Originally Posted by rzt:
“The Voice would basically have a free run airing against a 2010/11 Q1-style ITV1 schedule. It'd have such a good chance of becoming a hit airing from January next year, the BBC will be mad not to launch it then. Like I said yesterday, if The Magicians and SYTYCD, two pretty average shows to say the least, can manage audiences of c.5.5m at that time of the year, unless the The Voice is absolutely terrible (which is unlikely given the money the BBC are reportedly spending on it), it'll surely be getting 6m+, at least initially, against very average competition. Take Me Out is not a big "hitter" as Brekkie puts it - it does very well with the 16-34s but it doesn't appeal to all age groups, a big-hitter is something which gets 7m+ not 4.5-5.0m.
Unless Red or Black becomes a big hit, which I agree with C14E doesn't look too likely (it could be a middling hit), really I don't see any better alternative than to move the Dancing on Ice performance show to Saturdays. Saturdays in Q1 is screaming out for a talent show and it's something which I've suggested they should've done previously anyway. But it's even more important for them now because unless ITV wants to hand the BBC a big hit on the plate which could potentially be a staple for them in the next 5-10 years, surely ITV will have to be aggressive to counteract the Voice becoming a big success? Whilst I agree with both Brekkie and C14E that there's no guarantee that DOI can cope with a Sat/Sun split as well as the current Sun scheduling, the signs are there that the show has a pretty loyal audience: it was averaging 8m+ earlier this year against tough competition like Antiques Roadshow and Top Gear (both 6m at the same time) in the 8-8.30pm half-hour period, so I suspect it'd be able to cope absolutely fine against an untested show like The Voice and potentially prevent it from becoming a breakout hit (there'd still be enough of an audience around for The Voice to be a normal hit though but not a 'big-hitter' I suspect).
So if ITV want to prevent The Voice from becoming a massive success and also in the process raise their own primetime shares for Sat/Sun primetime overall, I'd suggest a schedule of:
Sat: 19:00- TV Burp, 19:30- Dancing on Ice, 21:00- Take Me Out
Sun: 19:00- Dancing on Ice Results, 20:00- Wild at Heart, 21:00- Whitechapel/Scott & Bailey/New Drama...”
Some really good ideas as ever rzt. If ITV stick with the same schedule as they had this year then The Voice would have a free run and ITV would be in trouble. Red or Black is definitely a possibility should it do well. I think it will do pretty well but not well enough to take on The Voice (I'm thinking ~6m). I like your schedule a lot but I'm not sure if they'd run DOI Results at 7pm as I'd have thought they'd want it to boost the 9pm hour. I doubt they'd have WAH at 7pm either. Also I
think WAH is being filmed a month later than usual due to Tompkinson working on DCI Banks so it
might not be ready until February instead of January. Therefore they might run a new drama or Whitechapel after DOI in January with WAH returning in February. I'd do this:
Sat: 19:00- Dancing on Ice, 20:30- Take Me Out, 21:45 Keith Lemon's Bang Tidy Show/Jonathan Ross
Sun: 19:00- You've Been Framed, 19:30- TV Burp, 20:00- Dancing on Ice, 21:00- New Drama/Whitechapel/Wild at Heart
The Saturday schedule benefits from having DOI at the heart of the schedule. It couldn't go much later as they'd need to pre-record the Sunday show at a decent time. DOI would boost TMO and young-skewing TMO would work well with the late-night comedy/chat (Keith Lemon and Paddy McGuinness next to each other would be great). Sundays would be lower than the last couple of years but they'd still do very well. YBF would get 5m+ and TV Burp would get 6m+ consistently in those slots with much older skewing opposition, whilst a new drama would benefit from DOI's ~8m lead in. I know people have suggested stripping DOI across the weekend before but I think it's really important for them to do so now with BBC1 having a potentially massive hit in their schedule.
Originally Posted by D.M.N.:
“Not sure that's the wisest of decisions from ITV. I would have tried to push it back to September with Saturday/Sunday split for the entire series.
I know its always launched in mid August, or at least for the past couple of years, but I think a 'bad launch' will stick out more with no Simon or Cheryl, plus a few Sunday audition shows could draw the audience back in. (although I'm not sure what they have planned for Sundays so that may not be possible)”
It's launched in mid-late August since 2005. The thing is, it's had so much hype around it that unless they schedule it badly I'll be stunned if it fails to break 10m due to curiosity about the new judges. Where it goes from there depends on how well the new judges are received, but the early signs are positive. I can't see them changing the schedule much, if at all this year, but I'd like them to start the Sunday shows a few weeks earlier, but it doesn't seem too likely.
Originally Posted by rzt:
“I don't see why The Voice and Let's Dance can't run in the same Saturday schedule for 4 weeks. The schedule could be something like: 18:40- Let's Dance, 20:00- The Voice, 21:00- Lottery Draws, 21:10- Casualty, 22:00- BBC News, 22:25- MOTD. Let's Dance has started at that sort of time before.
As The Voice ought to be top priority for the BBC, it should take the January slot with The Magicians transferred over to Spring. If that results in The Magicians losing viewers, so be it. It's not the Next Big Thing which The Voice could potentially be.”
I think Let's Dance could be stripped Monday-Thursday in Sport Relief week. As for The Magicians, they're going to need something in the Spring with no Doctor Who or SYTYCD and that's a possibility. I'd keep it in January though, at 18:30 with The Voice at 19:30 and Total Wipeout moved to the Spring.
Originally Posted by rzt:
“I'd be a bit surprised if they don't have PoG in the Autumn, at least they know he guarantees them ~3.5m in that Friday slot. Not great but they've seen far worse in that slot before. I think Life Stories would do even worse to be honest: the show was getting 4m with a BGT lead-in and generally 4.5m with a TXF lead-in excluding the hugely inflated Cheryl Cole/Susan Boyle episodes, so if you take away the 25-30% boosts TXF/BGT generally give to programmes airing after them, Life Stories could be rating at just 3m in that Friday 9pm slot. I think they're better off just moving the show to Sunday at 10pm where it originally started where there's less pressure on it to get relatively big figures but it'd still outperform the slot average comfortably, and they could always have special editions with the really big guests on Saturdays as well if they wanted to. I don't really see it as a 9pm programming, but then again I suppose you could say the same thing against Paul O'Grady.”
I agree that Life Stories isn't really 9pm stuff, and is better suited to 10pm. I guess I just read too much into what was said in the article as O'Grady probably will be back in the Autumn. I agree about putting Life Stories back on Sundays at 10pm. With a Downton/IAC lead-in it could do 4-4.5m like it did in early 2009 and it's cheap enough to go there. It'd probably get similar numbers to O'Grady on Fridays but I agree it's not really worth the move.
