So I guess then Beaver Falls was just under half a million rather than just over. Nothing to shout about, but worth remembering Misfits was at similar levels for it's first series - though also worth noting Misfits was much better too.


And to be fair Dream Team and Mile High both had a job to do in providing Sky1 with a high volume of content. C5 have never gone for quality or quantity when it comes to drama.


As consistent as C4 then. Sundays though is going to be a problem with X Factor at 8pm and Downton Abbey at 9pm to compete with, especially if Downton is extended to 75 minutes, though I guess C5 could put a film in to finish at 10.15pm.


An eviction can be done in an hour long show - and indeed in Celeb BB that was standard until the last couple of years, whilst it wasn't until BB7 that C4 gave eviction nights an extra half hour.

There is also little advantage to C5 of splitting the shows.

The Beat Goes On will die if it airs at 9pm, I imagine Emergency Bikers will air at 9pm for a few weeks before the NCIS repeats resume.

I think when normal BB starts the schedule will something like say a Monday:

8pm Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads
9pm Paul Merton's Great Escapes
10pm Big Brother.

A romantic idea but a non-starter in reality. What other broadcaster implements such a policy with event TV? Does this mean The X Factor's start time won't be changing by up to 40 minutes from week-to-week this year? And that's only on 2 nights a week. Heck, even BBC Two can't manage consistent start times with the likes of Lambing Live and Springwatch. Does that mean the BBC and ITV don't treat the audience of those shows well either?

Sundays are a headache but I think as long as they schedule films to finish around 10-10.30pm. it shouldnt be a problem and they risk airing BB at 9pm and a film at 10pm.

It would make sense to have the eviction and the interview in one go, I assume it was like that when it was on Channel 4 as they used to air comedy in the 10pm slot but Channel 5 dont have any comedies ATM

Emergency Bikers is definitely down at 8pm in the guide with a big fat TBA at 9pm, which ties in with everything else as the 8 O'Clock Heroes strand appears to be continuing. We know TBGO is airing on Wednesday nights so 9pm looks to be all but confirmed. It stands out like a sore thumb in an otherwise strong schedule, can't see it rating there.

That looks like a very strong Monday night schedule above, I hope they implement something like that.

Really?

Seb Coe, famous Olympian athlete...now a politician in the House of Lords and the man who helped mastermind the winning of the London 2012 Olympics.

I give TBGO three weeks and it'll be back to NCIS repeats. Unless it can break 1m which is very unlikely.

I think Big Brother would be a good opportunity for Channel 5 to reintroduce comedy onto the schedule, maybe not for this series of BB but maybe the next CBB.

Does anyone know how Silent Library has been doing on 5*, and how it compares with the slot average?

I agree. I give ITV1 stick for the lack of comedy but C5 are just as guilty now. It's a laughter free zone.

I guess they got burned pretty bad by Joey and it put them off. Even Two and a Half Men which is a high profile show around the world didn't work for them.

What day and time is it shown?

5* has more comedy than Channel 5 and that's saying something. Problem is C5 doesn't really have the space for a comedy block as Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday are drama nights, Thursday is football and Monday is reserved for factual. The only solution would be maybe 10pm when BB is not on?

I think once BB is launched, they should be looking for a homegrown drama. I know Channel 4 and BBC Two have struggled but I think Channel 5 should be looking for a show that is compatible with their US shows and appeals to their audience.

thanks jaycee

thanks dancc for all the CBB stuff, it's really interesting!
it might encourage me to watch some other shows on the channel

glad trollied did well last night, i thought it was brilliant! great cast

These are niche shows tucked away with hardly any promotion.

Trollied (designed as a populist show) was/is massively promoted for weeks beforehand with Sky promoting in nearly every ad break and Jane Horrocks doing the media rounds too. Quite frankly if it didnt get near 1m then there was a serious problem.

Big Radio Times piece for it, too, and a choices page mention. RT seems to be falling over itself to promote pay TV shows under its current editor. Sky adverts in the mag every week, too. Make of that what you will...

The weekend schedules always offer up a bit of fun to schedulers for whatever reason. I think the lack of a locked news slot gives them the opportunity to play around for the sake of it. Saying that, The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent have had more of a settled slot over the past year or so.

While I appreciate what you're saying in relation to Big Brother, I think Channel 5 should air it 10pm across the week bar Friday, rather than chopping the times. Once it's established they can use it as a lead in to the 10pm if required, but it needs to establish itself first IMO.

Back to last night - awful for ITV1 with the soaps performing well below expectations. I've always argued that it seems stupid to have the lesser show lead in to the bigger show in a more competitive hour, and last night really shows that up. Saying that, Traffic Cops performed very well for BBC One. Neither of the 'big two' will be delighted by the performance of their 9pm hour shows with both dipping further. Town benefited on BBC Two with another strong figure with Rick Stein also recording a good rating in the 8pm hour. Channel 4 had a poor night but Channel 5 did reasonably well - they'll be pleased that Candy Bar Girls held up at 11pm and the Amy Winehouse documentary did very well at 10pm. I didn't expect that big a figure for Trollied either!

The Big Bang Theory has averaged at 912,215 viewers (officially) when airing new episodes this year , that's very impressive and the last two episdes have officially passed 1m viewers! This is looking like the favourite to replace Friends as the repeat staple, could it even get a prime time C4 slot for the next series ?

On the same topic, new episodes of Modern Family averaged 731k this year on Sky 1, I can only see MF getting more and more fans - I think it could start to pass 1m come the next series.

I Don't Agree with you saying the Soaps were Well Below Expectations. Yes maybe Corrie but Emmerdale and Eastenders both got average ratings.

Emmerdale had a share of 29% at 8pm; considering it's usually in the low to mid 30s that is low. I agree, the 7pm episode rated fine. For me, the 8pm episode dented Coronation Street in turn as others were watching other channels by that point.

I was only referring to the ITV soaps when saying 'below expectations', not EastEnders.

Rev and Psychoville both had 10pm slots on BBC 2. They weren't tucked away.

Anyway, Trollied got Sky1's highest overnight rating of the year. Not bad for August and beating Mad Dogs shown in the winter which had just as much promotion.

They werent given anywhere near the massive amount of promotion though. I would love to know how much Sky spent of advertising for the show .

Anyway, when you get round to watch it please let me know how good the HD picture is and what platform you watched it on.

Does anyone know what the late night Monday BBC2 repeats of Torchwood are getting?

It's been on tuesday nights at 10 Cheers rzt

Silent Library overnight ratings recently:

19/7/11: 64k
26/7/11: 66k
02/8/11: 62k

Not sure what 5*'s slot average is. Just having a look at how 5* was doing in that slot in May before 'SL' began, they were getting between 100-150k in that slot. I dunno if that's normal for the slot most year round or if it was high or not, but it seems like based on the few ratings I've seen, that Silent Library is performing below the slot average.

DigiGuide is the same. This weekend alone they are raving about: Shrek Forever After, Big Love, Cake Boss, Championship Football, Rugby Union, Chain Gang, Community Shield, Hiroshima, Beyond Scared Straight, Last Shuttle, The Cement Garden, Forty Guns.

About as many pay TV shows featured as free-to-air shows!

It certainly doesn't have to be January, nobody will care if it's not 25 years to the month. It used to be that ITV were prepared to break into the runs of Heartbeat or London's Burning for a week or two to show a big event drama and I know you don't want to start throwing things off willy nilly but if the schedules are so constricting that stuff's limited to airing on a particular day at a particular time, that is utterly mundane and boring. And yet you get weeks like this when they're showing bugger all.

ITV have been making noises about doing midweek entertainment now and they've done nothing about it, even though it would actually be possible to run a decent length series on a Wednesday night in the New Year, if they chose to show FA Cup matches on a Tuesday they wouldn't have to interrupt the run of a Wednesday night series for football until the end of February, and if they hurried up the bloated Dancing On Ice that could work.


Sounds a bit stupid to me, having it on Channel 5 some nights and not others, because people will forget what channel it's on what night. And even if it's always simulcast on 5*, surely people will just watch it there and not bother with taking their chances over when it's on Five?


Wouldn't have thought Big Brother would have much of an audience in common with Downton Abbey, to be honest.


And yet, the argument for Mad Men going off BBC4 is that it's "tucked away" at 10pm! And neither are as broad as Trollied, they are clearly niche shows, especially the latter. And shows on Sky One should be getting massive ratings, it's on 106 on Sky!