To me the only brilliant rating came from Celebrity Juice, while everything else was pretty much well down.

I wonder how many of Monday's tabloids will run the "Flop-ter Who" headline after the inevitably tiny overnight figures DW will post on Sunday morning, thanks to the BSI's tour de force, aided and abetted by BBC1's inept controller?

With another cracking day likely tomorrow for most of the country, I can only imagine the housebound and the Scots (with their predicted rain) will be tuning in live at 6pm to watch it as transmitted. Most normal folk will presumably be watching a recording in due course.

The overnight figure could be anywhere between 3.5m and 6m but it will be interesting to see the official consolidated rating - it would not surprise me to see a record-breaking timeshift figure.

Either way, the "ratings flop" headlines may cause some head-scratching at a senior level at the BBC, as they try to work out why the controller and scheduler have allowed such a key piece of BBC real estate to air so late in the year, in a tea time slot during a heatwave, and premiering on a holiday weekend (followed by ep2 on another holiday weekend).

Could the top brass force a proper and well overdue clear out of the Scheduling department?

More probably they'll just move Cash In The f***ing Attic to 5.30.

I suggest they move The One Show to 5.30 and put something good on at 7pm.

the problay couldnt afford to do that.

With the cash freeze, and the state of the public finances, I think it's time we had a windfall tax on the profits of ITV and Sky to protect public service quality programming on the BBC.

Pfffttt, yeah sure, the heavily trailed, well anticipated series opener of Doctor Who will rate as low as 3.5m ! For that to happen, and even assuming there's a ridiculously low no. of people watching TV at that time, it'd have a 20-25% share which is definitely not going to happen. In fact, I think only a couple of episodes of Nu Who have had as low shares as that, both episodes being exceptional circumstances - one went up against a BGT final and the other went up against pre-match England v USA World Cup match.

I'll be looking at the shares quite closely on Sunday morning. Doctor Who ought to be in the 35-40% range like previous series openers. If that does happen (no reason why it shouldn't), it would be safe for 5m+ at the very least, around 6m more likely. And that's assuming there's a very low number of people watching TV - hopefully if there's a bit of rain in some places, it may well be higher than that. But yeah, let's forget about 3.5-4m, it's not going to even come close to rating as low as that and you know that .

Well overdue the axe, but I wonder if Anne is quitting because she really thinks it is time too, or whether she can't be arsed going to Glasgow to film it.

Perfect opportunity to shift the BBC2 line up over to BBC1 and CBBC to BBC2 in a slot through to 5.30pm.

Oh, I don't doubt it's heavily anticipated. I reckon about 7m will watch the first episode.

But not live, not in this weather and on a holiday weekend.


I didn't doubt that either...

Weakest Link ending is long overdue, wonder if they consider replacing Anne? I think it would have been difficult to find someone who wasn't just a copy. Millionaire and DOND are next surely?

You've missed the point of my post. Of course Doctor Who will get 7m+ once the consolidated figures come in - there's no doubt about it. But you said in your previous post that you think it's possible Doctor Who will rate as low as 3.5m in the overnight figures. That's not going to happen, it's not even going to come close to that low because it would require DW to get a catastrophically low share by its standards. Here's how previous Doctor Who series openers have rated share-wise:

Series1: 43.2%
Series 2: 38.6%
Series 3: 39.5%
Series 4: 39.4%
Series 5: 38.4%

Doctor Who will almost certainly get a share of 35%+, probably closer to that 40% mark than 35%. A couple of Saturdays ago when there was really hot weather, there were 15m people watching TV between 6-6.45pm. Taking a realistic worst case scenario: assuming if there's 14m viewers watching TV between 6-6.45pm tomorrow (even though it won't fall that low as DW usually brings in 'new' viewers to watch TV who wouldn't usually be at that time) and it gets a minimum expected 35% share, that's a 5m overnight figure. It'll get more than that though because it'll probably share at higher than 35% and more than 14m people will be watching TV. I agree with your point that it's poor scheduling from the Beeb to air a marquee show like DW so early, but your estimates were obvious under-predictions. Personally I wouldn't rule out a 6-7m overnight figure, unlike yourself, because we know DW can pull in those high late-30s shares and a 16-17m total TV audience isn't outside the realms of possibity (last week's total audience at 6-6.45pm, for example, was 18.4m).

it is bad scheduling but you cant say the BBC havent trailed the new Doctor Who series, practically an advert before every other programme.

What does everyone think of May 1st and its 9pm schedule? Exile for BBC1 and Vera for ITV1. Vera starts at 8pm (not sure about Exile) so may have the edge, but both shows look quite similar in terms of target audience so it could go eitherway.

ITV are hoping for Vera to become the next Lewis or Morse I think, although I'm not sure Brenda's got the Geordie accent perfect... sounded a bit strange in the clip on Paul O' Grady tonight!

Link: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...ser-show/90330

After an embarrassing 0.9 in A18-49, NBC has decided to axe The Paul Reiser Show. The show only aired two episodes. It pretty much became obvious after a 1.1 premiere. Perfect Couples is most likely next. Community, at 8pm (before Paul Reiser) had a 1.4 in A18-49.

Link: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...ve-video/90306

Oprah posted a video saying that she can't pick up the axed All My Children and One Life To Live to her network, OWN. The main reason is what everyone knows already. Daytime soaps can't bring in viewers and profits. Fans of the axed shows have been bombarding OWN's message board, wanting OWN to save these shows.

Can someone post the figures for Monroe and perhaps a bit of info on how well/badly it did? ;£

Totally disagree Vera is the usual bog standard Midsomer/NewTricks/Inspector Banks cop drama which will appeal to the masses,

Exile will appeal to a more niche audience like BBC ONE's previous three parters Five Daughters and Occupation or ITV1's Bouqet of Barbed Wire.
The background plot of Alzheimers will put many off imo like Iraq put lots of people off Occupation.

Its all well and good promoting a show but when its scheduled far too early in baking hot weather it doesnt really matter how effective the promotion is.

It's an interesting one- two brand new dramas competing against each other, it hasn't happened in a while. I think Vera should come out on top - it's got a Corrie lead-in, will begin at 8pm and is the more run-of-the-mill detective drama to attract the mainstream audience compared to the political thriller of Exile.

Even though we haven't seen any episodes of it, I tip Vera to be ITV's most successful new potentially returnable drama this year. That doesn't necessarily mean the show will be great but ITV has a good track record with these 2-hour Sunday night detective dramas, it has strong casting, everything I've read and heard about it sounds solid. I just can't see it flopping. Oh, and the reviews so far have been good too which helps, but we'll see...


Consolidated ratings were:

Episode 1: 6.60m (inc +1: 6.85m)
Episode 2: 5.51m (5.72m)
Episode 3: 5.53m (5.75m)
Episode 4: 5.36m (5.53m)
Episode 5: 4.73m (4.96m)
Episode 6: 4.99m (5.13m)

Average: 5.45m (5.66m)

It started well, then experienced a big drop for its second episode, it broadly held that audience for 3 episodes, before another pretty big drop again for episode 5 before rebounding a little for episode 6. A 50/50 decision for ITV whether to recommission or not, I reckon. In its favour, it's ITV1's best rated new 6-part weeknight drama series since Law & Order: UK and if they decommission it, it'd be their highest rated drama series to be cancelled in 5 years according to this. But ITV might've been hoping for more particularly the last two episodes which rated disappointingly, especially as it was up against mediocre opposition.

dont tempt me to agree with that, it will only lead to my being called a socailist.

The pilot must have been good for ITV1 to commision three episodes without ratings. Wasn't Lewis originally a one-off but with the potential for a series if ratings were good. I think it got 10-11m.

Well I live on the coast in East Yorkshire and the weather forcast says it's going to be raining here by 6 o'clock.

I saw the trailer for Vera today and it's put me off watching it at all. Brenda's accent just sounded strange.

From TV Scoops on Twitter:

21:00 - Paul O'Grady Live: 3.2m

Includes +1 and HD.
---
Either viewers went to other channels, or only ~20m were watching in the 9pm hour last night. I suspect the latter.

Friday 22nd April Overnights
BBC One
19:00- The One Show - 2.98m (16.2%)
20:00- EastEnders - 7.66m (35.6%)
20:30- A Question of Sport - 2.57m (11.6%)
21:00- Have I Got News for You - 4.82m (21.7%)
21:30- QI - 3.75m (17.2%)
22:00- BBC News - 3.88m (19.7%)
22:20- Regional - 3.94m (21.0%)
22:30- The Graham Norton Show - 2.75m (17.9%)

BBC Two
20:00- Gardeners' World - 2.16m (9.9%)
21:00- Monty Don's Italian Gardens - 1.62m (7.4%) inc HD

ITV1
19:00- Emmerdale - 5.93m (33.8%) , +1: 130k
19:30- Coronation Street - 7.30m (37.7%) , +1: 132k
20:00- Baboons with Bill Bailey - 2.60m (12.1%) , +1: 143k
20:30- Coronation Street - 6.99m (31.5%) , +1: 180k
21:00- Paul O'Grady - 3.07m (14.0%) , +1: 86k

Channel 4 (inc +1)
18:30- Hollyoaks - 680k (4.2%)
21:00- Embarrassing Bodies - 2.21m (10.0%)
22:00- Million Pound Drop Live - 1.99m (12.1%)

Channel 5
19:10- The Wedding Singer - 0.61m (3.0%)
21:00- Made of Honour - 1.08m (5.4%)

Ratings include HD where necessary

Thanks to MattJ for the figures
------------------------------------------------------------------
A big week-on-week drop for PoG Live, down to its 2nd lowest rating since the show began last Autumn. It wasn't just the weather because HIGNFY and QI were steady or up compared to last week, the share for PoG dropped about 3 points too. The weather obviously hurt a lot of the shows airing earlier in the evening but even so, some of the shares are bit on the low side such as The One Show's and 2nd Coronation Street episode. Not sure what Hollyoaks' figure was excluding +1 (DS might report later on) but it looks like it might've been the lowest or 2nd lowest rated 6:30pm episode ever. Decent start to the series for MPD and like last time, it seems to have dented The Graham Norton Show.

One of The One Show's lowest ever ratings there, and the share not the best. I do wonder why the shares go down due to the hot weather, surely you would expect the share to go up due to the hot weather?

Poor for O'Grady, and I would have thought Million Pound Drop would have been higher.

How did Daybreak do on Good Friday?

0.46m (14.0%), during that same slot (i.e. 06:00 - 08:30) Breakfast had 1.21m (37.1%)