That sounds plausible as I imagine BOTS wont air on the weekend thus allowing them to be a bit more flexible on Sundays. Cant see TBGO doing well given C5's track record with shiny floor entertainment shows.

Me neither. It's been sat on the shelf for an unflattering length of time! But amongst all the CBB buzz maybe it will catch on. Or to put it better, it has the best chance of catching on then, if it's going to. Gallowgate have a very mixed record but they have had a few notable hits.

good decision to put it on a thursday with all the dramas airing it should benefit

plus WDYTYA would be tough competition, i imagine they'll start the series with the top celebs

i think JK Rowling's airs on the 17th, read about it in the paper the other day
she said she thinks she broke the record for crying, it looks like a very good episode

so that would have faced CBB!

So Channel 5 are launching Big Brother on A-Level results night?

Smooth.

Night 2 of Ultimate Big Brother brought in 3.07m (17.4%) at 10pm on A Level results night last year, down only 150k on the launch the night before, so let's not overstate the effect that could have please.

The important factors are the BBC One/ITV1/Channel 4 opposition, which is (frankly) not up to much on that night.

Thank you for reminding me.

The UBB launch had about 4m, didn't it? I agree with you though that the A Level result night factor won't have much of, if any, effect on its ratings. It's a very small portion of the audience.

Edit: I've got the wrong date due to the DS' incorrect labelling on the archive ratings pages. The correct rating for Big Brother on exam results day 2010 was 2.62m (15.5%) for a standard edition of the programme. This was actually up 500k on the previous week.

Ah right. The UBB launch was on a Tuesday and was part of the BB11 finale show, the show as a whole averaged 4m (17.7%). UBB had 3.22m (18%) for its first highlights show, and then that 3.07m for highlights show two.

Edit: just seen your previous post

See above, I made a slight boo-boo. But still nothing in the data to suggest launching on exam results day is going to be problematic. Celebrity MasterChef performed extremely well on that night last year.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s127/...asterchef.html

I don't see why thats much of an issue though and surely it can't impact the ratings that much. No matter what night they launch on there are bound to be people out or watching something else. They can't wrap the show up in cotton wool just because it has a fickle audience. Thats an issue they need to tackle head on.

3.7m watched the last ever episode on Channel 4 on a Friday night at the start of Freshers Week between 10.30pm and 11.30pm (if we're using the 'people will be out' excuse). If the advertising campaign is good enough and there is an adequate amount of publicity there is no reason for them to not be able to at least equal that figure in an uncompetitive Thursday night slot at 9pm.

Younger viewers are the ones most likely to use catch up and the ones most likely to know who is in the house due to social media. They are viewers who are hard to attract to a brand but are quite easy to retain and bring back. Missing the launch isn't a big deal.

As a subscriber to WDYTYA magazine they e mailed the list some weeks ago (I posted it in this thread somewhere) and JK Rowling was originally to be first up but it was then supposed to start in July, not August - so tied in to when the new Potter film was premiering.

Radio Times for next week is also written in such a way as you can tell this was originally true because it is all about the JK Rowling episode and then says - 'who's next?' and lists the remaining 9.

This would surely have only been done that way in the belef JKR was up first. But they probably could not change the article in time.

The schedule for the first 4 episodes (e mailed to me today) is now June Brown (next week) then J K Rowling, then Sebastian Coe, then Larry Lamb.

It was only BBC 1 HD (on all platforms - ie Sky, Virgin and Freeview apparently) that got treated to the 30 second East Enders 'advert' mid episode.

BBC SD on all platforms was not effected.

rzt, you were spot on mate.

Channel 4 have moved Twilight's premiere from Sunday night to Wednesday night in the final schedules in anticipation of Celebrity Big Brother launching there. This was their big spoiler that they'd been plotting.

Slight problem with that now since Channel 5 have moved CBB's launch to Thursday.

that's great, thanks
going to watch three of those!
who is sebastian coe?

serves C4 right, i bet C5 are having a right laugh
they should have never gave it up, i hope that it's a big hit for C5, i've been watching since BB1 week 3 and i intend on continuing !

Lol. Channel 4 outwitted, there!

Indeed. I bet Channel 5 are laughing their socks off. Twilight won't do that well midweek, and they will thrash them the following night. Major fail by Channel 4.

I wonder how many months Channel 4 had been sitting on that film...

Brekkie mentioned yesterday it's been due to premiere for ages so quite a while I bet. You can bet they'd been plotting this for months. And now it has the makings of a spectacular misfire!

Trouble is they'll find something worse next year.


Any three parter, whether drama or factual, then a crime repeat on the Bank Holiday.


A shame but you're probably right, though Downton Abbey is one show where ITV could break the BBC's monopoly on Christmas Day.


A shame - an awkward length, especially for international sales. OFCOM made a huge mistake IMO when they changed the rules to allow 4 ad breaks within programmes 1hr 10 mins long instead of 1 hr 30m. I'd have gone for 1hr 20m as that's less tempting for stations to extend hour-long shows, or simply let them have the four in an hour long slot and be done with it to avoid 70/75 min shows.


No surprise and a sensible decision - wonder though if they'll keep it back to air sometime next year or air it nightly over Christmas.

I do wish though they'd catch up on America's Got Talent. They could easily do two series over a summer then air the next series weekly, fast tracked from the US.


I do think though it's inevitable the Million Pound Drop will go head to head with evictions in the autumn.


LOL - C5 running scared then. The question is whether the CBB launch can beat Cowboy Builders.

Hehe, come on now, I think we both know the answer to that.

Channel 5 have been savvy in throwing this 17th August date about, also making it look like the 19th in the provisionals and then changing it at the last minute when certain things became clear. Channel 4 have been made to look like amateurs. I'm surprised they didn't still have contacts at Endemol close to the show who would have been able to tip them off about the actual start date...

Seriously for a second, Twilight should bring good numbers to Channel 4, probably 3m to 3.5m I think.
Last edited by D.M.N. : 03-08-2011 at 18:43

It will perform strongly IMO but not as well as it would on a Sunday. BBC One is going to be airing the JK Rowling WDYTYA episode that night which will be good for 5m+, possibly 6m+.

Lol, yeah C4 have been outwitted. I bet C5 even asked Daily Star and Applause Store to deliberately put down 17th August as the launch date to put C4 off the scent, knowing all along it would be 18th August. Good scheduling move.

I don't want to sound uninformed, but has Channel 5 dropped the through the night coverage of CBB/BB? Surely keeping the show to 90 minutes a day, which seems more sensible, is better considering the show has a marathon five months run this time.