18-49 viewerships is in the top 10, sometimes 5, their shows kend to skew young and they air a lot of films like Iron Man or Hancock which attract a youngish audience.

A&E's median age used to 62 but in only 7 years, they managed to reduce it to 45 which is good for a cable network especially one that targets 18-49 and 25-54 demographic.

ESPN's carriage fees are the highest but they justify that cost due to the NFL which attracts a huge audience, a lot of networks which have sport have high carriage fees.

But are they though. Yes, they can buy these shows from us then sell them back, but in the world outside the USA British shows tend to do OK for themselves internationally anyway.


Obviously the US is much bigger with bigger companies and bigger advertising budgets, but it must be costing them much more per viewer there than it does here.


Thanks for that - very interesting. It would be great if more info was available on the cost/return of individual shows rather than just pure ratings - I highly doubt the most popular shows on TV are the most profitable.

Most shows are at a loss in the hope they reach syndication as that is when TV shows start making profit. Two and a Half Men must make a ton of money because it is syndicated to local stations in America and does really well and it's already been renewed for another 7 years plus it's shown on FX. International syndication is key too, Two and a Half Men is popular in Australia with repeats doing good business as well as new episodes.

BRUCIE QUITS STRICTLY!!!











You gotta love Brucie with his jokes!
I knew he'd say it either for real or as is the case, a joke!

Anyway what does everyone expect for NTA's? ~ 6m? Like last year?

I see Britains 2nd favourite soap has won a NTA - wonder how long before dan2008 near enough has an orgasm post about it

Pehaps the cot death storyline hasn't affected the voting as much as we think!