I'm sure DS had there headline yesterday as pics of Lady Gaga on Graham Norton show.

Paul Merton was berating John Torode and Gregg Wallace, the guest hosts of HIGNFY last night: "Who are you? Nobody knows who you are." Joke, of course, but Masterchef has been matching HIGNFY's ratings in recent weeks and maybe, just maybe, it was their presence that provided the boost to HIGNFY's ratings.


Outnumbered rating higher for a repeat than Life Of Riley did for a new episode. Quite right, too.

I loved that bit! Lady Gaga was the main highlight, and possibly the only reason why I tuned in.

Good night for BBC1. As others have said, fantastic for Norton who has easily filled the hole left by Ross and is now performing better than him! What a long way this show has come from figures ~1m on BBC2.

O'Grady seems stuck between 3-3.5m. It's better than anything else that has aired on Fridays (bar Benidorm), but I really don't think that should be a benchmark. The slot should be managing at least 4m really. The reason nothing is working on Fridays is that noone wants to watch entertainment then. I think O'Grady would be much better getting the BGT lead in and perhaps trying Piers out on Fridays? I'm certain O'Grady would be bettering Piers current ratings. Moving Piers to Friday would be a risky move, but if it doesn't work then move him back.

Agree with your views on poor old POG, but Fridays in the pre Corrie era always meant entertainment and comedy dramas on ITV. You usually had a quiz show like Play Your Cards Right, a panel game and something like Auf Wiedersehen Pet at 9pm. ITV did experiment with two soaps on Fridays- Albion Market and The Practice- but these stiffed in the ratings and the station went back to entertainment.

Just occurred to me that the BBC1 9pm hour may have got a boost last night from having a stronger lead-in at 8.30.

Any ratings for the John Sullivan tribute to prove or disprove my supposition?

Any figures for An Education on BBC2 last night?

One of the few BBC films that went straight to BBC and bypassed Sky Movies.

at Graham Norton. Superb.

Could be a good weekend for him in ratings terms, what with Eurovision set (on Planet DS at least...) to outrate the Royal Wedding tonight....


Or maybe it was people now being back from holiday and the weather being shite?

I don't think last night's was the "stand out" HIGNFY rating, it was the HIGNFY ratings over the past few weeks.


Not just better ratings, but a far better show. That was clear over a year ago when Norton's Monday night show was besting Ross consistently for guests, laughs, and overall quality.

It was clear then that Ross's chat show career was over.




Surely all "BBC Films" go straight to BBC?

Didn't see much promotion for it. Only realised it was on when I looked in the paper after it finished.

It is on iPlayer though.

The Cup Final's getting interesting, by the way. Even Tyldesley isn't spoiling it for once (although the dreadful Beglin is doing his best).

I do keep thinking Clive's forgetting Tevez is no longer at United, given how excited he keeps getting whenever he gets the ball...

Should rate well. Weather here dismal, and extra time and pens look very much on the cards I suspect.

FA Cup was also on pay.

2010 ESPN Didn't appear in top ten, less than 9k!!

2009 Setanta 1 72k

2008 Sky Sports 1 592k

2007 Sky Sports 1 655k

2006 Sky Sports 2 490k

2005 Sky Sports 1 725k

2004 Sky Sports 1 590k

2003 Sky Sports 1 720k

2002 Sky Sports 2 340k

Surprisingly, without Sky's presence the figures for the last two years are still the lowest.

Cannot wait until the soaps ratings come out!

Without going through them all, on the first page of the listings:

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Boys are Back, Bright Star and Brideshead all premiered on Sky.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/catalogue/

Good for Have I Got News For You - it was an...interesting...episode last night. The hosts didn't really work but the panelists made up for it. Paul O'Grady is doing ok above 3m but I think ITV should be trying crime on Friday's -the likes of Trial and Retribution always performed reasonably well there before.

who is saying that?

I think I am right in saying this is ESPN's first year broadcasting the final, it was exclusively on ITV last season.

Correct - ESPN only started showing the FA Cup at all this season.

Thanks. That explains why I couldn't find it in the top tens!!

ITV didn't benefit then having it all to themselves last year.

Good rating for Graham Norton, obviously due to having Lady Gaga as a guest. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep this momentum up for next week.

Strange how the BBC1 Saturday night promo still features the animated hare, even though DSTH doesn't actually feature in the 'Saturday from 5.30' schedule.

we should count outselves lucky the animated hare isnt moving around the bottom of the screen during Doctor Who

Thats a very interesting list. I can't see much of a recovery on the last two years, especially with the factors you mention. A serious decline for the tournament over the past few years though - and you can't blame the relatively uninspiring finals looking at that 2008 result. Of course, how much of this decline is down to the broadcaster and how much down to the competition itself is difficult to tell. But as a competition and as an event, its lost a lot of its lustre.

Here's the Demographic Information for the last week: http://i56.tinypic.com/15n9fzl.jpg

Not that demos matter much to the Beeb, but The Apprentice is huge in the key demos: a very young skewing and highly upmarket audience. In fact, I haven't seen any TV show this year (bar the Royal Wedding) get as many ABC1 viewers as that Apprentice launch episode.

It is upmarket for a reality show in that it doesn't rely like commercial ones on Z list celebs or misfits that you would find in Big Brother. Also the concept of someone becoming a business tycoon would appeal to a middle class audience.
I do find there is still a mild bias towards the BBC among middle class viewers, similarly ITV programmes often skew heavily C2DE.

maybe there is a middle class bias in who watches good TV, the BBC is not as good at making TV show for C2DE types, its just not in the BBCs nature to make rubbish TV shows, hence why when they try with shows like Dont Scare The Hare, they fail.

Blimey, huge number that! And I think you're right, a 20.6 seems very high. Seems like it gives Britain's Got Talent a run for its money. I suspect that's down to the high Children's 4 to 15 range, if you knock that off both shows (Tuesday's for Apprentice), you get 7.35m for The Apprentice and 8.34m for Britain's Got Talent, so it makes a massive difference to the latter's raw numbers that kids are watching.

On that note, do you have a list of 'Top 10' ABC1 shows; 'Top 10 18-49 shows' or something of that nature for the week? Would be interested to see what ranks highly there which may not be on your list. Thanks as always rzt.

It's interesting (just to add) because if we were in America and those Sunday ratings came out, it would look like:

7pm
ITV1 - 4.7 rating / 4.1 million / The Cube
BBC1 - 2.3 rating / 6.0 million / Countryfile

8pm to 10pm approx
BBC1 - 3.1 rating / 5.0 million / Atlantis
ITV1 - 2.2 rating / 5.4 million / Vera

Which just looks plain ridiculous.

Or Hole in the Wall, I don't know why the BBC bother with these types of shows as they're best left to ITV. However, I wouldn't saythe BBC don't make rubbish TV as there is a lot they show that is complete garbage like Eastenders. However, I doubt they would ever stoop as low as to make drivel like Kerry Katona The Next Chapter.