But the shares are up by over 2%. I reckon if it wasn't for the 'big week' then the shares would be the same as two weeks ago and the figures would be down by about 0.5m.

Completely agree. It's a shame that three dramas have clashed against each other in the space of 2 days. If CH hadn't clashed against S&B, it'd probably have started with 6m, same goes for Injustice had it not faced CH and CH (and S&B) wouldn't have dropped as they have done against easier competition. It's especially annoying because neither BBC1 or ITV1 had any drama on Monday nights in mid-to-late May!


Here's the ITV1 breakdown from Sunday (did you mean 5-min or demo breakdown?):

That breakdown makes for interesting reading-thanks rzt. The Royal's increase over the hour suggests it would be above 5m in an 8pm slot, but I can understand why the better slot was given to Popstar when it has more chance of recomission. At least Popstar was stable which bodes well for next week. Likewise for S&B, the increase towards the end is a positive sign for next week and I reckon there will be a larger drop for Case Sensitive.

The Popstar results show is just bizarre though and seems like an afterthought.

Yeah, I meant 5-minute breakdown, thanks. Seems like the audience deserted Popstar to Operastar pretty quickly after Scott & Bailey and The Royal, the latter doing well peaking at 5.1m.

Scott & Bailey was stable.

I dont know how you define Summer, but coming back in August would not be the same as "a nice long rest this summer"

Not sure. But I don't think it's in any real danger of the axe yet. Lose the major sponsorship deal with DSG International, owners of PC World et al, and it might be. There's also other things like the tour and website which increase its appeal as a brand. I think it can bounce back, as long as they address the editorial problems. Easier said than done perhaps since fans of the show have different ideas on how you should go about that. But one thing is clear- the current format is not working.


Possibly on one or two nights. But it's only really going to displace the CSI repeat on Tuesday night at 10pm and the Law & Order repeat on Wednesday night at 10pm. Hopefully there won't be any BB on Saturdays.

Maybe on CSI Tuesday they will air classic Vegas at 8pm followed by all new Miami at 9pm and Big Brother at 10pm. That would be a strong lineup IMO. I think Criminal Intent will be moving to Saturdays because a new series is due, so the repeats won't need to be scheduled for a while anyway.

Generally 5USA is the go-to place for fans of these US crime dramas, with mostly new seasons on Channel 5, and I suspect this will continue to be the case. In addition 5* will be rerunning Season 2 of The Mentalist on Thursday nights over the summer.

As for spending money on dedicated 8pm programming, I think all the signs are there that they will continue to do that, hence the current on air push for the 8 O'Clock Heroes strand. The recent ratings decline in that timeslot is concerning, but I don't think it will deter them yet. Walking The Amazon is a brilliant looking two-part documentary coming up in the next couple of weeks. I think it could be going at 8pm on either Tuesday or Wednesday (possibly both) and could do really well.

June & July are summer months no? That's the majority of the summer off air.

Assuming it follows the usual pattern, it will be back in August. And I think they'll want to bring it back then as the channel should be in a much healthier position generally.

August is a summer month as far as I and 99% of school hoildays are concerned.

It's a bit like the Dancing on Ice Results show when about 1m of the audience who watched the earlier performance show don't watch. 10pm is too late for a results show on a Sunday night - they could've easily incorporated the results into the earlier show had they not had the guest performers. I suppose, however, they get more commercials during 90 mins (performance + results show) than 60 mins.


D.M.N.- do you know roughly what time the F1 race next week will begin and the estimated time it'll finish? I doubt The Royal has as much of an audience crossing over with F1 than Countryfile, so I think it could rate about the same next week or even maybe slightly better, and if the post-race filler is on F1 between 8-8.15pm, PSTOS could take advantage of that by having a headstart over AR.


Yeah I think that would be a good lineup- the only thing is that CSI Vegas would be up against Holby City but I think it'd still be capable of ~1m and then with CSI Miami and BB they'll have a strong couple of hours.


Is Cowboy Builders returning later this year too? I agree that they should continue with dedicated 8pm programming most of the time, with maybe just the repeats on Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday. Eddie Stobart, if it's returning, will pull in a solid ~1.5m on Fridays, so that night should be sorted. I wonder if Castle takes off (close to 2m for example) in the next few weeks, if they'll consider showing the next series on Wednesdays at 9pm instead of airing NCIS repeats (they could show the NCIS repeats on another night like Saturdays). As for BB not being shown on Saturday nights, I think this would be a good idea - Saturday nights will be too competitive. TXF will be over by 9pm but IAC will be there later in the Autumn and BB generally did a lot worse on Saturdays than other nights. They should drop that episode and maybe have an extended Sunday episode.

Just thinking about Fridays which is when the eviction shows will most likely be, something like: 20:00- Eddie Stobart, 21:00- BB, 21:30- [New Panel Show], 22:00- BB, 22:30- [New Show] would be a good lineup IMO. It would mean half-an-hour less of BB than what was the case on C4 in recent years but I think BB's 2nd eviction show always did better at 10pm than 10:35pm which is a bit too late. Also this way, two programmes would get a decent boost from BB, whereas if the BB 2nd show was at 10:35pm, I doubt the 11pm would do particularly well as it's late.

Race start is 6pm. Should finish about 7:40pm. Obviously may finish later if there are any Safety Cars or Red Flags.

And I agree that Popstar to Operastar may benefit because of the F1 post-race stuff. Worth noting though that regardless of the F1 programme finishing time, Antiques Roadshow is not new, its a compilation show.

Take out the four x 5 minutes of S&B where there were ad breaks and it's well over 6m average.

Yes, there will be a fifth series later in 2011. No idea if Melinda will be doing this series or not though, she keeps disappearing.


Fridays are definitely sorted because they can alternate Eddie Stobart / Ice Road Truckers / IRT: Deadliest Roads. Truckers paradise.


Agreed. Also think you're right that NCIS should move nights- I'm sick of it suffering against Midsomer Murders on Wednesdays. Judging by how well it performs for 5USA on Monday nights, I'm wondering if they should take the hint and schedule it on Mondays next year. Repeats on Saturdays would be fine, they've rated well there in the past.


Some good ideas there. I too would like to see Channel 5 try a panel show there. 8 Out of 10 Cats was brilliant at retaining viewers in a similar BB sandwich on Channel 4.

I bet ITV will be below the 3 million tonight apart from 9PM and also many other channels.

About average for the vintage show now, around the 9 million mark, obviously the good old days when The Street( never Corrie then) achieved 17 million viewers a week are long gone. I suppose some of it can be put down to the fact many of its older viewers have died out and not been replaced, but probably because the show isn't must see television any more.

The CSI finale has easy opposition on the face of it. I hear it's a bit of a controversial episode though.

It should top the 2.2m overnight rating for last year's finale which was up against a high rating World Cup game featuring Brazil.

I think it might surprise a few people and bring in a season high tonight, say 2.5m-3m.

The Restaurant Inspector launched well retaining the bulk of HI lead in, will be interesting how it does when it moves to 9pm.

The Gadget Show IMO needs to go back to basics, I would drop Pollyanna or Ortis or even both and just have the main three. I would also have only two 13 episodes series a year as its clear that 20-21 episodes is too much.

Not sure I quite agree with that in the sense that - I think Popstar to Opera Star would suit a 6.30pm-8pm slot more and get better ratings there like Dancing on Ice does (with no separate results show - why do ITV persist with these?!)...with The Royal and Scott and Bailey afterwards.

This would, in my opinion, give all programmes the best possible chance of - in the view of an eight week run or whatever - breaking 5m.

I think 4.5 million for The Royal is quite acceptable as it does trend mostly among older viewers and probably most people who watched it watched Heartbeat as well. ITV1 will be pleased for a show that they are just going through the motions with now.
Anyway why should something that trends old be such a bad thing? I wonder if some television executives think a lot of old people are sitting in front of a one bar electric fire watching in black and white when in reality most have never had it so good and a lot have quite high disposable incomes. I much prefer shows that trend old such as New Tricks and Taggart to rubbish aimed at a young audience like Hollyoaks and Geordie Shore.

Any of you ratings boffins know if Monster Moves is coming back?

Anyone know how the 6am daybreak hour compares to the gmtv news hour from last year?

Demographic Information for Sunday 5th June: http://i56.tinypic.com/1109ers.jpg

I've included skews for all 5 terrestrial channel primetime programmes.

I think that works for Dancing On Ice, because there are more people watching in Winter. It's quite dangerous doing it in the Summer when we've seen stuff in the 6/7pm slots being dented from the hot weather. Big shows like Doctor Who, Emmerdale & other ITV entertainment shows suffer from this and I really don't think Popstar would do better in a 6.30-8pm slot.

The Royals ABC1 numbers are 2nd worst (only beaten by Rambo - expected; but equalling Home Alone 2 - not expected)

Reasonably ABC1's (46%) for PSTOS - versus 46% and 49% for Countryfile and Antiques Roadshow.

500k in the 16-34 range for Pop Star vs 222k for The Royal - so its clear why it got the 8pm slot.

Case Histories a pretty well known novel flops as a TV Serial, they must have been expecting to get 7-8M viewers for this. A gargantuan ratings disater.

It's a decent ABC1 skew for PSTOS, higher than most ITV1 programming as you'd expect, although I did think maybe it'd have been at 50%. Bear in mind regarding that comparison, that BBC1 shows usually 'automatically' skew with a higher ABC1-audience than their ITV1 counterparts due to the general audience profiles of the two channels.


7-8m is a massive exaggeration, why would they have expected that?! Even the most popular dramas on BBC1 such as New Tricks/Silent Witness/Doctor Who don't usually get 7-8m in the overnights! They probably were hoping for something like 5m or so. Against another drama on ITV1 like Scott & Bailey/Injustice, there was no chance of it getting 7-8m in the overnights.