ITV would be airing two episodes regardless. It makes perfect sense from ITV's perspective to air them as one.

Yes, but Comic Relief often peaks at 8pm-8.15pm as the Comic Relief audience is joined by viewers expecting EastEnders or tuning in to fill the 30 min gap between Corries.

That's why ITV has done this - to stop that happening. I guess that's business - ITV is there to make money, and to get one over on BBC1 whenever they can.

They will probably put an extra Emmerdale out at 8.30 too, followed by Benidorm at 9pm, to maximise the denting.

I suspect we can strike out any prospect of Comic Relief making the Top 20 shows this year now. Shame, but well done ITV - it may mean you get an extra ITV1 show in there at the end of year...

Hasn't it already been confirmed that Benidorm is being dropped for that week?

We've had a tweet from the soon-to-be-ex-writer, I believe.

When are the actual schedules confirmed?

You're so unnecessarily biased - ITV has played no part in killing the FA Cup - and the fact that the Carling Cup airs on a Sunday afternoon in bad weather is bound to be the most logical reason.

Having said that, baking Saturday afternoon clashes between Portsmouth and West Brom are bound to rate better aren't they

Carling Cup matches are played in primetime - and actually - it's a lot more commercial than the FA Cup. Premier League has all the power, not the FA.

Very good rating for Hancock on Sunday. Channel 5 really have made that slot a regular movie night. Not being a Dancing On Ice fan or a period drama fan, I always check to see what's on Channel 5 on a Sunday for a good movie.

Very poor for Crimewatch on Monday, I often wonder how they actually manage to solve so many crimes given the viewership! Naturally of course, this program does a fantastic public service (probably one of the most important), and I'm sure nobody would be willing/want to see it axed.

Good to see Eastenders back up to regular levels on Monday after the big dip on Friday. Probably worth pointing out that it may be down tonight (Tuesday) due to the big rating Chelsea V Man U Premier League fixture on Sky Sports taking some of Eastenders' younger demographic.

Die Another Day is the film ITV1 are playing at 2030 on Comic Relief night.

ITV have made me hate James Bond films !!

Or maybe the first episode of Monroe will put a significant dent into the second episode of Monroe?

Looks nowt special from the trailers. From the ITV blurb:


Another Nesbitt-by-numbers procedural, no doubt.

"Murphy's Surgery"...

I doubt the Red Nose Trek will get 6m+ anyway. Didn't the celebrity John O'Groats to Lands End bike ride flop comparatively last year with around 4m, or less? I do think the original Kilimanjaro trek succeeded and won it's amazing 9m+ audience because it was grander in scale, was heavily promoted and followed by other media in the lead-up. The desert trek sounds a bit tame by contrast.

Bacon asked what the ratings were for Got to Dance and one of them replied "6, 7 or 800,000 but that's still very good for Sky One".

The latest official is 1.6 million.

Schedules are confirmed tomorrow. Provisional schedules suggest that Benidorm won't be on that week as currently the slot is TBA and nothing is up on ITV Press Centre about any possible Benidorm episode that week.

It is a bit odd that ITV have gone with a 7.30-8.30pm Corrie lineup the one time that the BBC has an EastEnders mini-episode on Comic Relief Night, as they usually never do that. A bit of a coincidence. But I can see the reasoning for it - usually their audience for the 2nd Corrie drops off by 1m+ on these charity marathon nights so merging the two episodes together makes sense.

But Comic Relief will have 2 hours between 8.30-10.30pm where it'll have a free run against incredibly weak competition. ITV are airing repeats, so are Channel 4 and Channel 5. This should help Comic Relief gain momentum in the ratings from 8.30pm onwards and indeed I wouldn't be surprised if this year's Comic Relief is one of the biggest rated ones in a while - it's been very well promoted and we're still a few weeks away, the spin-off show Let's Dance is doing very well (and that's only going to help the main show due to the cross-promotion), and with most of the main channels giving up for most of the night I can see it doing very well and getting that Top 20 end of year place.

Last year's Bike thing got 5m, and that was a tie-in with the less-popular Sport Relief. With the Comic Relief link, this will without doubt rate better than that. It won't rate as well as the Kiliminjaro Climb (or even come close to that) but expect there to be plenty of promotion for the Desert Trek show on BBC1/Radio 1/BBC News in the days leading up to the airing. I'll be stunned if it doesn't get 5.5/6m+.

Well I'm sure the actual writer of the show would best placed to comment on it.

Comic Relief airs till 10.30pm?

Really? What about the news?

If true, that's probably another nail in its coffin then, in "big ratings" terms.

Typical aggressive ITV, playing out a nine year old film against Comic Relief...

I think they write the scripts, not the schedules!

The news is airing at 10.30pm apparently. Bit strange from BBC1 - maybe the EastEnders mini episode gets quite drak so they're airing it after 10pm to play safe?

Of course, but he's more likely to be privy to scheduling info. And as dubsj's post proves, he was right.

Sorry about the unnecessary bias, PJ. I should try to follow your model of textbook impartiality, but it's a struggle sometimes...

I think the League Cup is the domain of the Football League, nothing at all to do with the Premier League. Indeed, in the hierarchy of things, the FL is probably a distant third behind the PL and the FA. Which makes these ratings even more special, despite your pleas in mitigation.

The FA Cup's obituaries were also written during the last time ITV had the rights. The Beeb then got them back and the competition had a sudden and impressive revival. Which caused ITV to steal the rights again, money no object, and now it's in decline again.

A familiar pattern seems to be emerging here...

How is it another nail in the coffin? It's up against very weak competition, Corrie shouldn't pose much of a threat anyway (it's not really been that harmed by it in recent years due to Corrie losing its "event TV" status). From what i've seen, everything about this year's Comic Relief is on a bigger scale, from the publicity it's getting, to the actual event being bigger, a mini-EastEnders episode should help bring in some more of the EE fans to watch it, etc. This year's Comic Relief will rate as well as ever and will be in the Top 20 of the Year Chart - programmes usually need ~8.5m+ to get into the top 20 which it will probably get. Ratings for the last 3 telethons have been:

2005- 10.8m (45%)
2007- 9.5m (41%)
2009- 10.3m (43%)

I can't see it suddenly slipping by 1.5m compared to the last couple of marathons.

Thanks. Can't see that going much above 2m but Coronation Street should see a boost by linking the episodes.

But the last 2 aired 7-10pm, not 7-10.30pm with the first 90 mins against a solid ITV soap block. Yes, the 8.30-10.30 period should rate well, but viewers will drift off as 10pm approaches, and the 7-8.30 period will be significantly down - particularly with post-tram crash Coro being on such a roll with all its riveting storylines at the moment...

Yes, it may well average 8.5m or more overall. Which is great, but it may just miss out on the Top 20 place with those numbers.

Hancock did very well for Channel 5, think it would have done better had they had Superman II as a lead in rather than Royal Navy. Sundays have been their film day/night and Channel 4 do it as well so I dont see why Channel 5 get stick for it.

Mrs Brown's Boys stayed the same which is good news. Royal Navy was slightly down but I think that is down to Crimewatch, it should get a second series given the average so far is 1.9m.

Are Channel 5 showing a repeat of The Mentalist on Comic Relief, I would have assumed it would be a new episode.

I agree that the 10:00-10:30pm will dip compared to the 9.30-10pm period, however I still expect that half hour to rate very well. The 9pm hour for the 2009 edition averaged 12.3m, I'd expect the 10-10.30pm to dip but certainly no lower than 8-9m or so (assuming the 9pm hour once again gets ~12m). These live events often do very well into the 10-10:30pm half hour due to very weak competition from other channels, and I can't see that half hour nose-diving in the ratings to such an extent that it'll have a majorly negative effect on the average. In fact, having that extra half hour means that the period which is up against Corrie doesn't have as much of an impact on the average as when the show was half an hour less in duration (due to weighting etc), so the extra half hour could actually help boost the overall figure, if you get what I mean. I suspect 8.5m or so should be good enough for a Top 20 place this year with no World Cup etc (8.4m was good enough for #20 in 2009 overnight chart) - it'll clear 8.5m average quite comfortably anyway. I'm already anticipating your "" smilies when the ratings come out and it inevitably gets 9m+ !

Sorry, should have said 1.3 million (can't edit above post).