Isn't Merlin 10 episodes this year?

Does both the Apprentice and Eurovision shows include HD?

Very true!


It was initially going to be 10 but was extended to 13 a month or two ago.

Ah, right. Thanks

Yep, all of those ratings include HD. BBC1's ratings automatically always include HD nowadays anyway.

Thanks!

Sunday Mirror - Kevin O'Sullivan
Sorry Katie - I owe Katie Price an apology. In my column last week I stated that her Sky Living reality show had been axed. I got this wrong, and obviously I would like to say sorry to Katie and thank her for dealing with this so fairly.

I think Saturday June 4th could be a funny old afternoon, because just before the England football match (ITV1) is the Epsom Derby (4pm, BBC1). At the moment, The Queen (who has never had a fancied runner in the race) owns the hot favourite Carlton House. Surely the Beeb would heavily advertise this fact in the days leading up to the race.

I'm sick of having to timeshift Doctor Who. Sometimes the timer works properly and sometimes it doesn't work at all which often means having to download a high quality version from the internet to watch later that night.

The reason i don't leave it till Sunday is I can guarantee someone will reveal the ending before I've had a chance to see it.

Why it can't be repeated later on Saturday for people who weren't at home earlier in the evening beats the hell out of me? It's not as if the BBC is short of channels.

Had this been on ITV2, then it would have been cancelled, as ratings for her shows since Katie and Peter have fallen by 80pc, but as it is on Living, 220,000 is good for them.

Any data for the Heineken Cup final on Sky Sports 1/HD 1 between 4pm and 7:30pm? It was quite a dramatic and unpredictable afternoon of rugby to say the least, with favourites Leinster staging one of the greatest comebacks of all-time in the second half to deny Northampton. We had one hand on the trophy at HT, but alas it wasn't to be. Another disappointing end to a season for us.

Still, hopefully it got the audience it deserved because despite the heartbreaking result it was a classic.

The ratings are about one third of what they were on ITV2. This marries with the reach stats where Living has around 7m viewers a week to ITV2's 21m.

Katie will no doubt be disappointed with the audience drop but she's done enough for a recommission given Living's standards are a lot lower as you've rightly pointed out. I reckon they would have been expecting more from it though.

Why was SYTYCD even bought back, the first series wasnt exactly a hit

To be fair, there was a chance it could have grown and became a hit, as generally these shows rise in their second year. The BBC did not have a crystal ball to hand when they made the decision to recommission. I think they've been a bit unlucky with it really.

My mistake.

In which case, BGT did fairly beat Eurovision head-to-head.


BGT could be an issue. The auditions seemed to take place on weeknights but obviously that kind of thing could limit A&D's involvement in the show during the week. Although I suppose Undercover would be filmed well in advance anyway. It'd probably rule out Ant vs Dec as a feature. Alternatively they could start off DOI over 2 nights? Try and wrap up BGT auditions in time for a first Takeaway show on Saturday 28th of January?

I agree that Pokerface probably won't come back. The reason I put it in was that this discussion was set off last night by the news that ITV might buy Gallowgate and how they might get some worth out of it.

It started well anyway. Plus, the BBC have had a few talent shows in recent years which haven't really stuck. The One and Only, When Will I Be Famous, Lloyd Webber's Eurovision thing and his musical shows - with all of those gone, I guess ideas were thin on the ground and SYTYCD seemed like it would be worth a go rather than trying to find yet another one - plus they had Cat, Nigel and Arlene on board. As I've said, the fact that it was ordered at all (last year) shows that ideas are thin on the ground because this format has been on the market for years now. Ultimately, it hasn't worked out for them.

I actually am starting to think that ITV is already protecting Ant & Dec from failure.

I believe that both BGT & Im a Celeb... would be hits without Ant & Dec, Im a celeb... maybe less so, but with Poker Face and Takeaway off the air, do Ant & Dec have any TV shows which are titlted "Ant & Decs..." on ITV at the moment? that isnt the case with BGT & Im a celeb....

Black & white or whatever that Cowell format is called, is again an example of a show which may not need Ant & Dec to be a hit.

Push The Button hasn't been cancelled yet AFAIK, and I'm sure there will be one in the new year with their names in the title. In any event, they're still a million miles ahead of the rest with the 2 hits they have, nowhere near failure.


You've never played roulette, have you?

Ant & Dec won't be the determining factor in whether the show is a hit. But they'll help both because they're the highest profile UK presenters but also because they're the best around.

sorry forgot about Push The Button

The ratings are only ok, from the research I just did, far from the big hits of BGT & Im a Celeb...

the BBC seem to be having a good night at the BAFTAs.

sorry if I forgot the name of the latest Syco production.


its a shame the shows that are all about them, are failing to match the highs of the shows they feature in, but are not really about them. Just goes to show how worthless Gallowgate is.

Unlike BGT, there is no US version of Push The Button (isnt that a Sugarbabes song? )

Good figure for Britain's Got Talent. Doctor Who did ok and should timeshift well. Sing If You Can is working well with the Britain's Got Talent lead out but I think it'll be stranded without it. So You Think You Can Dance? is a disaster. It didn't perform this badly last year IIRC and isn't up to much in terms of opposition so it's a bit confusing what has gone so drastically wrong this series.

I guess, given that they both started as kids on a kids show Ant and Dec have done pretty well for themselves. However after the early Takeaways they just seem to have been consumed by the Cowell shows rather than becoming true stars in their own right.
I still think they have not yet found their best format, and I rather doubt they ever will if they remain attached to Mr Cowells coattails.

fair enough


I do agree with your comments about Simon Cowells coat tails, as for finding their best format its possible I guess, but I suspect Takeaway may go down in history as being their best non Simon Cowell related work.

There aren't actually that many Cowell shows, and they only present one of them (soon to be two).

As poor as Push the Button has been I don't think going back to Takeaway is in Ant and Dec's interests. The series had already begun to go stale before they called time on it.

Personally I think they'd be better off spinning the Ant vs Dec segment into a show of it's own, something they can pre-record in summer/autumn and do on a much bigger scale by not doing it live.

And I think ITV would be better off giving Duel a second chance rather than Poker Face. Indeed it should have got a second chance first time around, but whether on Saturdays or tweaked for daytime it's a decent enough format and those who watched it rated it very highly, so expose it enough this time around and it might have a shot.


I think it's more the case Andrew Lloyd Webber buggered off again, leaving 10 weeks to fill in the Spring. I do think the BBC were right to give it a second shot rather than immediately replace it with what would almost inevitably be a talent reality show of some kind, but no doubt about it that it shouldn't return next year. I just hope they get The Voice right as it deserves a shot at being a flagship Saturday night show, but as I've said before the BBC somehow has a nack of unnecessarily tweaking international formats and ultimately missing the point of the show in the process.

Lol, you are obviously right-it just seems like alot more.

Maybe Cowell has just swallowed the entire decade