I wonder if The Chase will dent the ratings for Pointless this afternoon. The Chase is a repeat but a lot of viewers may not realise this.

Two enjoyable quizzes which have deservedly climbed up the ratings.

The regional news isn't cancelled. There will be some form of bulletin at 6.30pm, though not very long I expect, with The One Show filling the rest of the half hour


It took a long time for the full details to emerge. At first it was just an explosion, possibly not even terrorism. At that point it did not appear to be major breaking news. Then later the shooting details started to emerge, but the death toll was quite low at that stage. Only overnight was it revealed that so many people sadly got shot dead

Very good ratings for the Top Gear & Dragons Den combo. Would have been awesome if they'd done it for the past 5 weeks as well. What a combo that would of been!

Should be interesting tonight with the weather being a scorcher across a lot of the UK. I reckon the soaps will be very low tonight but with strong shares. I suspect New Tricks will be below 8 million this week but should be in with a good chance of beating Eastenders and both Coronation Street episodes as New Tricks is on latest in the evening. Incidentally, sunset is at 8:49pm in London tonight.

I just noticed that the official rating for the Wallander repeat was 645k on Saturday evening. Is that higher than any of the first run showings?

K

edit: just checked back in spring 2010 and the highest rated episode got 543k, so this beat it by 100k!!

I think ratings will be really bad again tomorrow night as well as there is nothing on what so ever or tonight.

DIY SOS is on at 9PM I would hardly call that prime time TV :yawn:

I would still put it on but at a different time.

6:35-7:30.

Anyone know why?

News strikes.

Downton Abbey's ratings were allowed to get a bit out of control last autumn, so I don't think there's very much BBC One can do to compete against it this autumn. There are suggestions of a landmark wildlife series going against it, but I think a lot of the wildlife series's potential viewers could be lost to Abbey.

I wonder if it might be worth repeating last autumn's New Tricks against Sunday's Abbey or Monday's Doc Martin, and playing the wildlife series on another night.

Unfortunately, I don't think the ECB will change things while Giles Clarke is still in the job.

Didn't Heartbeat end on a cliffhanger, too?

considering what a wide range of big sporting events sky have now you have to think exclusivity is not as big a deal to them as it once was.

Amazing opener for Dragon's Den - very clever scheduling move to place it after Top Gear. Though, I'd obviously expect the fall to be quite steep next week. A great share for the TG finale as well. There's life in that old format.

Another poor night for ITV. Law and Order is an enigma. It seems to launch every series with a very healthy figure then undergo a pretty serious fall - for any number of reasons (the current Sunday 8pm sinkhole can't be helping) and then never recover. And yet, we could be sure that if a new run came along in 4 or 5 months time, the opener would pull 5.5-6m and the whole process would start again. Very curious.

Also, just to add that the 9.70m official for New Tricks is an all time high. Pretty impressive for a show in its 8th year!

Not sure what is on in the rest of the regions, but Spotlight is still on down here in the South West on BBC1.....

Law & Order would be fine against sod all competition as it had for week one. As soon as BBC1 loses the 9pm junction and BBC2 add some competition and it suddenly enters dangerous waters. It'd probably do better in the Friday 9pm slot against the dying comedy that is My Family and a Miranda repeat.

Dire for Born to Shine. The Royal has been dipping recently but not to dreadful levels, but it's a sad way to see off the franchise; again I think the lack of junction on BBC1 hurt it a bit. Countryfile performed very well for BBC One, and Inspector George Gently held up well for filler. Sugartown is down a lot and maybe that explains why they decided to schedule it in a late slot.

It was a superb night for BBC Two witth both Top Gear and Dragon's Den performing fantastically. The Grumpy Guide To... did well too.

Cowboy Builders seems to get lost in the 8pm Sunday slot but I presume it's a repeat...why air it there though? Why not go from the cricket to film? The cricket pulled in a good figure for Channel Five and xXx did ok.

Less said about Channel 4 the better really. Juno managed to pull in about 1.2m, that's alright I guess!

Some regions (Look North Yorks, East Midlands Today, Spotlight and South East Today) appear to be able to put on a longer show, opting into The One Show as and when they finish. The rest just had 5 minutes, although here in Oxford there was no BBC Oxford News, taking South Today instead.

- ITV commissions Just Henry: http://www.itv.com/presscentre/press...y/default.html
- Strictly to return live on Friday 30th September: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s104/...confirmed.html

I wish ITV'd stop with these one off 90 minute dramas and try and commission series. It isn't as bad if it's a pilot which could be turned into a series but this doesn't appear to be the case.

Interesting start date for Strictly; I presume that means they're splitting the contestants into two groups again.

At least four regions are having full bulletins.

In other news, Sky Atlantic have picked up Australian mini-series Cloudstreet. And how did their fishing docusoap do?

They should really have done the usual and had a filler at 6:35 for those regions who wanted to take it with The One Show starting at 7:00 as normal

The thinking was that the regions would finish at various different times, so best to have The One Show which is easy to opt into rather than different fillers up to 7pm.

BBC1 Yorks&Lincs made a rather clumsy opt into it; joining mid-sentence in the middle of an "interview".
Must say, I do hate "The One Show" - it's aimed at people who are just one tiny notch above the gutter and have let it go to their thick heads!

I know there are some ratings anoraks on this, so can I ask for a request for viewing figures of Casualty and The Bill during the 90's, particularly 96 and 97. I'm just curious.

BTW stunning ratings for Dragons' Den. Really good decison to put Top Gear and Dragons' Den back to back. Really inspired. It's streets ahead of Channel 4 at the moment.

Brilliant stuff, sends a message loud and clear to the BEEB.

More repeats, please?

K