They have to qualify through the semi finals. Five countries are automatically through to the final: UK, Germany, Italy, Spain and France. The rest have to qualify.

Most broadcasters seem to run at a loss when it's their turn to host Eurovision - indeed that's why the 'Big Five' (the five I listed above) get automatic qualification; because they give most money to the EBU who support broadcasters in hosting the contest amongst other things.

It would get more than 1m! The ratings for Match of the Day 2 would be a guide to what PL highlights would get on Channel 5.

We won't win, everyone hates the UK!

Is that why we finished 5th a couple of years ago?

Did we win?

Well I did warn everyone!

Real, serious change is coming.

In terms of the specifics, F1 is massively more likely to go than Wimbledon.

However a shared deal for Wimbledon with BBC retaining Centre Court only could be an option.

The next news will be the Football League / Carling Cup for 2012/15 - the tender is out with bids due in within the next 2 weeks. Must be a real chance that the BBC will lose its current live rights.

As for MOTD - BBC currently pays £57m per year. C5's total programming budget last year was £135m.

So current cost of MOTD is almost half of C5's entire budget! However obviously it could go for less next time.

My own view is that the BBC will regard MOTD as its number 1 priority above everything else (other than one off events like World Cup Finals and Olympics). If they lose MOTD, Football Focus and Final Score probably become untenable.

In 1997 we did...and 5th in 2009 means that 20 other countries are hated more than us. Seemingly.

I kinda get dropping F1, but Wimbeldon seems a strange choice.

So the BBC will still have £3 BILLION per year but they cant even run a couple of tv channels and radio stations with that.

Utterly hilarious nonsense being spun by the BBC at the moment.

If you were to believe it, the entire £3BILLION must be taken up now with the cost of managers & buildings Only the truely gullible will believe this stuff

They better not drop Wimbledon and let Sky get it. I am not paying them for tennis. They already have the US Open.

Whether or not I (or anyone else) agrees with you or not - the point is that the BBC has an absolutely collosal infrastructure which means that much less is spent on programming than people might think.

See 33/101 of link below. Total spent on BBC1/2 is "only" £1.5bn. And a lot of this is I suspect "allocated" costs which are fairly fixed.

The sports budget is £300m. Is that tenable? Probably not.

And the thing everyone is forgetting is that over the next 6 years the revenue of Sky, ITV etc is going to rise very substantially - ie the BBC's RELATIVE position is going to worsen much, much more than suggested by the figure of 20% cuts.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/annualrep...ne_2009_10.pdf

I reckon we will be seeing an increase in the News ratings tonight because of the Japan disaster.


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I cant imagine the BBC dropping Wimbledon, the uproar would be massive. F1 is probably on uncertain ground though (sorry DMN ).

Suspect the figures will be quite high indeed, truly shocking images emerging from the region.

I wonder whether there will be any extended news bulletins on BBC One and ITV1 over the weekend, George Alagiah (BBC), Julie Etchingham (ITV) and Anna Botting (Sky) are all en route to Tokyo.

Source & more: http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2011/...ing-news-hour/

I have previously said I think it should stay on ELEVEN, so I would be surprised if it happened.

Amazing if it did happen, how often do channels make a mistake, and then change it back?

Not very often, otherwise Seven would have brought All Saints back by now!

I think its a bit late to do that now, it isnt too late for Neighbours.

Still think it should have a place on ELEVEN, possibly in a "first look" type way.

No, no, I'd rather they keep Neighbours where it's at.

Yes, it may rate higher than the news but nowhere near high enough to be deemed acceptable. In the long-term, the show would still be a problem on Ten. Just as it has been for the past two years.

It might not even pick up the 200,000 odd viewers it lost in the move.

Its rather ironic that Bang Goes the Theory rates worse than Outcasts and Panorama and nobody bats an eyelid. From the few bits I have seen it seems like a badly scheduled CBBC effort. What is its target audience at 8.00? For me any show getting 2.5 million in BBC1 primetime should be cause for concern, PSB or no PSB. These kind of lows are showing up a few times recently.

More trouble with 'Terra Nova', apparently the complexity of the visual effects in the programme have delayed it until the Autumn. The two hour preview Fox had scheduled for May will not be going ahead.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/show...eptember-.html

cant say im 100% surprised, and the breif promo we saw, wasnt as exciting as you might hope.

This could be a massive and costly turkey for FOX.

Could be big ratings for the Glee finale in the post Idol slot. It'll be interesting to see how it does there seeing as it has been at 8pm all season and done so well (Tuesdays 4.6 was up from recent weeks). I doubt it will beat the 5.9 for Britney, though. But I do feel that it has really improved in recent episodes.

The changes also mean that they'll get both nights of Idol into May sweeps and the end of the TV season. But there must be some nerves at FOX right now. Terra Nova just seems to have been hitting road bumps from the start and at such a high cost, that's got to be worrying.

It was an expensive risk to begin with, I imagine they'll pair it with The X Factor, FOX will order one or two midseason shows as the lead time for Terra Nova due to the SFX will mean they'll order a second season rather than back nine if it does well.

Final Score doesn't rely on the BBC having any football rights - it's a results service, doesn't show highlights, and has been going in one form or another since Grandstand began in 1958, long before there was any football on TV apart from the English and Scottish cup finals. I agree they would struggle to keep Focus going.

It is just like a childrens show and I think you make a good point about target audience and timeSlot. Bring back tomorrows world.