Yeah I think showing the magicians from the pilot in Vegas took up the extra time last night. Incidentally according to Penn and Wossy on Twitter there are 8 episodes in the series, not 7, as Penn says that they 'recorded too much good stuff for 7'. However all the TV guides still have it listed as a 7 part series so I'm not sure if they need changing or if the 8th is an Xmas special (as apparently there will be footage of this year's winners in Vegas).

As for The Marriage Ref I agree that they should pull it if it goes any lower next week as ratings like that are simply unacceptable in primetime. A 10:35pm slot (or even an ITV2 premiere) beckons, I think. Surely they can't let such a turkey play out for 6 more weeks? I'm sure they could dig out some repeats/movies to fill the slots. I remember reading about a Harry Potter Millionaire Live special (when the article about the live specials came out) for the final movie next month so maybe that'll take its slot one week.

Speaking of Millionaire, I agree with what you said the other day that they didn't need to cut it this much! I think they'd have been better off scheduling it MPD style this Summer for 6-7 weeks on Fridays and Saturdays with the general public competing and then a Christmas special with celebrities, rather than random celebrity specials being slotted in every few months. A bizarre way to treat a show that's still capable of doing OK in the right slot.

They'll probably make the players stop at 9pm each night for a week of Corrie specials to boost its ratings then come back to the tennis at 9.30pm for the deciding set.

Aside from The Marriage Ref, summer Saturdays ought to be alright for ITV - cheap and not rating too badly. They might as well just can it now in favour of some repeats. Penn & Teller could probably be a decent performer if it were part of a stronger schedule.

Now I couldn't imagine Wimbledon agreeing to this and tennis fans would go mad. Anyway most open ended summer sports have never been attractive to ITV, which is why they never put in a bid for them. They have always been far more in favour of fixed time sports like football as it is easier to schedule.

Seven
15:00 Various AFL Fixtures 0.65m
18:00 Seven News / Adelaide AFL 1.68m
18:30 Dancing with the Stars 1.55m
20:30 Downton Abbey 1.72m
20:40 Castle (R) 0.61m

Nine
18:00 Nine News Sunday 1.53m
18:30 In Their Footsteps 0.89m
19:30 60 Minutes 1.05m
20:40 The Mentalist 0.82m
21:40 The Mentalist (R) 0.54m

Ten
18:30 Merlin 0.98m
19:30 MasterChef Australia 1.61m
20:30 Hawaii Five-O 0.72m
21:30 NCIS (R) 0.37m

ABC1
19:00 ABC News 0.63m
19:30 Mountain Gorilla 0.54m
20:30 Inspector George Gently 0.68m

7Mate
12:30 V8 Supercars: Hidden Valley - Raceday Xtra / Qualifying 0.16m
15:00 V8 Supercars: Hidden Valley 0.25m
18:30 Mythbusters 0.27m
19:30 Megastructures 0.23m
20:30 Movie: First Blood 0.33m

Corporation Shares
Seven (including 7Mate): 36.2%
Nine: 25.4%
Ten: 22.3%
ABC: 11.5%

Castle start time was actually 2140. Typo on my part, sorry.

A terrific day for Seven with more viewers watching Downton Abbey than Nine and Ten's US imports combined. 7Mate performed really well right across the day as well.

ABC1 really struggled. George Gently would be doing at least 200k better IMO if it wasn't against Downton. It's capable of 800k-1m.

They would have to stop the match for the day if it wasnt finished by 10pm too, couldnt possibly delay News At Ten.

Ealing is used for live TV shows, as I said that's where they do Let's Dance. As an independent production, too, there are numerous options for both studios and staff. They can do Strictly and Children in Need at TV Centre on the same weekend, and have done many times in the past, the reason they didn't this year, seemingly, was because it's a pain having to move the huge Strictly set to another studio mid-run. But they could have done it.

They film more than one show at TV Centre at one night, famously when the Nick Griffin Question Time happened they were also doing Jonathan Ross and TV Burp there. OK, they're not live, but if they can cope with that, they can cope with anything.


ITV made a token bid to retain the rights in 2004 but everyone knew they weren't very interested in getting them, because at 10.30 it doesn't really offer much value for a commercial broadcaster, and even less so these days with the advertising minutage used up in primetime. If they couldn't make it pay ten years ago, it'd be even less likely to now.

So curious to see the Golf ratings, cracking end to US open last night!

Yes should be very high for golf on Sky. The BBC should see a boost for the British Open in July too from Rory's Glory

am I to understand a Doctor Who companion did something exciting at the Golf?

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh is angry at yesterday's Sunday Times F1 story and says it would be sad and unwise for the BBC to drop coverage - http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/t...-one-article/-

While Bernie Ecclestone will do his best to keep F1 on the BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/moto...ne/9517174.stm

And Rory could do for the golf ratings what Tiger Woods did.

Very disappointing figures for the BBC's new early evening Sunday lineup...

6pm- Horrible Histories with Stephen Fry 2m (12.6%)
7pm- Fake or Fortune 3.9m (19.6%)

Source: Attentional.

The Day The Earth Stood Still pulled in a huge audience for its C4 premiere. 3.63m including +1 across two hours from 8pm, making it one of the channel's top 10 highest rated broadcasts of 2011 so far. Hitman followed with a very solid 1.9m, again including +1.

It wasn't all good news for them however. A repeat of Four Rooms really struggled at 7pm with just 765k inc. +1.

BBC One
18:00 Horrible Histories with Stephen Fry 2.0m (12.6%)
19:00 Fake or Fortune 3.9m (19.6%)
20:00 Countryfile 5.14m (22%)
21:00 Case Histories 4.00m (15.8%)

BBC Two
19:00 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World - Final 0.70m (3.9%)
20:00 125 Years of Wimbledon 1.21m (5.2%)
21:00 Coast 2.19m inc. HD
22:00 Mock The Week 1.38m (6.5%)

ITV1
19:00 The Royal 4.24m (21.1%)
20:00 Popstar to Operastar 3.06m (13.1%)
21:00 Scott & Bailey 5.05m (20%)
22:00 Popstar to Operastar 2.96m (13.9%)

ITV1+1
20:00 The Royal 0.13m (0.5%)
21:00 Popstar to Operastar 0.11m (0.4%)
22:00 Scott & Bailey 0.36m (1.8%)
23:00 Popstar to Operastar 0.17m (1.4%)

Channel 4
19:00 Four Rooms 0.65m (3.2%)
20:00 The Day The Earth Stood Still 2.98m (12.3%)
22:00 Hitman 1.58m (10%)

Channel 4+1
20:00 Four Rooms 0.12m (0.5%)
21:00 The Day The Earth Stood Still 0.63m (2.8%)
23:00 Hitman 0.31m (3.5%)

Channel 5
19:00 Cricket on 5: England v Sri Lanka 0.74m (3.7%)
20:00 Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves 1.24m (5.5%)

BBC Three
22:00 Family Guy 1.02m (4.6%)
22:20 Family Guy 1.13m (5.9%)

Source: Digital Spy.

You're joking? Horrible Histories started yesterday?

Where were the trailers for this? I'd been looking forward to catching this compilation series in its new "primetime slot"! Indeed, they have been showing endless trailers for the series on the CBBC channel. No wonder people didn't know it was on BBC1 yesterday.

Awful slot, and zero promotion. Insane!

I think FoF would have done better labelled as "Antiques Roadshow: FoF?"

Can't decide whether 2million for a CBBC production is good or bad...

Think this will be the second and last series of Popstar to Operastar with them ratings. Scott & Bailey doing well in such a horrible sandwich.

And people scoffed when I said it could be ITV's SYTYCD. "I can't see it going that low." Well, it has. It's officially a complete and utter turkey, almost beaten by C4's movie last night, and rounding off a very disappointing week for ITV1.

On a positive note, Scott & Bailey held up well in that crap sandwich.

Why does the second episode of Family Guy always outrate the first?

It definitely deserved more viewers than that as it was entertaining. But the promotion of it wasn't great as there was too much focus on series 3 on CBBC so the primetime version got lost in the mix.

Surprised by the ratings for "Fake or Fortune" too as I would have thought it could beat "The Royal"

Coz the pubs are closed?

Quite strange isn't it? Both are new episodes and there's nothing really on at 10pm which finishes at 10.25 which could potentially split the audience

Rating of the night goes to The Day The Earth Stood Still - 3.6m (inc +1) is fantastic! I think, although I might be wrong, that's Channel 4's highest rating since My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. More viewers watched that last night than Popstar To Operastar on ITV1, which has really turned out to be a massive flop this time. I thought the move to the 8pm Sunday slot would've seen its figures better than last year, not even worse!

Disappointing starts for Horrible Histories and Fake or Fortune. I would've expected more of the Antiques Roadshow audience to have checked that out. Solid for Countryfile as ever and Case Histories seems to have stabilised at the 4m mark with the last 3 episodes rating there. The Royal down from the last couple of weeks to how it was rating in 2009. No idea how PSTOS shedded so many viewers in a week for the performance show. Scott & Bailey rated about the same as last week, I was thinking it maybe could've grown its audience given that there was no F1 clash last night, but looking at that dire lead-in, it probably did the best it could in that situation. Give it a Monday Corrie lead-in and it'd be closer to 5.5m-6.0m. Decent for C5, not too far behind BBC2 for the evening. I thought 125 Years at Wimbeldon would've done better than that tbh.

I never get that either. Maybe more competition on the 10pm slot than the 10:25 slot

Well, it hasn't fallen down to 2.2-2.6m just yet . At this rate though it might do within a couple of weeks!