Just a heads up for anyone interested in these things that the first edition of CBS Evening News with new anchor Scott Pelley is about to go out on Sky News.

Apparently new music and some minor graphical changes complete the transition. CBS will be hoping he packs more punch in the ratings race than Katie Couric.

Perhaps giving some idea about the direction and feel he wants to bring to the broadcast,


http://twitter.com/#!/HowardKurtz

It's hard to see him increasing the ratings significantly but he should improve the journalistic reputation of the programme, which I guess is the next best thing. They have been advertising it as bringing the feel of '60 Minutes' to the Evening News.

I thought he did a good job for his first broadcast, hopefully he can give the show a direction and a defining identity - I don't think Katie Couric ever managed to do that successfully.

a decent night for TEN over all, Come Fly With Me continues to do well, that is good news

Rzt, are you able to post a few random sample ratings for Holby City and River City (Tuesday 8pm BBC1) in a similar format to the above? I am particularly interested to see the sort of shares River City pulls in on BBC1 Scotland.

Thank you in advance if you do have the figures. (no probs if you don't though)

River City gets between about 400K & 515K with a share of between 15% & 23%. It is often dependent on what Champions League game is on.

Case Histories had 4.5m (18%) last night.

Source: Railyway Arms

Monday 6th June Overnights
BBC One
06:00- Breakfast: 1.6m (36.5%)
18:00- BBC News at Six: 3.9m (23.5%)
18:30- Regional News and Weather: 5.3m (29.5%)
19:00- The One Show: 3.7m (19.8%)
19:30- Saints and Scroungers: 3.4m (16.5%)
20:00- EastEnders: 8.6m (38.5%)
20:30- A Job to Get Work - Panorama: 2.9m (12.2%)
21:00- Case Histories: 4.5m (18.0%)
22:00- BBC News at Ten: 4.5m (22.5%)

BBC Two
19:00- The Story of Ireland: 0.9m (4.6%)
20:00- Springwatch 2011: 2.5m (10.9%)
21:00- All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: 0.8m (3.3%)
22:00- Psychoville 2: 0.7m (3.3%)
22:30- Newsnight: 0.6m (4.3%)

ITV1 (inc ITV1+1)
06:00- Daybreak: 0.8m (19.1%)
08:30- Lorraine: 1.0m (18.0%)
18:30- ITV News & Weather: 3.5m (19.2%)
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.8m (35.6%)
19:30- Coronation Street: 8.9m (42.9%)
20:00- The Dales: 3.8m (16.5%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 9.2m (38.7%)
21:00- Injustice: 5.5m (21.0%)
22:00- ITV News at Ten & Weather: 2.7m (13.2%)
22:35- Taking Lives: 1.0m (9.4%)

Channel 4 (inc C4+1)
19:00- Channel 4 News: 0.6m (2.7%)
20:00- Dispatches: America's Secret Killers: 1.0m (3.7%)
21:00- Embarrassing Fat Bodies: 3.5m (11.9%)
22:00- 27 Dresses: 1.1m (7.9%)

Channel 5
17:30- Neighbours: 1.1m (8.4%)
18:00- Home and Away: 0.9m (5.6%)
18:25- OK! TV: 0.3m (1.8%)
19:00- Cricket: England v Sri Lanka Test Series: 0.6m (3.1%)
20:00- The Gadget Show: 0.6m (2.6%)
21:00- The Hotel Inspector: 1.4m (5.6%)
22:00- The Restaurant Inspector: 1.1m (6.0%)
23:00- Gothika: 0.3m (4.6%)

Embarrassing Fat Bodies was huge on Channel 4, way above my expectations.

About what I expected for Case Histories, Injustice and The Restaurant Inspector. Good ratings for each.

Disaster struck for BBC Two it seems - saved slightly by a strong showing from Springwatch, about the only good result for them last night.

C4 is rapidly becoming the destination channel for chavs. Depressing to see figures like that for freakshow and reality rubbish when BBC2 puts on two quality shows followed by Newsnight and gets such derisory ratings for all of them. Even Five’s unimaginative 9-11 pairing beat them!

The government must be putting stupid pills into tap-water. It’s the only explanation.

EastEnders back up to high ratings.

I assumed that Coronation Street would have had better ratings as it had a big week last week but the extra viewers didn't stay!

I think that EastEnders will have a good summer ratings wise as it has a lot of stuff coming up.

I think both sides will be disappointed by those CH and Injustice ratings.

The former got stung by poor scheduling and a Corrie-enhanced heavily-trailed 5 part stripped drama, but unless it timeshifts strongly, has underperformed given what it must have cost and may not return if it can only hold that (or fall further) over the remaining 4 episodes. But the latter should have done better than c5-5.2m given the heavy promotion and Corrie lead-in. One wonders how many will still be watching by Friday...

I watched both - drifted off Injustice a bit, indeed I was reading work emails on the Blackberry midway through it so engrossed was I, but it picked up at the end. All a bit "crime drama by numbers" though; CH has a touch more class and is artily-shot but is hardly "ground-breaking new British drama" itself.


Following that top bit of analysis, you could disqualify all 10 BBC1 shows in the top 20...

What about the ITV shows that appear in the top 20 only because of great scheduling around Cowell climaxes? Should these really count in the top shows of the year?

As for tonight, I wonder if BBC1 could suffer the rare indignity of being beaten by BBC3 in the 9pm slot?

Repeats of BBC3 documentaries don't tend to do well on BBC1. And Junior Doctors did good on BBC3 only a handful of weeks ago. Whereas the Afghanistan doc tonight has been heavily trailed, widely praised in previews, and has been promoted on the Beeb's news outlets today. I think it will get one of BBC3's largest ever audiences - if it can crack 2m, it might nose past BBC1.

Case Histories was a bit on the lower end of my expectations. I expected a drop but given that it faced ~5.5m rather than ~6.5m drama opposition last night, I thought maybe it would be closer to the 5m mark than that. It doesn't have much leeway now to drop further - it needs to rebound a little bit back towards 5m for future episodes. Injustice rated in line with how ITV Monday dramas have launched previously when up against drama opposition, but I thought it might've been a bit higher given that it's a "event drama" - looking at the breakdown, 25% dropped out from the start to the end which is high, so I'm predicting a big fall for it tonight (4.0m-ish).

Excellent start for Embarrassing Fat Bodies, well above what anyone expected really. It's one of C4's highest ratings of the year and the Embarrassing Bodies brand seems to be strong at the moment. Decent start for The Restaurant Inspector, with it occupying the Hotel Inspector slot next week I can't see it dropping much. Poor for BBC2 at 9pm, that's the 2nd time in a week they've fallen below 1m at 9pm. Speaking of the soaps, EastEnders was quite close to Corrie last night. I was expecting Corrie to be further ahead of EE considering the boost it was given last week. Poor rating for The Gadget Show by the way, it barely recovered from last week's low.

These stripped dramas on ITV are normally better at holding their audience than your usual weekly affair. Collision last year only lost about 15% from episode 1 to 5 (7.5m to 6.4m) last November. Similarly Father & Son about this time last year only lost about 19% from episode 1 to 4, dipping slightly as you'd expect for an episode opposite the Big Brother launch on Channel 4, before recovering for the final episode.

Compare that to something like Identity last summer which lost about 40% of its audience across its 6 part run on Monday nights and it's pretty healthy. You can see why ITV1 are airing more of these stripped dramas, especially at this time of year.

Of course, I'm not saying this one will necessarily follow the same pattern.

It's extremely unlikely that BBC3 will beat BBC1. The last time BBC1 repeated a BBC3 show was Small Teen Big World (1.1m on BBC3) which averaged 2.8m on BBC1. I can't see Junior Doctors doing worse than that because it's a more mainstream show, certainly can't see it as low as 2.0m which you've suggested, especially as surely it'll work well having a Holby City lead-in (similar medical genres).

Personally I've predicted 0.6m on the RPG for the BBC3 show but I agree that it's the sort of show which might get a surprisingly high rating. But when I say that, I mean more in the 1's rather than pushing 2m which would make it, as far as I'm aware, the most watched multichannel programme this year (bar sports). I really think that's unlikely to happen.

double post

It was pretty much a "best of" episode and the start of the broadcast was plagued by sound problems.

It needs to have a nice long rest this summer and come back with some new ideas in August. This series has been very poor both in content terms and ratings terms.

For a populist format like this to be beaten by Dispatches is not acceptable.

Agreed. I can't see Our War doing that well to be honest. It's the kind of show which will earn BBC Three praise from the critics, and will strike a chord with the audience that does watch it, but I don't expect it to be much of a draw beyond BBC Three's loyal 600-800k a night for these documentaries. Previous war documentaries on BBC Three in the past haven't done very well - last year neither Girls on the Frontline or My Boyfriend the War Hero made BBC Three's top 10 programmes in the weeks they aired. Especially with it going up against a show on BBC One that is well liked by BBC Three's usual audience, I can't see it doing as well as Robbie is predicting. It would be a massive story if it did, but I don't think it will come off.

Maybe it had something to do with BBC2 continuing to indulge a documentary director who's so far up himself it's untrue. And with running a comedy series that has the unique distinction of providing zero laughs.

Errr....Nah. People are dumb as fence-posts is why.

More ratings from yesterday:

BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.59m (22.6%)
22:35- A Question of Sport: 2.69m (18%)

ITV1
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.74m (35.6%)
19:30- Coronation Street: 8.87m (43%)
20:00- The Dales: 3.48m (15.7%) , +1: 101k (0.4%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 9.57m (40.7%) , +1: 130k (0.5%)
21:00- Injustice: 5.32m (20.5%) , +1: 267k (1.5%)

Channel 4
17:00- Four in a Bed: 1.49m (inc +1)
17:30- Come Dine with Me: 1.88m (inc +1)
18:00- The Simpsons: 1.58m (inc +1)
18:30- Hollyoaks: 920k (5.2%) , +1: 116k (0.6%)
20:00- Dispatches: 810k (3.6%) , +1: 152k (0.6%)
21:00- Embarrassing Fat Bodies: 2.95m (11.9%) , +1: 504k (2.8%)
22:00- 27 Dresses: 1.05m (8%) , +1: 112k (0.7)

Channel 5
17:30- Neighbours: 1.21m (9.2%)
18:00- Home & Away: 918k (5.6%)

Primetime Shares
ITV1: 25.1% (+1: 0.6%)
BBC One: 20.5%
Channel 4: 6.5% (+1: 0.8%)
BBC Two: 5.4%
Channel 5: 4.3%

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Multichannel
Alibi (inc +1)
21:00- New Tricks: 186k

BBC Three
22:00- EastEnders: 857k (4.3%)
22:30- World's Craziest Fools: 756k (4.7%)
01:15- World's Craziest Fools: 146k (6.46%)

Dave (inc +1)
21:30- Mock The Week: 421k

E4
19:00- Hollyoaks: 314k (1.7%)
21:00- Glee: 1.10m (4.5%) , +1: 204k (1.1%)
22:00- Made In Chelsea: 468k (2.6%) , +1: 41k

Film4 (inc +1)
18:45- Edward Scissorhands: 203k
21:00- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: 601k

5*
18:30- Home and Away: 519k (2.9%)

More4 (inc +1)
18:45- Come Dine with Me: 292k
21:00- The Secret Millionaire: 237k

Sky Atlantic
21:00- Game Of Thrones: 523k (2.2%)

Watch (inc +1)
22:00- Traffic Cops: 195k

Sources: Broadcast, C4Sales, DS (1) (2)

Urgghhh. Embarassing Fat Bodies, as if the obese don't have enough problems in life, like putting the chocolate down, they have to endure being ridiculed on TV in the name of medicine and 'education'. As for the people that go on these shows, I really have to question their sanity. Almost as much as the people that watch the garbage.

Just another crass offering from Channel 4, that rates well. Even Hollyoaks managed to semi crawl out of the gutter on Monday, before it slinks back later in the week.

Do you know how many more series of The Gadget Show they have to do under the current contract? As you said, they'll need to improve the content because ratings have fallen significantly in a year. If the ratings don't improve next series, I think it could even be axed. Repeats in that slot would surely be capable of better?

Speaking of Channel 5, do you think putting repeats of US crime dramas at 8pm on some weeknights would work? In the US, dramas like NCIS go out at 8pm. I only ask because if BB does take the 10pm slot, I wonder where the CSI and Law & Order repeats will go? I think they would be capable of a solid 1m (in particular CSI) at 8pm and that would also help C5 save some money, rather than putting those repeats on 5USA and spending money on dedicated 8pm programming, some of which don't do so well.

Why, why, why do broadcasters' put two dramas opposite each other in the middle of Summer? I don't understand the point of it, how is anything these days meant to be a hit if you're going to put two dramas up against each other.

As a result, both were dented by 0.5m, probably more. Don't understand schedulers sometimes, they need to co-operate every so often. Probably a result of the ever more common 'stripped schedule' tactic nowadays...

I guess Embarrassing Fat Bodies dented both somewhat, though. But the above point still remains.

And as for Corrie:

Last night...
19:30- Coronation Street: 8.9m (42.9%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 9.2m (38.7%)

Two Weeks ago...
19:30- Coronation Street: 9.1m (40.3%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 9.0m (36.6%)

Including +1.

Didn't gain much. If anything.

rzt, back to Sunday, do you have a breakdown for ITV in primetime? Am interested to see the Popstar to Operastar breakdowns in particular if you have them.

The rating of the night has to be Embarassing Fat Bodies. The 'Embarassing' brand had started to become less popular due to over exposure, but the scheduling against two dramas seemed to work very well and Ch4 are having a lot more success in the Monday 9pm slot lately.

Exactly what I thought for Case Histories & Injustice. I reckon Injustice would have launched with 6m+ if it wasn't up against part 2 of a BBC1 drama. As others have mentioned I reckon it will fall to around 4m tonight, possibly even below 4m, but it should recover slightly on Wed & Thurs.

Quite a low key ending for Hotel Inspector dented by tougher competition, but Ch5 will be pleased Restaurant Inspector launched over 1m and it has the potential to increase next week. The Gadget Show needs a complete rethink though. I definitely wouldn't axe it, because it has the potential to be a very good rating show and at one point its audience was building to around 1.5m. There would also be a lot of hours to fill if it was axed, especially after Fifth Gear was moved from that slot.