Only in places where Midsomer Murders is considered a confusing title, apparently....as in it referring to a fictional county that hardly ever gets mentioned in the series. You still get UK commentators assuming Midsomer is one village and going on about how many murders it has. The title works as word play in English also (Midsomer/Midsummer - locating it both in rural England and harking back to endless summers in villages etc....but such subtle allusions would not work outside any country very close in spiritual terns to the UK)

Moreover, Law and Order: UK used the format's cult status to establish it in the UK as explained. They could not have done that with another title.

It may even be in the contract that it had to be called Law and Order: UK as every single episode in the first 39 has been a reworked version of the original script from the parent show.

Moreover, in interviews Dick Wolf has spoken of wanting to do future crossovers between the UK and US shows and I am mildly surprised we have yet to see one of Law and Order:SVUs cast members arrive in London as the actor holds the world record for appearing in more TV shows than anyone playing the same character (Detective Munch) - including all or nearly all of the US Law and Order series and even non related US series such as The X Files.

So there were quite a few special circumstances as to why this was always not going to get a new title. It was only ever a doubt whether it should be Law and Order:UK or Law and Order: London. Some people over here even thought it was wrong that they did not use a version of the Law and Order theme tune that was continuously revamped for all but the last of the US spin offs. ITV did use it - but only for all the on screen ads and promos,

I see Channel 5 has once again listed Resident Evil, in its advanced listings, lets hope it sticks this tmie.

Interesting to see Danny Cohen thinks he's called time on My Family. I hate to break it to him, but the two lead actors called time on it in 2009, announcing the episodes filmed in late 2009 and early 2010 would be the last they'd do.

I often wonder whether the title has helped or hindered the ITV version. I can remember the original Law and Order starting out on late night BBC1 about twenty years or more ago. I think it was on Mondays at 10.10pm to start with, although it may have moved later. It didn't really take off in the UK ratings, and Channel 5 is probably the only channel to have had any sort of success with any of the franchise's efforts. Even so, probably not enough to give the franchise a massive profile in the UK, and, as you say, the scripts are recycled, so that may be turning off some fans of the original series.

Home and Away continues to hover around the million mark for both showings. I wonder if time will be called on this before Neighbours, which pulls in a healthier 1.8 million for both showings.

Considering the lack of opposition, Monroe should've tipped the 5m mark IMO. Coronation Street is really struggling (relatively speaking) starting away from a natural junction. EastEnders did well, as did Japan's Tsunami on Channel 4. Celebrity Juice and Good News certainly pull in the viewers on the digital channels.

Why doesn't ITV just show Coronation St on its traditional nights of Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with the Wednesday episode moved to 8pm on a Thursday when there's football? This upheaval in the schedules in recent years and extra episodes has confused the fans and made ITV1 very weak on football free Wednesdays.

Home & Away
1.15pm-0.3m
6pm-0.8m
6.30pm-0.5m
TOTAL-1.6m

Neighbours
1.45pm-0.7m
5.30pm-1.2m
7pm-0.1m
TOTAL-2.0m

Not really much in it and I'd say H&A is in a healthier state quality and ratings wise abroad. Plus Ch5 have a lifetime agreement with H&A, whereas Neighbours is only a 10(?) year deal.

I'm not sure if Wednesday's are the answer because it'll have to keep being moved when football is aired (then again, ITV1 have football next Tuesday so...!). I think they should stop the double on Friday, move one episode to boost Tuesday and switch Coronation Street and Emmerdale around on Thursday so the bigger show has the junction.

I'd go with something radical like this.

Tuesday
7.00 Tuesday 8pm programme
8.00 Coronation Street
8.30 Emmerdale

Thursday
7.00 Tuesday 7.30pm programme
7.30 Thursday 7.30pm programme
8.00 Coronation Street
8.30 Emmerdale

Friday
7.00 Emmerdale (Thursday's 2nd episode and Friday's)
8.00 Normal programming
8.30 Coronation Street

Tuesday's should be boosted, the 8pm hour on Thursday should see a bit of an increase with the bigger show given the lead in and Friday shouldn't be hurt too badly with the removal of a Coronation Street episode.

Didn't everyone know Larkrise was ending too?

Ratings would have to fall by a lot more than they have so far for C5 to even consider pulling it.

As Zoe has explained you don't seem to factor into the equation the high rating first look showing on 5*, making comparisons with Neighbours tricky if you are just taking the main channel ratings.

I'd forgotten about the premiere, so 1.6 million is respectable for Channel 5. Maybe Channel 5 has been the saviour of this soap as ITV could have axed it by now if they kept the rights after 2000. Of course, a certain other show once massive on Channel 4 could also find a new lease of life on Channel 5.

The only thing which Channel 5 might find attractive about Hollyoaks is its demos. A triple soap block every weeknight might be a bit much though, only ITV1 can get away with things like that.

EE out in front again, and up from last week. That 7.9m for Corrie is totally unacceptable IMO. To shed 2m from the 10m on Monday can't be right at all. Monday's episode were argueably the best eps of the year so far and then to crash down to 8m for it's next episode is just strange. I know the Thursday slot has been a problem ever since ITV moved there in July 2009, but even they must realise a 2m decline is not where Corrie should be. It should have matched or got a higher rating than EE. Emmerdale as solid as ever, but that's 2 weeks in a row now that the 7pm episode has outrated the 8pm episode which seems alittle odd.

High time shift for Corrie. ITV1's highest for +1? Nearly 400k. Still, a poor drop from Monday. A new idea for the soap schedule:

Monday
19.00- Emmerdale (Hour-long)
20.00- EastEnders (30 mins)
20.30- Coronation Street (30 mins)

Tuesday
19.00- Emmerdale (30 mins)
19.30- EastEnders (30 mins)
20.00- Coronation Street (30 mins)

Wednesday
No soaps. Displaced regional programmes at 7pm

Thursday
19.00- Emmerdale (30 mins)
19.30- EastEnders (30 mins)
20.00- Coronation Street (Hour-long)

Friday
19.00- Emmerdale (Hour-long)
20.00- EastEnders (30 mins)
20.30- Coronation Street (30 mins)


At a glance

Coronation Street
Mon & Fri 8.30, Tue & Thu 8.00 (hour-long on Thu)

Emmerdale
Mon & Fri 7.00 (hour-long), Tue & Thu 7pm


Features

+ Corrie lead-ins from 8pm junction to 9pm junction on Monday, Thursday and Friday

+ Emmerdale reduces episode numbers from 6 to 4 but gains two hour-long episodes

+ Coronation Street increases nights from 3 to 4 and double episodes are eliminated in favour of an hour-long on Thursday

+ Symmetry - on Monday and Friday there's an hour-long episode of Emmerdale at 7pm and Corrie at 8.30pm; on Tuesday and Thursday there's Emmerdale at 7pm and Corrie at 8pm.

+ Coronation Street always follows EastEnders, making the schedule logical and easy to remember.

+ Both shows benefit from changes to plot structure. Emmerdale can open and close the week with bangs in the hour-longs on Monday and Friday; Coronation Street can cover more days on the Street and remove the farcical cliffhangers we see often with the double episodes.


Downsides

- Coronation Street goes head-to-head with Holby City on Tuesday night at 8pm

- There is an awkward slot to fill at 8.30pm on Tuesday


--

Overall I think this would be the best solution given what there is to work with. I think it'd benefit soaps' viewers as well as the ITV1 schedule as a whole.

The +1 rating was 274k.

The 7.92m rating will probs timeshift about 1m. So about 8.9m in the officials.

Talking of the timeshift channels, is anyone else surprised that ITV1+1 is lagging so far behind Channel 4+1?

Two months in I expected ITV1+1 to be running C4+1 a lot closer, but the gap is still massive:

Channel 4+1
Daily Reach: 2.97m
Weekly Reach: 12.91m
Share: 0.9%

ITV1+1
Daily Reach: 1.69m
Weekly Reach: 7.91m
Share: 0.5%

Source: BARB / week ending 13/3/11 data.

ITV1+1 doesn't appear to be growing all that much, if at all, either. In fact, it's down on the equivalent week in February!

To be honest I never expect ITV1+1 to be a massive draw for viewers. I haven't watched one thing on their +1 channel yet.

Do they promote it a lot on screen these days?

Not that I've noticed recently at all. Maybe that's why.

Yesterday's Corrie average reported by DS was for the whole half an hour, whilst in previous weeks the average has usually covered 20:30-20:55. That could explain why the rating is significantly lower than previous weeks when comparing the DS figures. I suspect in previous weeks, the averages for the full slot would've been lower than the ones reported by DS. A bad rating for it last night though.


It might take a fair few months to see any significant growth with ITV1+1. When C4+1 started, it was static at the 0.5% mark for about 4 months. Its share then gradually started to grow - within 7 months it was up to 0.7% and then it was at 0.8% after 12 months. I suspect there'll be a similar sort of growth with ITV1+1.

It's making all that talk about how to deal with ITV1+1's ratings, look like a waste of time

I assume ITV viewers are a different demo to C4 's and don't do stuff like Sky plussing and watching +1 channels.

ITV did Twitter a week or two ago, telling people it existed and where to find it. But not many follow!!

ITV has 16k followers on Twitter, compared to ITV2's 41k.

ITV2+1 does a lot better than ITV1+1.

Will be interesting how Anna Nicole the Opera does tonight for BBC Four, I'm watching it out of interest and I think it should do well. Funny there's not been any complaints about compared to Jerry Springer which was on BBC Two a few years ago.

BBC HD are becoming more of a joke. This goes out Monday night at 11pm - 1.10am.

And last night's Women in Love the same graveyard slot on Sunday night.

The DD sound on BBC HD will enhance the opera, as much as the superior picture quality.