First time on Sky and in HD, DD5.1. Previously shown on low-res fuzzyvision Bravo. No doubt a highlight for many after the 1m+ viewership for the prequel that finished last week.

Returning to the Royal Wedding viewing figures, I'm a bit confused regarding comparisons with previous big events, such as the 1981 wedding, 1966 world cup or 1997 Diana funeral.

So for example the 66 world cup and Diana funeral are usually reported as having 32 million viewing. Is this peak or average across the length of the broadcasts, and which figures from the recent wedding should be used for comparison - should it be the 26 million peak or the 18.7 million average for the entire broadcasts.

I can't seem to find the answers anywhere, although cross referencing between BARB and BFI most watched tv sites suggest the previous events were average figures.

The ~32 million figures for 1966 World Cup and Diana's funeral and 28m figure for the 1981 Royal Wedding were the average for the actual match/funeral/wedding service combined on BBC1 and ITV.

The comparative figure for the 2011 Royal Wedding would be the average between 11-12:15 (actual wedding) for BBC1+ITV1 = 24.5m, however if you include the digital channels which showed it (unlike those previous 3 occasions) it would be 25.7m.

The Apprentice audition videos. Where DO they find these people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice/

I expect the ratings for BBC1 are currently around zero!

There was a fault with the Party Election Broadcast, and they had to wait 5 mins in slience for it to be fixed, with the announcer telling us "Don't worry, we will be bringing you the PEB shortly' as if people couldn't wait!

that is maybe the worst time for BBC 1, to have problems opens them up to people claiming they are showing polotical bias.

Who's party political was it? I know earlier today they were airing the 'Yes' referendum video.

Conservative Party.

Quite amusing as they had to wait for it to be fixed, however long that took. They are now running 10 minutes later than billed!

Cheers. I bet the Tories are impressed.

How?

They couldn't drop it and move on, showing it at a later time, like they could have done with other programmes.

I understand that bit. I just don't see why a technical fault would lead people to claim they're showing political bias, as Charnham was suggesting.

Perhaps BBC1 can now mess up Labour's broadcast in the interests of balance?

The ratings for the 10.35 slot will be interesting in the morning...

Am disappointed by the Exile ratings. Whilst it wasn't quite as good as I hoped it would be (I was expecting more of a political intrigue), it was still head and shoulders over most current TV drama. Why can't ITV make drama like this, instead of one detective, surgeon or middling family drama after another?

So 4m or so isn't really what it deserved. The BSI, typically, didn't give it much of a chance though airing ep 1 against the second hour of ITV's latest Corrie-enhanced detective procedural and ep 2 against another new ITV Corrie-enhanced detective procedural and the World Snooker Final climax which always brings in the viewers. Numpties (or double agents?) the lot of em.

This video and this article provide more information.

From what I can gather, each episode will be self-contained and will begin with approximately 1,000 contestants, who will compete at Wembley arena in June. There will be various rounds, and each involves some sort of challenge with a 50:50 outcome, and each contestant will have to guess 'red or black', and if they are correct they advance to the next stage, and if they are wrong they are eliminated.

After a certain number of rounds and when a certain number of contestants remain, the next stage of the competition is held up and down the country over the Summer, where once again various challenges and games will be played, and the contestants much guess 'red or black'. Once again there will be a few rounds of this.

Finally, the remaining 7 or 8 contestants (8 I think but some reports say 7) will compete live on air in the red or black studio in September, where they will eventually be narrowed down to just 1, who will then play one final game of 'red or black' for £1m.

Each episode will be 90 minutes long and there will be heavy celebrity involvement and musical performances (and the performers will be involved in the games). The way Cowell is describing the games, and the specific ones he's mentioned make it sound like it's going to be done on a pretty epic scale, and it's clearly going to be very expensive (even without the prize money the production costs will be huge). It's certainly a risk but it sounds like it has the potential to be really good and Cowell doesn't do things on a small scale, so I doubt it'll look cheap, and they clearly want it to be more than just a solid 5m sort of show. Whether it will be depends on the execution of course but I think it has a lot of potential.

Also in the article he doesn't seem worried in the slightest about BGT's ratings and seems happy with the show. Not sure what he means about the acts having more time and work put into them for the live shows this year but it sounds like he's cranking them up a notch (perhaps he realises how flat last year's semis felt). I notice he had a slight dig at Sing If You Can's ratings too, saying they are '2 million lower' than BGT's lead in last year (The Whole 19 Yards).

I like the idea of holding the semi final and final of The X Factor in a big arena, and reading between the lines it seems that he will be returning to the show for those two weeks at least. He said in the article he's going to have 'a big role in it', so he's definitely going to be involved, and I doubt he'll be able to resist making some appearances.

Rather brave of him to have a pop at other ITV programming considering he can't be flavour of the month at the moment.

If I was head of ITV I'd have a cheeky bid for The Voice and scare him a bit.

Oh I'm sure he still is flavour of the month. If he isn't then who is - Stacey Solomon?

He didn't specifically name Sing If You Can but it's pretty obvious what he was saying.

The Voice is an interesting one. It's a great format and could do well for ITV, but I doubt they'll go with it as it'd piss Cowell off, and he's still pretty important for them just now. That does mean that the format probably won't take off here though as it would need to be on one of the big, mainstream channels and based on BBC1's other recent talent show attempts they'd probably mess it up.

Keith Lemon, maybe.

John de Mol is an executive producer of The Voice...I wonder whether Channel 5 may take a punt on it considering the link with Endemol they have at the moment. I think it'd work well for them as long as they schedule it wisely (probably January 2012 would be the best time to launch it, to pick up The X Factor audience once the show's over).

Story of the night:
- Australia's Got Talent debuts with its highest launch figures since 2007, runs Masterchef close in Total People;
- And in the battle of the Australian dramas, Sea Patrol is well and truly sunk by Winners & Losers.

Seven
18:00 Seven News 1.41m
18:30 Today Tonight 1.33m
19:00 Home & Away 1.05m
19:30 New Series: Australia's Got Talent 1.56m
*season 1 launched with 1.63m in February 2007;
*season 2 launched with 1.36m in April 2008;
*season 3 launched with 1.31m in February 2009;
*season 4 launched with 1.49m in April 2010.
21:00 Winners & Losers 1.24m
22:00 Parenthood 0.60m

Nine
18:00 Nine News 1.20m
18:30 A Current Affair 1.05m
19:00 The Big Bang Theory (R) 0.91m
19:30 Customs 0.82m
20:00 AFP: Australian Federal Police 0.86m
20:35 Sea Patrol: Damage Control 0.68m
*lowest rated episode ever.

Ten
17:00 Ten News at Five 0.72m
18:30 6:30 with George Negus 0.60m
19:00 The 7pm Project 0.92m
19:30 Masterchef Australia 1.59m
20:30 NCIS 1.09m
21:30 NCIS: Los Angeles 0.76m
22:30 6:30 with George Negus (R) 0.36m

Eleven
18:30 Neighbours 0.35m

Shares
Seven - 26.6%
Ten - 20.8%
Nine - 16.5%
Eleven - 2.5%

I'd agree that he most likely is in favour at ITV - not just because of the ratings for BGT or XF or whatever. The interesting part here is the line "Red or Black will be produced by Syco TV and ITV Studios".

The Voice is a pretty pointless commission for ITV. They've already put £100m on XF & BGT for the next 3 years. The issue for XF in the US is that The Voice is essentially the same show, rushed to air as a spoiler for The X Factor while capitalising on the renewed interest in talent shows in the US due to the whole Cowell/Idol thing (interestingly NBC are now developing another music themed series with Ryan Seacrest). The landscape here is very different.

If they were looking to play silly buggers and spite Cowell, the only thing to do is order Pop Idol to replace X Factor and cancel Got Talent and commission So You Think You Can Dance?!

The Voice can't really go to BBC1 - it'd be Fame Academy and Pop Idol again. It's not really for Channel 4. Perhaps Five but it'd be a bit limited there and I'm not even sure there is an Endemol link (John De Mol, yes, but I don't think he's doing it through Endemol). If Sky1 want another shot at the whole music talent show thing, it might be one for them though again, it's audience would be limited.

Red or Black sounds pretty good, will no doubt do very well but it sounds so expensive. Some of the things Cowell is talking about are going to cost a bomb and then you have the prize fund too. Im not sure what ITV are hoping for but surely they must be expecting 8m+ every night to justify the cost?

Despite AGT nearly matching MCA in Total Viewers, it was no match for it in the demos:

25-54
MCA: 895,000
AGT: 637,000

18-49
MCA: 892,000
AGT: 604,000

16-39
MCA: 679,000
AGT: 387,000

Overall AGT finished third for the night in all key demos, behind MC and Winners & Losers.

Australia's Got Talent launched really well although Masterchef was unaffected, Winners and Losers was surprisenly down but I think its all but renewed anyway.

I guess Red and Black will launch first or second week of September so that the likes of Doc Martin and Dowton Abbey will be able to launch so they be out of the way in time for IAC.

The Voice I think BBC One, Channel 5 or Sky1 will go for it but I would launch in January but I would say talent is key, they got the likes of Cee Loo and Christina Aguilera for the US version, they need similar talent for a UK Voice.

One other story from Aus last night: Top Gear on Nine, demoted to a 9:30pm timeslot, fell to just 222k. Even taking into account the fact that it was a repeat, and that Underbelly was shown instead in Melbourne, that figure is woeful. It was getting higher ratings when it was on SBS.

The loss of TAAHM is really hurting CBS' previously dominant monday comedy block, it seems. It'll be interesting to see how they decide to play the comedies next year - and how much confidence they have in a rebooted TAAHM to sustain the night. They could always port across The Big Bang Theory to sure everything up, of course, but they'll surely be reluctant to admit defeat with that Thursday block.

Looking forward to seeing how The Voice performs in its second week tonight. I hope it does well - NBC desperately need just one big, breakout hit. A tentpole to rebuild the rest of the schedule around. They must be hoping this is it.

You could imagine the share price of ITV plc gradually sliding throughout the week everytime someone wins £1m! But apparently they've got some insurance to cover for that eventuality (no doubt that's pricey itself!).

I suppose Channel 4 managed to do some big stunts on Famous & Fearless with far lower expectations (at least I think they did - I, like many, didn't see it!). And with ITVS holding some of the format and a 90 minute runtime they'll offset some costs. But I don't really know what kind of cost this show would come in at. I doubt they'd order a show that needs to pull 8m+ at 8.30pm on a Tuesday night at the end of summer to be a success. But as I said, it also doesn't sound like the kind of thing they can pay for on ratings hovering around 5m. It's hard to say.