I don't know why they Don't move the Lunchtime Neighbours into the Home and Away slot currently occupied by Meerkat manor while Home and away is away so it avoids Doctors during August.

I think you mean Big Brother right?

To be honest Homes from Hell (and the general '...from Hell' format) has been dying for the past few years.

That'd confuse the audience, though, they already still show it at the exact time it was on BBC1 despite the fact it's been there for three years and it means they have to cram in a load of fifteen minute fillers.

The success of DIY SOS illustrates the huge number of factual brands the Beeb have that can do a decent job for them. It's all very well ITV deciding drama is too expensive so concentrating on factual but that depends on their long-running factual brands being any good, and apart from Long Lost Family I don't think they have any. Even Five has a better portfolio.

Why is DIY SOS being called Factual?
I would consider it a lifestyle programme, or is anything that's not drama or a soap considered factual these days?

It'd probably be classed as factual entertainment by broadcasters (a phrase often used as a posh word for reality). There's no "lifestyle" commissioning department at any UK broadcaster as far as I'm aware. Although it is clearly a lifestyle show. It's just that factual commissioners are responsible for lifestyle shows.

OK so it's just RTV , thanks for that.

Cracking rating for DIY SOS BB, I didn't watch it myself (mainly due to Nick Knowles) but it is not what you would call reality tv - I just read the synopsis and it reads like 'Extreme Makeover Home Edition' - but on a smaller scale. It is on the Reality tv section on the BBC website - reality = factual?

Not exactly a stellar start for Really's life as a Freeview channel. 8pm offering The Baby Borrowers managed an audience of just 82k. However, this was the channel's highest rating programme since an episode of Medical Emergency drew 85k in October 2010.

UKTV have launched a seven-figure advertising campaign to market the channel's free-to-air switch. Currently it is one of the broadcasters' lowest rating channels.

Its probably because there is nothing worth watching on Really, not anything that hasn't been watched a dozen times on another Channel anyway.

Yeah, UKTV haven't stepped the channel up a gear like they did when they turned UKTVG2 into Dave. That was a real game changer. Plus I'm not convinced Really is as strong a brand as Dave. It should be doing better as there are more female viewers out there than male and yet it doesn't seem to have resonated very well on pay TV so far.

I do think the channel has some good content - notably MasterChef Australia, Extreme Makeover and Bizarre ER. But it needs more. And some of the documentaries sound very tacky. I'm curious to see how it pans out though for the channel, and how much it grows its audience.

Really seems an odd choice to put on Freeview, I would have picked Eden or Good Food.

I think the rationale probably was that Eden and Good Food are doing okay on pay - particularly the latter where they've launched a HD version as well - whereas Really is struggling at the bottom of the ratings. By putting Really on Freeview they can bring it closer in line with its other channels almost instantly, but it's a shame they haven't made the effort to improve programming as well. Apart from a few small changes, it's very much business as usual.

Really is the most pointless channel. As someone else said Good Food or Watch would do much better FTA, Really is just repeated stuff from other channels. At the moment they are repeating a Masterchef that's about 3 years old and this is one of their big shows

But it hasn't been shown on Freeview before. Hopefully they will show all 3 seasons of MasterChef Aus for those that haven't seen them.

Big Bother...ha...well it will be bothering our TV screens when it returns.

And the new young Inspector Morse will be played by Shaun Evans.

http://simplytelevision.blogspot.com...lay-young.html

Interesting little thing I've learned about Big Brother. Seems it will look quite different on screen.

Dancing on Ice is returning to Elstree and taking the entire George Lucas stage, so essentially their old studio and the old Big Brother studio next door and creating an even bigger stage than they had at Shepperton for a 360 degree seating arena.

Which has left Big Brother literally out in the cold - they've had to build a "production village" (read: set of portacabins) on the lot and I can only guess they will use the task workshop again as a studio. This was what they did on CBB2 when Star Wars, iirc, was using the George Lucas Stage. The front half of the task workshop was eventually permanently used as a studio for Big Mouth.

I'm guessing Endeavour is just going to be a one-off in the hope that the ratings will justify a full series in 2013. Wonder what will happen to Lewis, I know Kevin Whately wants the next series to be the last but it's still pulling in good figures.

Looks like the CBB launch show will be 90 minutes. 5* are repeating it on Friday 19th 4pm-5:30pm. More details very soon...

BREAKING NEWS

Celebrity Big Brother 2011 to launch on Thursday 18th August:

8pm New Cowboy Builders
9pm Celebrity Big Brother Live Launch Show
10:30pm Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side
11:30pm Comedy Kings - Just for Laughs

They are getting their money's worth anyway with 2 and a half hours of tv...

Friday 19th August

12:15 Celebrity Big Brother Live Launch Show (Repeat)
21:00 Celebrity Big Brother Live
22:00 The Bachelor (New Series)
23:05 Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side

Thanks Dancc . Do you know the timings and durations of the following episodes too on Friday-Sunday? Is BBBOTS airing after CBB every night on C5? Also is there any live streaming on 5*? Cheers

Edit: just seen your above post.

Dancc, The 18th is a Thursday and the 19th is Friday?