Sunday 29th May 2011
BBC One
19:00 - Countryfile: 5.08m (22.6%)
20:00 - Antiques Roadshow: 5.16m (20.7%)
21:00 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: 4.57m (20.9%)

BBC Two
20:00 - Britain's Secret Seas: 1.03m (4.2%)
21:00 - Louis Theroux: 2.15m (8.6%)
22:00 - Queen: Days of Our Lives: 2.19m (10.6%)

ITV1
19:30 - Britain's Got Talent: 9.86m (40.4%)
* 15-minute peak: 10.78m (42.0%)
* +1: 427k
21:00 - Scott & Bailey: 7.92m (31.7%)
* +1: 262k

Channel 4
20:00 - The Hotel: 1.04m (4.2%)
* +1: 190k
21:00 - FILM: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: 1.73m (8.9%)
* +1: 271,000

Channel 5
20:00 - The True Story: 697k (2.8%)
21:00 - Most Shocking Talent Show Moments: 1.17m (5.8%)

Primetime Shares
ITV1 - 31.5% (+1: 1.2%)
BBC One - 20.9%
BBC Two - 6.8%
Channel 4 - 6.5% (+1: 1.1%)
Channel 5 - 3.7%

Ratings are tape-checked and include HD.

Pirates did much better than I expected after seeing S&B's rating. Considering 25m were watching in the 9pm hour, even with a few million less watching next week, Scott and Bailey could still have 6m.
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PJ, if you're reading this, do you have the F1 rating? Ta.

Pirates of The Carribean did well, given the tough competition and late finish. When I saw S&B had 8.2m, I'd thought PoTC had fallen sub 3m but almost 5m is very good.


Only two of those he listed though wasn't in a sandwich (sandwich is better than lead-in) - the Susan Boyle Story and Mumbai Calling both of which had ~19m lead-ins (not 12m like yesterday) - Mumbai Calling didn't even get the 6m+ anyway. An 8.2m is very high when you consider two of the post-TXF dramas last year, Joe Maddison's War (6.2m) and Downton Abbey (7.7m) started with fewer viewers (and both were considered as having rated as highly at the time anyway!).

The only reason why some people are trashing the idea of the BBC having 'The Voice' is because it has the potential of becoming a threat to XF as well ending the monopoly in the mainstream singing talent show genre. Heaven forbid that should happen.

In most countries there are more than one of these singing talent shows and they all vary in popularity. Or should there only be singing talent shows that get 10m+ week in, week out?

I think a launch in early January would surely guarantee a very strong start (even SYTYCD did 7m). Very weak competition so soon after X Factor finishes - many will look for a replacement and The Voice, being very similar, could be it. The panel is obviously one issue but I think people like Will Young could be brought in on a relatively low budget. It's trying to fill that Christina Aguilera spot that will be difficult.

I'm sure even the BBC won't put Barrowman on it!

John De Mol will be crossing his fingers and hoping that the US ratings rise back to their previous levels for the live shows because if they do, he'll be able to bump up the fee. In the US, NBC are paying $1.4m an episode - a massive amount for unscripted TV.

It'll enter the market like it has in the US - and as it hasn't challenged Idol there, I doubt it will challenge X Factor here. But it may well deliver good numbers. In the US, it's total audience is relatively low but its demo ratings are very strong.


Nobody is saying that The X Factor is completely original. Indeed, if the BBC had bought that after Cowell left Pop Idol, I suspect there would have been quite a kick up for ratings grabbing and buying copycat formats.

What's your point? Isn't that known as good scheduling?

Remember the BBC News bulletin that followed the Royal Wedding? You went on and on about that one.

Talent Show Moments did a lot better than I expected considering it was first shown only last month with 1.4 million viewers / 8% audience share.

BBC One and BBC Two held up brilliantly at 9pm as well. Only Channel 4 underwhelmed with its big movie premiere below 2m.

BBC1 held up extremely well-time to move Antiques Roadshow to Saturdays opposite BGT next year? It always performs so well up against XF and BGT and is the perfect opposition for it.

Predictably BBC2, Ch4 and Ch5 were squeezed out at 8pm with The Hotel particuarly suffering, but it should bounce back next week. Very good rating for Talent Show moments on Ch5, considering it was broadcast to around 1.5m viewers only a few weeks ago.

Anyone know what Corrie at 7 got?

PJMillar - if you're reading this thread, can you post the 15-minute breakdown for Scott & Bailey please? Thanks.


Total Wipeout isn't a flop. It gets very solid ratings when you consider the early timeslots it usually has and nearly always wins its slot. IIRC one episode last year even got 7.5m!

A decent night for all the terrestrials considering ITV's dominance, with each channel having something to be moderately pleased with.

BBC getting a 20% share despite ITV's schedule is a great achievement.



Not saying Scott and Bailey's rating isnt excellent just that it isnt unheard of for shows to be heavily boosted by Cowell talent shows, sandwich or not.

Best example being TV Burp getting 7.9m before the X Factor one night and then a few months later struggling to get over 4m.

The breakdown and second episode rating with no BGT lead-in will be interesting.

And one year when they made Strictlyt they cut the budget and scheduled it badly. All worked together to make a very poor series of Strictly. That was when Chris Hollins won. Very bland year.

Good start for S&B - that does it give it a bit of room to fall in subsequent weeks and still have a respectable average.

BGT did well. Would like to see how Corrie performed in that 7pm slot. Good night for BBC1 too considering the strong competition.

i know it's a long way off but what do you think Britain's got talent will get next year in the Ratings?

I agree- they're obviously boosted, by about 10-25% more than what they'd usually get, having looked at the trends. Robbie rightly mentioned about 4 programmes which have had 7m+ in those BGT/TXF enhanced slots but let's not forget there have been plenty of shows not to have managed 7m+ in those slots too: The Prisoner, Joe Maddison's War, The Cube, Hell's Kitchen, Favourite ABBA Song, Life Stories (apart from Cheryl Cole's episode) to name just a few. So it's not as if any old show will automatically get 7m+ in those slots, although it certainly gives them a good boost being scheduled there. The Scott & Bailey figure came as a surprise to me - I had no doubt it'd rate better than how most ITV dramas usually launch due to the inheritence but never thought it would actually end up with more viewers than Downton Abbey's launch. If the bookies had odds on that happening, they would've been very long odds! I think ultimately, however, we will see a big drop for Scott & Bailey in the next few weeks but the 8m launch certainly gives it a great platform to ensure it remains above that all-important 5m mark.


That's one isolated incident though - it's not like TV Burp was getting 7.9m every week last Autumn and then as if it fell to 4.0m for every episode the next series. For any programme, you could easily compare their highest ratings to their lowest ratings in a year and make a similar sort of comparison. If we look at the averages - the official series average for TV Burp last Autumn with a TXF lead-out was 6.37m, the series earlier this year averaged 5.52m - the gap was less than a million in it between the two series. It's not anything too substantial. Yes, TXF does give it a boost, but it's capable of holding up on its own most weeks too (5.5m aint bad), though admittedly it's probably past its peak now.

Really good night for ITV1 last night - indeed a strong finish for BGT somewhat overshadowed by that surprising number for Scott & Bailey. But it's another sign that a Saturday/Sunday split could work for BGT while allowing for a new show to launch as well.

If they do 4 weeks of the pre-recorded shows through April, then 3 semi-finals over the Bank Holiday weekend and the final split over Saturday & Sunday the next week, then they get 6 lead-ins for Piers Morgan on Saturdays (at 9.30pm or 10pm) and a new show on Sundays.

The following Saturday is the Champions League final so that's sorted anyway. And the week after is Eurovision and it's probably beneficial overall that they avoid that because it always takes some viewers away.

Of course, ITV seem to love the scheduling they have. I can't believe they're doing it for a new show in September.

S&B will take a dive next week but it has a lot of room to fall and still have strong numbers.

Any figures for the golf on BBC Two yesterday? Should have peaked well at the end with a playoff between the top two players in the world.

LOL - you're now saying we should dismiss ITV's ratings because the shows before said shows got decent ratings too. You really need to try a bit harder to be objective, don't you Robbie!

And when was the last time BBC1 had two consecutive shows getting 8m+ in primetime apart from Christmas Day, which of course doesn't count for exactly the same reason as Robbie dismisses yesterdays ratings.

Sorry I meant Hole in the Wall, my mistake. However, the BBC do seem a bit short on LE hits if you take out SCD and TW from the equation. Gone are the days when they had a solid roster of Saturday hit shows like The Generation Game, The Two Ronnies, Seaside Special and Mike Yarwood in Persons.

So much for you giving ITV credit where credit's due. To be fair, while you are right to an extent it does show a good piece of scheduling to at least offer something a Britain's Got Talent lead in.

All the other channels had a reasonable night though. I don't think Channel 4 'flopped' as such - it still managed 1m across more than two hours against tough opposition which is more than it can sometimes manage over the week! Chennel 5's filler programming at 9pm did well, and BBC1 held up better than I expected at 9pm.

Deadline Article

The comedies apparently went down better than they usually do. Stands outs were Warner Bros 2 Broke Girls (airing on CBS) and 20th Century FOX's New Girl (for FOX starring Zooey Deschanel) and Apartment 23 (for ABC midseason).

Terra Nova (20th for FOX) and Pan Am (Sony for ABC) wre singled out among the dramas though Deadline notes that "there were questions about the series living up to their pilots."

They also note that as expected, The Secret Circle (WB for CW) is drawing interest from broadcasters who already have The Vampire Diaries.

More shows mentioned in the original article above.

BGT seems settled around the 10-11 million mark. OK there isn't the Subo effect but these ratings are excellent in such a competitive market. While TXF seems to be lurching from crisis to crisis, BGT is going strong.

What we were watching on flat screen Philips 22 inch NICAM stereo televisions 15 years ago:
1 Only Fools And Horses 29 Dec 1996 BBC1 24.35
2 Coronation Street 28 Feb 1996 ITV 19.80
3 Casualty 24 Feb 1996 BBC1 18.05
4 Eastenders 07 Oct 1996 BBC1 17.92
5 Touch Of Frost 04 Feb 1996 ITV 17.58
6 Heartbeat 08 Dec 1996 ITV 17.55
7 One Foot In The Grave 26 Dec 1996 BBC1 17.47
8 Euro 96: England v Germany 26 Jun 1996 BBC1 17.46
9 You've Been Framed 27 Oct 1996 ITV 17.34
10 National Lottery Live 06 Jan 1996 BBC1 16.62
Notice how massively popular You've Been Framed was then. This was in the era when it was a studio based show with a large budget.

Btw, do we have any idea who the guests are for the BGT results shows this week?

Off the top of my head the candidates would seem to be Adele, Lady Gaga, Nicole Scherzinger, Kelly Rowland, Jessie J, Olly Murs, Spellbound and Diversity. Jackie Evancho is pretty much 100% certain for the final - with the possibility of SuBo joining her as they've apparently recorded a duet.

Last years line-up really didn't impress, tbh. And when they're trying to hold an audience from 7.30pm to 10pm in these weeknight shows, they need decent names.

It'll also be interesting to see how Corrie does. Whereas the seige thing was all over the place, I have no idea what this weeks storyline is.

Well done to ITV for finding another drama hit. I do hope this re-enforces the need to put their expensive drama after Talent/XF instead of wasting the lead-in on cheap one-offs. It wasn't like Scott & Bailey had mega weak competition either with BBC2 over 2million, BBC1 over 4.5million, C4 & C5 with respectable numbers so I think it should be able to stand above 6million for most of its episodes. I hope this is the continuation of many other dramas to this slot; perhaps Law And Order UK could go post-Talent/X-Factor for one series to get its numbers up.

I was disappointed with the ratings for Benjamin Button; I thought it could manage a 2.5m despite finishing so late. I suppose the genre of movie it was (slow moving, half pre-war drama) was unlikely to appeal to the demographic of viewer that typically stay up late. It did have some swearing in, so maybe they decided they couldn't put it out at 8pm. Personally I thought it was a good movie though.

So competitive that tonight BBC One are showing a repeat against it at 7:30 and C4 is showing a 42 year old movie in primetime.