Thanks for understanding!

The Apprentice, of course, should get 6m and whilst it remains by some distance the Premier Cru of the reality shows, a few factors are against it:

- the last series only finished 4 months ago; yes it was delayed, but after an 15 month wait between the previous two series to whet our appetites, a mere 4 months just doesn't feel long enough to excite

- it's a Wednesday show - those who have seen the publicity will automatically think tomorrow (and may well have seen it in their EPG/telly guide tomorrow given the two parter)

- the tweak with the format, although minor in the scheme of things could cause some to think they have had a major rehash; I think over the course of the series, the constant references to "finding a business partner" could undermine the whole fundamental premise of the show - he's supposed to be looking for someone to take a punt on, to mould into his protege, to take under his wing within the Amstrad empire

- it certainly had its moments tonight, but I do fear it's getting a bit tired and samey - see also point 1

So I can't see this series scaling the heights, and it probably has passed its high water mark. I will be disappointed with <6m tonight, but it will not surprise me if it gets 5-5.5m for the debut.

Wasn't there yet another big football clash on Sky tonight? That might have had an effect on The Apprentice's numbers.

CSI was recorded for another time but apart from that it didn't have much competition on terrestrial.

It really should be rating better than that Strangeways documentary last night.

Anyone got the series opener ratings for the previous series to allow for comparison tomorrow ?

The Apprentice overnight launch ratings on BBC1:

2007- 5.0m (22%)
2008- 6.4m (25%)
2009- 8.1m (33%)
2010- 6.9m (27%)

I see Robbie's gone with his usual under-prediction tactics today. Of course a big well-established show like The Apprentice won't rate as low as 5.0-5.5m for its opener, he knows that . The average prediction on the RPG incidentally was 6.8m.

Strangeways was actually the first time I've watched something other than occasionally the News on ITV1 in months. And it picked out some interesting stories to focus on from inside the prison, in particular the wedding

The late movie rating is all the more impressive at it lasted until after 1am


The big test comes when there is a sustained period without 'hard news'. Things went a bit quiet before the Royal Wedding and the week leading up to Easter CNN's ratings were rubbish. Then the wedding and Bin Laden's death boosted them again giving them some fantastic numbers

Oh Jesus.

I explained my reasons why I thought it might underperform, and that's my view. If it gets anything like 6.9m, or better, I will eat my hat.

To be honest, I increasingly wonder why I bother posting on here any more....

So you honestly think, that just because the opener is airing one day before usual (even though it's had episodes airing on days other than Wednesdays before and adjusted well in those circumstances), and a few other factors like a shorter duration between series (which is not really going to be a big factor when you consider the previous series was just a few months after a spin-off series and did absolutely fine) and a small 'tweak' to the format, it could potentially get its lowest overnight rating for any episode in four years for a well-promoted opener? Yeah right. You know exactly what you're doing so don't play the sympathy card :sleep:.

Yep, that's what I thought. The Shawshank Redemption is a great movie of course, well worth staying up for.

As for Strangeways, sounds like good stuff from ITV. It's encouraging to see their factual slate improving. Looking back it's the same slot they scheduled the equally successful Wormwood Scrubs in last year.

Story of the night:
* Australia's Got Talent continues to grow, outrating MasterChef by over 20% in Total People;
* Meanwhile a technical glitch sees Neighbours go from one of its highest ever ratings on Eleven to its lowest.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.34m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.34m
19:00 Home & Away 1.09m
19:30 Australia's Got Talent 1.75m
20:30 Winners & Losers 1.33m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.17m
18:30 A Current Affair 0.97m
19:00 The Big Bang Theory (R) 0.86m
19:30 Customs 0.76m
20:05 AFP: Australian Federal Police 0.68m
20:35 Sea Patrol: Damage Control 0.60m

Ten
17:00 Ten News at Five 0.65m
18:30 6:30 with George Negus 0.52m
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.90m
19:30 MasterChef Australia 1.44m
20:00 Bondi Vet 0.97m
20:30 NCIS 1.20m

Eleven
18:30 Neighbours 0.22m

ABC1
19:00 ABC News 1.05m
19:30 7.30 Budget Special: The Treasurer’s Budget Speech 0.59m
20:35 My Family's Crazy Gap Year 0.40m

To be fair with Robbie he did not Say he Thought the Apprentice would get 5.0-5.5m He said it Should get 6.0m but would not be surprised if it rated Lower. That's how i saw it anyway.

Hot off the press, apparently technical issues are to blame for Ten's poor results last night. They've issued this statement in the past few minutes:


That certainly explains a lot. Neighbours' drop in particular stood out.

That said, the extremely robust result for AGT must be a bit of a concern for them. And it's closing in on MC in the demos as well.

Fair enough, although by suggesting it wouldn't surprise him if it got 5-5.5m he's basically lowering the boundaries to a level he knows the show is extremely unlikely to drop down to anyway. So why suggest it in the first place? Basically it's his usual under-prediction tactics he does every so often: predict the possibility of the show rating so low therefore when it inevitably rates higher, he'll say it's an "outstanding result" or if it does somehow come way below expectations into that 5-5.5m he'll say "I told you so" (he won't do this tomorrow now I've said this but he's done it before!). It covers all the bases, I suppose, and it's not like he hasn't done this sort of thing before . As for it being about the 6m mark as RS initially said (which is not the bit of his post I had a problem with btw), yeah I think there's a certain possibility of that happening, although personally I reckon it'll be closer to 6.5-7m because the competition is easier than what the previous opener faced and inheritence is better so I can't see it dropping much vs. the 2010 opener.

Looks like viewers switched from Masterchef to Australia's Got Talent but Masterchef will be back up tomorrow. Nine doing badly with Sea Patrol beaten by Winners and Losers, good thing it's the final season anyway.

At Harold Bishop's return?!

Ten have arranged the following rebroadcasts today following their technical nightmare yesterday:

MasterChef - 4pm (Ten, nationally)
Neighbours - 6pm (Eleven, before next episode)

I know! I was as puzzled as you when I saw that rating. But from what I've read it froze after the first break, and that's why viewers tuned out.

It peaked at 400,000, presumably in the first few minutes.

For once, I agree Robbie, and disagree with rzt's claims that you've purposely underpredicted on this occasion. 6-6.5m will probably be where it's at though.

The BBC should have left The Apprentice for this year and given themselves longer to think about the format itself/contestants they want/etc - and just aired Junior Apprentice in the autumn, then bringing back the real Apprentice in spring 2012, giving it a nice long break, which'd hopefully mean there'd be more buzz when it returns (it's still huge).

Of course it's a Wednesday show and it's silly to have it on Tuesday really when it's got such an established slot.

Personally I agree also with your 'business partner' argument - if the BBC had more time to mull the idea over, perhaps we'd have seen a better decision, therefore a better premise, therefore a better show.

I should've made it clearer I was disagreeing about the 5-5.5m bit, not 6-6.5m bit! Like I said in my previous post, I agree that there's definitely a chance of it ending up at 6-6.5m, but not down at the 5-5.5m level RS said near the end of his post which was the bit which I thought was a deliberate under-prediction. For it to have rated as low as 5m-5.5m, it would have to be the lowest/2nd lowest rating for the show since 2007: 5m is currently the lowest rating for any ep between 2008-2010 as it aired against the Man Utd v Chelsea Champions League final.

Oh get off your bloody high horse. Lets face it you're no rzt.

Thought it was a decent show, decent ratings.

well thats going to confuse the ratings.

There's no need for that! It's absolutely fine if Dancc disagreed with what I thought - he had different views and it makes for a good debate! There's no right or wrong and it's good if people have different opinions (well, unless it's deliberate underpredictions, that is ). Dancc's a great poster to this thread, I always find his contributions really interesting especially the points he makes about C5 figures which we usually don't spot and this thread would be worse without him. As for that particular Josie debate, in the end, I partly agreed with some of Dancc's points anyway as having looked back at C5's ratings over previous months, they have struggled and gone under 1m for shows in that slot which aren't US dramas/films/factual and are in the light-entertainment/reality-show genre. I didn't realise this before, but it was only 100k lower than last year's Josie one-off they did (I'd completely forgotten about that one-off this morning!), which is the sort of rating C5 might've been expecting and isn't much more than what it actually got.

I very rarely post in this thread, but I'm a long time reader (read pretty much every post!). Thanks to rzt and everyone else for the outstanding info, you all do a sterling job.

I thought I just had to chip in for once as I feel Robbie is getting an unfair time regarding the Apprentice ratings. Whilst I don't think they'll go as low as 5.5m, I don't think sub 6 million is out of the question at all. He's outlined his reasoning with a very logical argument so I think all the rolling eye smilies and so on are a tad unnecessary.

Even if you disagree with Robbie, you can't deny he is always good value. This thread could be very dry reading if it wasn't for his and others' entertaining contributions. It's always fun for somebody to set the cat among the pigeons.

Anyway, just thought I'd stick my twopenneth in, I will shuffle back into the shadows now.

Link (TVbyTN - pickup): http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...-series/92181/

Link (Deadline - pickup): http://www.deadline.com/2011/05/fox-...irl-to-series/

According to reports, FOX picks up The Finder, Alcatraz, I Hate My Teenage Daughter and The New Girl. Weekends at Bellvue and Iceland are not picked up.

Link (Deadline - cancelled shows): http://www.deadline.com/2011/05/fox-...-human-target/

Meanwhile, Fox has cancelled Human Target (expected) and Breaking In.

I'm surprised The Finder got picked up as most people thought the backdoor pilot was awful. Alcatraz is yet another JJ Abrams show that has been picked up, his other show Person of Interest I think has a good shot of pickup from CBS.