Talking of which, Channel 5 is home to the premiere of You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) on 27th March.

Any other films on that day? I know they are showing TMNT this Sunday as a premiere which should do okay. And had a quick at the commissioning page and it seems they have the rights to High School Musical 3 and Rambo.

Oliver! and Mr. Deeds (creating an Adam Sandler double).

Will be interesting to see where they put High School Musical 3, maybe over Easter?

I know it was cancelled for the fitba last night, but 276,000 for the first showing of Home and Away is pathetic. More people live in Sunderland than watched this and also evening showings have been struggling around the 800,000 mark. It may make more sense to Five just to show it at 6.00 and have a combined rating around 1.2 million. It does seem, though, that this soap is falling on hard times now and its British rival, Hollyoaks, is pulling ahead again.

No, the first showing was the night before at 6:30pm when 510,000 watched.

The lunchtime edition has just changed timeslots - I would say it is unfair to judge its figures too harshly at the moment as viewers adjust to the new times. But even at 280k, that probably makes it the third most watched programme on Channel 5 daytime, behind Neighbours and The Wright Stuff.

Easter seems most likely although it will probably get an afternoon slot.

They should theme their film days like they have done in the past like the Superhero weekend or the Adam Sandler or Will Smith Season.

According to BARB ratings, S4 had the highest average over S3. But it was S3/S4 that gave Skins their overall highest ratings. Gen 2 have been their most successful generation.

I don't think the time schedule is an issue. It's always been this time and managed every other year to get viewers, it infact got a decent amount of viewers for the opening episode. It wasn't till after that the ratings started to tank, so it's the series itself turning people off not what competition it has. It has gone down about 500K from ep 1, theres no way a change of time could help that IMO. Skins obviously just doesn't have most of it's audience anymore.

Skins just isn't Skins anymore. I know that is why I stopped watching after ep 4.

On a different note, no mention in the press pack out today of The Hotel Inspector (or The Walking Dead for that matter). So neither look to be launching before April 4th.

Fifth Gear, the show with more lives than a cat, is back for a new series on April 1st.

Fifth Gear had a 40 episode commitment which is four series of 10 episodes each, I can't see them renewing it after that. It only got renewed in the first place due to Channel 5 ordering 78 episodes of the Gadget Show.

BBC looking at getting rid of Wimbledon and F1: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...a-one-bbc-cuts

Remember though it's not about ratings, it is about ad revenue. The three daily showing each bring in a slightly different kind of viewer I imagine, and overall probably bring in more revenue than if all those viewers watched it at the same time.

They would never drop Wimbledon but F1 is a possibilty. Can't see any of the broadcasters aside from Sky or ESPN wanting to share the rights as I imagine it's very expensive.

I wonder if they could shared coverage for The Olympics like they do with the Football? Not sure if ITV1 would want to share the Olympics, what events would appeal to advertisers aside from athlectics and swimming?

Sport seems like a pretty obvious area to start. Sure, it massages the ratings, but I daresay the commercial sector would be happy to broadcast both events. And with the BBC out of the running, rights costs might be reduced as well.

The BBC would do better to dump the football coverage IMO - firstly it's probably the most expensive deal they have in place sports wise and secondly other broadcasters would probably be more willing to pick up the package compared to say, Wimbledon.

The BBC need to understand why they are there and that's to provide a service which commercial broadcasters would find difficult to due to the way they are funded. Football, due to it's audience bias, is quite appealing to advertisers and therefore commercial channels. The same cannot be said of tennis and arguably, due to the time of the majority of the races, Formula One.

I think a commercial channel would love to air all of London 2012 but outside that I'm not so sure. I do know a Norweigan channel sold their rights to airing the Football World Cup last year (to fund hosting the Eurovision Song Contest) so selling rights channel to channel certainly exists.

I could see Football League being dropped, the PL highlights I think they're still in a contract but I remember the only serious bidder for them before was Channel 5.

I think we know why the UK and Ireland dont ever win Eurovision because it's quite expensive hence why the Eurovision entries for the UK and Ireland are Blue and Jedward!

To be fair to Channel 5 they do a good job with the Europa League, and with the BBC out of the picture the cost of the rights may decrease; especially if the Premier League highlights are on the protected sports list so they can only air on the 'main five'.

Every suggestion that is released gets dafter, they are just releasing worst case scenarios.

Notice all proposals they all seem to be aimed at the core of the BBC effecting middle England i.e BBC Local Radio, Wimbledon, rather than suggesting that BBC3 should be axed which would probably result in a reaction that the BBC wouldn't want.

Blue's entry is pretty good to be fair, a few people are suggesting it could be UK 2012 due to the standard of the song.

If we do win that'll lead to an interesting economic dilemma for the BBC - we could see them trying to offload the contest onto ITV/Channel 4 to save money.

I just think if it didn't work for ITV, it won't work for Channel 5 but then again it would rate really well and would plug a hole on Saturdays.

Channel 5 do a good job with Europa League and the cricket, I'm surprised they didn't pursue other Cricket rights like the Ashes in Australia and the Cricket World Cup.

Well they couldn't make savings yet on either of those events as they are in contract until 2014.

That being the case, presumably the BBC aren't going to be in the market for any additional sporting rights such as the FA Cup / England Internationals when the contract comes up again soon.

It's just an attempt to scaremonger over the license fee as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't heard the song but Blue are an improvement on previous years. I doubt the BBC would try and offload it as it still does well despite the Political aspect of it and I imagine they could easily sell out if they held it in an arena like Wembley or the O2.

Ireland's financial situation is probably the reason they chose Jedward. Do they have to go through the semis or they are automatically in like the UK?

In regards to the highlights? I think Sky wanted too much for the Ashes; not just in terms of finances but also what time it could be broadcast etc. Not sure about the Cricket World Cup though.

I think Premier Legaue highlights would do well for Channel 5 if they chose to pick them up - I think they'd pull in a healthy 1m people at least and would skew well for advertisers as well.