I really didn't think the Caroline Quentin travelogue could get any worse for ITV, but clearly I was wrong! Real chance of ducking under 2m next week... You know there's a problem when your cheap EE filler at 7.30 comfortably outrates the 8 and 9pm shows that follow it!

Decent for Silk again - and I hope it doesn't fall victim to the apparently much more cutthroat decision making at BBC One. With a solid 20% share, its well worth a return and given that the structure is relatively episodic with a 'case of the week' alongside any overarching story, it doesn't preclude new viewers from joining.

No other terrestrial channel really capitalising - CSI was strong, but Channel 4 was particularly limp with Gok and Heston. You expect better from names like them. Junior Doctors did really well once again on multichannel and is really growing by word of mouth.

iPlayer stats for Feb have been posted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcintern...1102_FINAL.pdf

Interesting stats for Tracy Beaker and Suspicious Parents:


K

Channel 5's movie premiere of You Don't Mess With The Zohan plays Monday 28th March at 9pm.

Sensible scheduling it there instead of the Sunday where it would have faced the DoI Final & WTD. 3:10 To Yuma takes the Sunday 9pm slot.

How awful. I see there's two Katie titled programmes in the 9pm slot on Tuesday evenings. Thankfully only one is a Price!!

The other is Katie: My Beautiful Friends on C4 which follows Katie Piper who suffered severe facial damage after an acid attack.

but will people do the rigth thing and not watch katie price, do i have enough faith in my fellow man/woman to do the right thing if we stop watching the jordanator she will go away ... one can but hope

BBC1 repeat post BBC News at 10 possibly? I guess it should be quite a cheap show to repeat, which will be important in the current environment

Once repeats are factored in I guess it's reaching over 2 million per episode?


I bet Channel 5 wish we used the American definition of primetime (8-11). 2nd at 9pm, above 1m at 8/9/10pm yet primetime share seems very average and behind BBC1/2, ITV1 and C4. 6-8pm really drags down Channel 5

That should rate well. The original Cutting Edge documentary pulled in a commendable 3.1m in 2009.

For fun (or, for Robbie... ) :

BBC TV + BBC iPlayer
10.73m - 03/02 - BBC1 - EastEnders (10.20m + 0.53m)
8.01m - 20/02 - BBC2 - Top Gear (6.87m + 1.14m)
7.74m - 27/01 - BBC1 - Come Fly with Me (7.22m + 0.52m)
7.41m - 11/02 - BBC1 - Hustle (6.87m + 0.54m)
6.15m - 02/02 - BBC1 - Waterloo Road (5.54m + 0.61m)
5.83m - 03/02 - BBC1 - Human Planet (5.12m + 0.71m)
1.49m - 08/02 - BBC3 - Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents (0.88m + 0.61m)
1.13m - 04/02 - CBBC - Tracy Beaker Returns (0.50m + 0.64m)

Only done for the top rated show for each on iPlayer.

The Jury to be stripped later this year, week beginning 7th November*: http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press...y/default.html

* week not confirmed obviously, but almost certainly the week before IAC.

Well, you know my views on aggregating ratings.

What I think this does show is that the popularity of iPlayer must be forcing down BBC TV ratings, and probably inflating audiences for commercial broadcasters because people don't always know about the commercial iPlayer equivalents. Sure, 4OD is reasonably well-known and probably popular with the Ch 4 family of channels' core demographic. But ITV Player is still a largely unknown quantity to many, like ITV's wider web offering generally, so a lot of people will feel they need to watch ITV shows live on the telly if they are not to miss out when there's a clash.

That sound a fair assessment?

Interesting to see Junior MasterChef Australia doing just as well for Watch as the main series. The official of 287,000 (exc. +1) for the show on 1st March is the second most watched episode of aussie MasterChef ever in the UK.

Really interesting for positions 2-5 which all surprise me-Tracy Beaker inparticular, which seems to be bringing in a bigger audience than the main showing and it proves the Tracy Beaker brand is still as popular as it ever was.

Waterloo Road continues to perform strongly and I can now see why the BBC keep giving it long recomissions. There's the odd dip when it faces stuff like IAC/Corrie/big events, but for the most part it's pulling in a solid 4.5m every Wednesday stabilising Wednesdays, an extra 0.5m+ on timeshift and an extra 0.5m on iPlayer which is fantastic considering the general concensus is that the quality of the show has declined.

----

Back to last night and Tuesday just seems a lost cause for ITV now. I just can't see why the Caroline Quentin show is flopping-she's a big personality and these travelogue type shows always bring in at least 3m. The slot is definitely putting people off. It's a shame ITV can't have all the football on Tuesdays and then they could schedule all the big events like soap awards/Pride of Britain etc on Tuesdays too, along with drama repeats. Then they could reinstate the Wednesday Corrie. Although I guess then you have a problem with the Wednesday 8-10pm block, especially now The Bill is gone for good. IMO ITV really messed up with the big schedule revamp in July 2009. They lost a hugely successful show. Corrie's continuity has struggled. Tuesdays are an even bigger problem with the lack of football to boost. Wednesdays can be very hit and miss & the 7.30pm slot is wasted when there's no football on. The only positive I can see is the huge boost Emmerdale has received and I see the double episode on Thursday a huge reason for that boost.

Fantastic for Ch5 to come 2nd in the 9pm slot, but when it's just over 2m it's very embarassing for the other terrestrials. At least CSI has picked up in recent weeks and it seems to be doing well against the BBC1 drama competition.

Solid enough night for Ch4 hovering just under 2m from 8-10pm. Interesting to see the original Katie doc getting a full series, like the Gypsy one did and we all know what happened there. Seems to be part of Ch4's plan to try out one off shows, before launching into a full series.

I'm glad it did well, one of the best things I've seen on TV this year, I much preferred it to the Oz adult version, which is SO drawn out and much more OTT.

I think it's more complicated than that. As an example, The Killing has more or less been increasing its ratings throughout its run, almost certainly down to a combination of word of mouth and the ability of people to catch up on iPlayer first.

K

Absolutely.

ITV Player is shoddy - I'll happily miss a show on the BBC because the iPlayer is so excellent, but catching up on ITV Player is a chore, clumsily coded with sub-standard video quality. The BBC iPlayer offers HD streaming of shows and downloads where available, and even the SD player is a large size and of decent quality.

Incidentally, it was announced a week or so back that ITV is relaunching its website this year with a brand new ITV Player. Crozier has said the new site will be "fit for purpose" and have the functionality to test out pay-walls for content.

It remains to be seen if the new ITV.com will bring their service in line with the BBC's offering.

Figures like these really emphasise the importance of iPlayer (regarding recommissioning etc..) especially for programmes on the digital platforms.

Edit: Oh and I think Tracy Beaker also gets a CBBC1 airing doesn't it? That will probably add on another 500k)

It says that the I-Player ratings are only requests not full viewings, so your summary may be over stating the situation somewhat.

Just one last thought on Law and Order: UK. It might have a touch of the Midsomer factor.

This does modestly (new episodes were not getting hugely better ratings than L&O as I recall not that long ago). But Midsomer has very strong overseas sales so less than stellar figures here matter less. Do we know if L & O: UK sells well? It may do given that it has the Law and Order original brand behind it to give it an edge over a similar show that might have been called 'Cricklewood Murder Squad' or whatever.

Law and Order series in the US have suffered big drops in ratings as they go along but the power of the franchise gives them that extra leg up to survive longer than they might without that edge.

BTW Freema Agyeman was on ITV this afternoon talking about the show. They have just been filming episode 34 she said (that would be about half way through the third run of 13 episodes). Mind you Alan Titchmarsh rather puzzlingly talked about the great character development episode to episode....???? No idea what show he has been watching as L & O has very little of that which is a key reason why viewers feel they can miss an episode if something else is happening that night.

It looks as though, on average, people "stream/watch" about 1h15m of TV on iPlayer per week (not including Virgin), with an average number of requests of 4 programmes so they must be watching about half what they select? (bit difficult to be sure though)

K

I can't imagine requesting something you're not going to watch (when you've bothered to look for it to 'catch up in the first place) is a terribly common occurrence Mr Pedantic.

Law & Order UK is screened by BBC America in the US I believe. It's received much critical acclaim in the US, although I don't know if it's converted into ratings.

Is BBC America particularly popular ?

BBC America press release, for anyone interested:

So you're telling me, every time someone selects a programme on the i-player, they watch the whole thing?

I regularly catch up with the Chris Moyles Show on the i-player, but I don't listen to the whole 3 hours 30 minutes

Sing if You Can is also supposed to be airing in April, according to Darren Gough and Jonathan Ansell who are taking part in it (Jedward are in it too...). Filming for it begins next week so I wouldn't be surprised if that airs on Saturdays from the week after Ant & Dec's Push The Button finishes (9th April). They might air this at 8pm before BGT returns (and then 7pm once BGT begins), whilst keeping The Cube on Sundays at 7pm like the previous series.

To be fair, Robbie, there's only so many times someone can say 'ITV had a tripe Tuesday' before it gets dull. They obviously can be bothered to sort it out for whatever reason so we're stuck with it for the forseeable future.

Lion Country's figures don't exactly show hope for Countrywise being turned into an hour long and being aired there.

Strong night for BBC1, but when ITV1 are just going to lie down and let them have good ratings...