How did Total Wipeout rate last night?

Though to be fair I wouldn't mind ITV airing rubbish in daytime if it meant the money went into primetime. Same with Channel 4 and Channel 5 really. If money is stretched it should be spent when people are watching.

The controversial thing for me (and I know many people won't like this) is that the BBC should spend more time trying different things in daytime and putting together inventive schedules instead of the same old thing. Their money should be spread throughout the day more and if this means primetime has to take a slight hit, then so be it. The commercial channels offer alternatives and 'try' in those time slots.

For me, the whole point of the BBC is that they're able to 'push the boundaries' more because they have a guaranteed income which is not dictated by advertising revenue. I don't think they're doing this enough, enough outside prime time or in prime time.

I know what I'm trying to say; I have no idea reading back if it makes sense but I'll post anyway.

Are you trying to say the BBC should show niche programmes in the evenings, in order that ITV can get really good ratings every night?

Go back as far as the 1990s, and ITV used to get really good ratings every night even though there was little niche stuff on BBC1.

ITV1's ratings took a hit due to the success of its fellow commercial broadcasters.

Surely we should be looking at Britain's Got Talent first, which starts next weekend?

I think that'll be down on last year quite considerably (no, I'm not underpredicting....), but I think the lack of Cowell won't help it. McIntyre should help but I don't think Hasselhoff will bring in two bob. I'd say 8.5/9m, not much higher.

No, not at all. Indeed, I think if the BBC restructured they could provide a very competitive schedule over less channels and would probably win most prime time slots (outside Emmerdale/Coronation Street) while also providing a wider bspectrum of programming in day time.


True, that was partly down to a better standard of programming on ITV and partly, IMO, down to BBC1 going to the news at nine o'clock meaning that ITV's programming had a head start in the slot.

Moving News at Ten was the worst move in British broadcasting history.


And the BBC. Though the other commercial channels hit ITV, the BBC did also.

I think Hasselhoff may work well with Ant and Dec; I can see some laughs happening between the three of them, which'll help the live shows/backstage clips on More Talent but won't assist the audition stage really.

I think Simon was concentrating so hard on The X Factor USA he just chucked whoever wanted the gig at Britain's Got Talent - an approach Cheryl Cole wishes Simon would take in regards to the American programme.

Hmmm, BGT slipped slightly last year, but the absence of Simon could hit it further. I would go for 8-9 million. It's still very respectable and only a hard hitting Corrie episode or TXF would get more on ITV1. I still think it's a good show and isn't hyped to death like TXF.

You wait - if it "only" pulls in around 8m, then ITV'll start putting pressure on Simon to improve figures. I doubt the broadcaster are impressed with his focus on America as it is, and a dip in ratings beyond, say, 0.5m-1m will not be looked on too favourably.

If ITV do start stirring things about about the ratings, then the Syco fall back is to whip the press into a fever. Britain's Got Talent could be hyped more than before out of desperation.

As you say, 8m should not be sniffed at but I have the feeling ITV will be looking for any sign of decrease in terms of viewing figures to put pressure on Simon to not forget where he started.

The 9pm news harmed the BBC1 9.30pm offerings for a long time, but even most of the 7-9pm stuff on BBC1 used to get battered by ITV, even when some of the ITV programming was of a worse standard than the BBC1 stuff.

In the days when EastEnders was only on twice a week, if BBC1 showed a sitcom at 8pm on Mondays, it would usually be beaten by a ratty quiz on ITV. And if the BBC fought back with a ratty quiz of their own, it rarely ended in anything but ratings disaster.

It was almost unheard of for BBC1 to win a weeknight slot, apart from the two EastEnders episodes, and whatever was scheduled against ITV's two peak time current affairs shows (on Mondays and Thursdays at 8.30pm).

But an ever greater asset for ITV, far greater than the BBC's 9pm news, was ITV's early 1990s knack of making good dramas, in contrast to the BBC's almost complete inability to launch a decent drama series for BBC One: Trainer, Specials, The Lifeboat, Waterfront Beat, Inspector Alleyn. But the shitty dramas were the BBC's fault, just as the mid-to-late noughties shitty ITV1 dramas were ITV's fault.

Probably because he promised his wife he would cut down on the travelling

Now I'd argue it's the other way round.


I agree. I think ITV's obsession (the big question is did they really need to do it) of chasing the 16-34 market harmed their drama base badly and they're only recovering in fits and starts now. But, for me, BBC1's drama base isn't much stronger than ITV1's really.

Do you have the BBC HD ratings? It's not a 32% drop as the Beeb's HD ratings will no doubt be higher. Even so, of course there would be a drop with Sky also covering it.

I'm astounded it's not more, but this just shows people love these events on the BBC. The presenting and commentary teams, led by Hazel Irvine and Peter Alliss are absoloutly masterful. Looking on Twitter it appears a huge number abandoned Sky in favour of the BBC yesterday, and this certainly seems to be borne out in the ratings. Twitter was awash with comments last night praising the Beeb's coverage and slamming Sky's.

Given the astonishing Grand National figure and superb F1 ratings, it does appear that everyone loves the BBC's sports coverage.

In the paper today they even used the heading "Only on Sky." Strange I thought, since I was well aware that the final night was also on the BBC.

On closer inspection they'd stuck the Sky Sports HD & Sky 3D logos on it, so technically yes, they can claim that 3D coverage of The Masters is only available on Sky, but this was not made obvious in the shameful advert.

Of course, Sky pretending the BBC doesn't exist does not make it so, unfortunately for them. At least they grew up a bit and allowed Sky Sports News to mention sports that exclusively air on the BBC now, apparently this was a big taboo in the past! In the case of the F1, their heightened interest might also have something to do with the upcoming rights renewal that the BBC look increasing unlikely to afford.

To be pedantic ITV1 doesn't broadcast between 6am and 9.25am - CITV is broadcast during the hours of "ITV Breakfast Ltd" and doesn't count towards the long since dropped pledge of five hours a week - a commitment ITV1 didn't keep in any shape or form following the end of the afternoon slot. Obviously though now the breakfast slot is used in that way it does appear to viewers CITV has a regular presence on the channel.

And we talked quite a bit not so long ago about how important kids TV has been for developing the mainstream presenters of today - arguably more so for ITV than the BBC at the moment - but I wonder too how much the loss of the big Saturday morning shows is affecting the development of staff off-screen too.

If Digital Spy will allow me to use a swear word on their forum (sport ) thrilling stuff at the Masters (7 other players within 3 shots of Rory McIlroy) could well damage the rating for Channel 5's The Walking Dead.
Why you would want to schedule episode 1 of a drama series to not finish until 11.30pm though, I have no idea.

The nationalisation of commercial radio, isn't helping either.

Besides a few very obvious examples, not everyone who was a children's tv presenter makes it to the big time, a lot can't make that jump, especially with kids tv often going with airheaded young girls rather than geeky young men towards the end.

I mean Stephen Mulhern hasn't really reached a great height in his career, and all the others who he presented with on CITV have all mostly disappeared (apart from one who I believe is in Doctor Who?)

Konnie Huq's career isn't going well and I still can't take to Lizo Mazimba or Ellie Crissell as serious presenters, and they actually did the news.

Totally agree. The scheduling is utterly ridiculous! Why C5 have done this is beyond me. Sunday doesn't seem like the right night either IMO. I've seen it anyway when it originally aired on FX last year. And they aired the first episode with zero ads. The first episode is good. I really thought it would be much better though. It's only 6 episodes long and there does seem to be alot if filler when nothing much is happening it all. Shame really. It had real potential.

For all the criticism of Channel 5's scheduling of The Walking Dead, it's exactly the same as the scheduling used in the U.S. by cable broadcaster AMC - where it worked extremely well. Obviously I'm not saying it will be quite so effective over here, but how can the timeslot be so awful when the Americans loved it at that time?

I've got zero interest in the golf so it's no contest for me which I'll be watching, but ironically that finishes even later in that evening!

I still think if it can match True Blood's 1.6m opener on Channel 4 it will have done alright. It can afford to go a little below that but 1.2m or lower would be quite disappointing and below 1m especially so.

Easier to do that when you've got a secondary revenue stream trickling in from Sky/Virgin.

Not so easy when you're broadcasting free-to-air across all the major platforms and have lots of bills to pay!

Why pull it? It's largely paid for I guess and if it was pulled then something would need to take it's place. Also there is arguably a moral obligation to the contestants to see it through, especially as the BBC aren't a commercial organisation

Having said that moving it to a post early evening news slot (5.30pm ish) as may have been suggested on here before maybe an idea if the share starts falling


Considering the cuts the BBC are going to have to make, cutting back the periphery of Saturday nights, especially in British Summer Time seems a sensible move. Keep Final Score on until 5.30 then extend the eary evening news until 6pm (content is available from the News Channel so should be very cheap). And similarly extend the late evening bulletin and bring MOTD forward to as early as possible. Next Saturday for example there is Live at the Apollo at 9.50pm then a 10 minute news and MOTD at 10.30pm. Why? The News could run at 9.50pm instead for 20-25 minutes followed by MOTD. Repeat fee saved, and possibly a higher rating for Live at the Apollo repeats when they do serve a purpose in the schedule

When does Compete for the Meat premieré on Dave. Zoe Salmon is co-hosting!

I saw The Walking Dead last year at US pace and from my recollection the first 2 episodes are very good - so I could potentially see ratings rising week-on-week to start with on Channel 5. 3rd episode was good but the 4th and 5th episodes were a bit too light on the action I thought. The 6th episode was good though.

I'm going to predict 1.8million Channel 5 premiere audience due to all the advertising, but I won't be disapointed as long as it's above say 1.2m-1.3m, as it is difficult to factor in whether hardcore gore fans (like myself) will have already watched it on FX, US pace, DVD etc. I think it could be a big timeshifter as well due to the late finish at 11:30pm, so maybe not fair to judge this one straight away on the overnights.

Then if the two Cowell shows start to show a big decline, then expect the same kind of schadenfreude that surrounded BB in its last years on Channel 4. Apart from the soaps and current affairs shows like Panorama, most other programmes have a shelf life. Also a cut throat market in television for commercial broadcasters means huge ratings that I can remember from the seventies are very rare.

I think we can safely say BGT will be down, but I don't think that's so much due to Cowell leaving as the fact that this years series is coming in on the back of a lower profile run last year. The auditions last year set incredibly high numbers - barely down from 2009 which had the whole Susan Boyle phenomenon. If the auditions are down a bit this year, I doubt ITV will be too worried. But if the live shows are down heavily, I think that would be more cause for concern.

X Factor will be around for a long time to come. The format is so simple, laugh at some bad singers and then support some good singers and back the one you want to win. There is no reason why that format would suddenly fail. It's been around on ITV via shows such as Stars in their Eyes, pretty much constantly for decades.

BGT is a different story though. I expect ratings to be down by 1m on average this year. Still a massive show, but enough to satisfy Robbie and the other BGT haters.