Seeing as the Cowell shows have been mentioned, does anyone have any idea why most or all of the related stories currently being fed to the press are about X Factor rather than Talent?

Surely it would be more constructive to publicise the latter at the moment, with its latest series a few weeks away?

I can only assume X Factor is now firmly the pet project of the two?

Maybe no one cares about "Talent" anymore, because Cowell isnt on it

When they showed interesting stuff on Challenge, a few years back they repeated Larry's first series of the Generation Game, and there was one episode that was absolutely crammed with celebrity guests, and I assumed it was the episode they showed opposite the first Big Night to spoil it, but no. The Gen Game didn't clash that much, Television's Greatest Hits has the 1978 series down as being shown at 6.45, whereas Big Night was initially scheduled for 7.30, so it only clashed for about ten minutes. The thing that really killed Big Night was All Creatures Great and Small, which was on after the Gen Game and was a massive, massive smash.

During the run they rescheduled Big Night to six o'clock, so it then began to clash with almost all of the Gen Game. And of course a few years later Game For A Laugh did for the Gen Game and thrashed that.


That's right about Des, but of course it was never the plan that he'd do The Premiership, he was getting sick of doing Saturday nights and joined ITV to present live football. But then they heard the Beeb were going to get the FA Cup rights so they made a massive bid for the Premier League, and so it ended up with Gary Lineker doing non-stop live football and Des stuck in the studio, and when Alan Hansen saw him after ITV got the rights, he told him the only pleasure he got was knowing Des would be stuck back in the studio again.

It's perhaps surprising how little Des actually did on ITV, just the Premier League and middling Champions League matches. I always think it's great that Man U were in the Champios League final the season before he joined, and Liverpool were in it the season after, and then British teams were in it for several seasons after, but no British team got anywhere near the final during the time he was there, as if to spite him. They very rarely had anything big for Des to do, two Cup Finals and that was about it. The one genuinely big event they had during his spell at ITV was the Rugby World Cup Final, which he didn't do. He missed the Sydney Olympics, the best Beeb coverage ever, the FA Cup in primetime, which ITV never did, loads of other big events. He must have regretted it.

Ant and Dec couldn't really be said as people who flourished when leaving the Beeb as they were never really fully paid-up Beeb stars. After CBBC, they were already on ITV when they were doing Friends Like These, and both channels offered them contracts, they just opted for ITV. Pip Schofield's original spell on ITV wasn't entirely successful, apart from Talking Telephone Numbers nothing really caught on, and of course he gave up presenting for a few years to concentrate on acting. It was through the Beeb, with Winning Lines, he made his return.

Aside from the Big Night, Brucie did perfectly well on ITV in the eighties, he never did anything as great as the Gen Game but he was successful enough. PYCR was a massively popular show. In his nineties spell at ITV, he was still successful - I remember a series of The Price Is Right was followed immediately by a series of Play Your Cards Right, which as eighteen part runs meant he was on screen non-stop for about nine months - although it was a bit of a waste that he was just doing game shows, good as he was at them, natch.


Yes, although for some reason there was one more Big Night, they did it on Good Friday 1980. Basically it was just a Brucie special though why you'd associate it with a flop series I don't know. As well as The Pyramid Game, Big Night also featured The Glums which span off into their own series when it finished, and that 1980 one featured to all intents and purposes the pilot of All Star Secrets, which was done live with Brucie as host, and then span off into a series with Parky hosting.


Someone else who joined ITV, of course, and is now back at the Beeb, although as he says in his book it was hardly a massive move as he took the entire production team with him. In fact I remember the first ITV series of The Frank Skinner Show was trailed with clips from the previous Beeb run, it was an identical show apart from the adverts.

However that series ran on too long, in the end it became just a rather dull chat show. There was a time when it was shown in two halves around the news, 10-10.30 and 11-11.30, which was ridiculous, especially as they split interviews around the news. That was clearly done in the edit, and they repeated it as one hour-long show, but it looked bloody stupid.

Anyway, now he's back to what he does best, he's one of our best stand-ups, and Opinionated is a great show, an excellent format for him - just chatting with some comedy mates - and I wish it was on more often.


Indeed, we've mentioned this before because it seems utterly bizarre to have Summer Wine on a day other than Sunday, although of course the first few series were in post-watershed weeknight slots, and in its pomp in the early eighties it was on at 9.30 on Mondays. And as I've said before, when I saw Russ Abbott in that slot I assumed he was on the way out, and indeed he was. He was the first comedian I knew was going down the dumper based on his scheduling.

Seems odd too to have The House of Elliot on a Saturday night, period dramas don't seem to fit there, but then the likes of The Duchess of Duke Street, Secret Army and, yes, All Creatures were all on Saturday nights in the seventies.

X Factor has always had more publicity than BGT, and with the judging panel and Cowell's role in the show in question, there's more going on there just now than there is with BGT, which finished filming it's auditions over a month ago and isn't returning to TV for about 6 weeks, meaning that there isn't really much for the press to talk about yet. BGT is less about the judges than XF is too , although I do agree that it is probably the pet project now.

Thanks for this rzt. This will be quite useful for me in the future I reckon. And I can understand why you wouldn't break down the long lists into SD+HD and then +1, as its not 100% accurate.

There's just too much to think about with the overnights these day lol! SD, HD, +1, tape-checked etc.

Nothing much happening ratings wise last night. Soaps as usual put in some soild performances. L&O: UK returned with the rating I kinda expected. ITV need a hit in that slot badly after TBL tanked (I know 4m is OK, but in that slot ITV should have been showing something bigger and better on a Monday night IMO). I wonder how much Waking the Dead is going to take of that 5.5m next Monday night. WTD will probs be 6m+, and could push L&O: UK to around 4m, as I suspect the cross over audience here is quite large.

Could Cowell be quitting while he is ahead. However, anyone who succeeds him on TXF will have a difficult time as they will be constantly judged by him and should the show start to tank, then just as with Big Brother and the same with Bruce's Big Night, the knives will be out as the tabloids love to see something massive fail.

I wouldn't bet against the whole lot beating ITV.

Be funny if it happened. I don't think it's that remote a prospect.


ITV are still holding the second series of Shane to ransom though!

Shame it has never aired, I quite liked series 1. Do the rights revert to Frank at some point, so he could let somebody else show it, or air it online?

I didn't think BBC would be first to jump on the "My Big Fat.... Wedding" bandwagon. I'm surprised it's not named "My Big Fat Fake Gypsy Wedding" myself.

Will be interested to see how it rates as the title may lure people towards it, won't be surprised to see Panorama's highest rating in a while for that.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.21m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.17m
19:00 Home and Away 1.02m
19:30 My Kitchen Rules 1.43m
20:30 Packed to the Rafters 1.81m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.06m
18:30 A Current Affair 0.95m
19:00 Two and a Half Men (R) 0.54m
*excluding Brisbane.
19:30 The Big Bang Theory (R) 0.61m
20:00 The Big Bang Theory 0.80m
20:30 Top Gear 0.81m

Ten
18:30 Ten Evening News 0.26m
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.65m
19:30 Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation 1.07m
20:40 NCIS 1.06m
21:40 NCIS (R) 0.72m

Eleven
18:30 Neighbours 0.35m

Law and Order did ok but the lack of opposition made me think it would perform slightly better than that. I think it's safe to say it's little more than a mid 5m programme wherever it's scheduled. Waking the Dead'll badly hurt it next week.

The News v Neighbours situation Down Under is quite interesting - Neighbours has suddenly found a gap after being narrowly pipped (IIRC ) by the news on Monday.

A shame it was down last night. Probably the most 'important' one of the series showing the first response to a Hurricane in St Lucia

Yes, I think that was a new low for the Ten Evening News, and possibly the biggest gap between the two to date too.

Thing is there is every chance The X Factor won't take off in the US and Cowell will be back here cap in hand wanting to be back on the UK version the next year - but I suspect any damage done in his absence may be long term.

IMO T.E.N vs Neighbours is the most exciting ratings story of 2011.

TEN must be devasted.

Interesting X Factor story in The Sun today:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...auditions.html

Was he auditioning as a contestant, or as a possible new judge?

Contrary to widely held DS belief, journalists are perfectly capable of making things up without direction from publicists! In fact, the reporting thus far suggests they aren't getting anything. Leaks from publicists generally bring at least vaguely accurate stories - if they kept feeding incorrect stories, their relations with the tabloids would go downhill. The reports coming out are continually contradicting each other.

The main reason they write about X Factor is because it sells papers and generates hits - not because Syco PR ask nicely. Cheryl Cole being on XF undoubtedly helps that plus the fact that there's more room for speculation on it just now.

When BGT comes around, the PR team will probably try to push some stories around it. They put out something about YouTube auditions last week. There will probably be more soon.

That's appalling. Getting beaten by Neighbours was one thing but look at the gap!

Exactly - and from the nature of the stories it's obvious they haven't got a clue what is going on. Twice already this year the News of the World have splashed an exclusive on the front page about Cowell quitting or Cole getting or not getting the US gig only for The Sun the next day to print a story which denies such "rumours". Simon though I think is spinning it slightly - it's a month if not two since he said they'd be a confirmed line up announced within a couple of weeks - now they're saying April.


P.S. Notice C4 repeating Taken on Sunday at 10pm, as seems to be increasingly commonplace with film premieres. Also BBC2 seems to be sticking with early evening films on Sunday, I guess partly inspired by the ratings C4 and C5 have achieved in recent months in the slot.

I agree. It has been interesting to watch, but nowadays it is more than likely Neighbours will win. Last night was actually a rare win for the Ten Evening News. It is also good to see Neighbours being talked about positively!

I would imagine the BBC were hoping for better figures than that after moving Outcasts. I'm not sure whether it's more embarrassing to have low rated Outcasts at 9pm than low rated Motorway Cops rpt. Although of course, hindsight is not available in advance.


Haven’t been noticing Glee much recently but it really is doing a phenomenal job holding down 1.4m for weeks on end on E4.

BBC Two is the home of BBC Films although I imagine the odd BBC Film will premiere on BBC One.

Channel 4 has output deals with Paramount and Fox so they've got a good selection of films from 2008 and 2009. Channel 5's main output deal is with Sony Pictures but they seemed to have picked up a few films from Warner Bros as well as older titles from Disney and FOX.

At a cost of somewhere close to £15m spent on that BBC1 schedule versus about £2m on the ITV1 schedule for the same day, you'd bloody well hope that the BBC should be able to out rate ITV. Jacuzzi of cash and all that........

6 x 90 min live themed episodes for Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...cash-quiz.html

Whilst I'd have liked a stripped week, one off themed specials is a really nice idea and should rate well. I guess ITV think the show is too old for a full week of shows. At least they've extended it to 90 minutes and hopefully they're prepared to let it overrun unlike at Xmas. I guess the Potter special will air in July for the release of Deathly Hallows.