Very good point. EPG position is incredibly important and helps Sky1 a lot. Just look what happened when Pick TV moved down the Sky EPG in the last reshuffle.

wow I am late on this.

Good rating for The Gruen Transfer on ABC 1 (only just realise it had returned) excellent show, well deserved rating for ABC 1.

Its on YouTube, if you want the best laugh your going to get today, and a discussion on how advertising is good for democarcy.

They could air a double episode on the opening weekend. Seriously, the thing is I can't see ITV risking Millionnaire running over when they're airing a stripped drama across the week.

That's what used to happen, but they don't do that anymore. They haven't done that sort of thing in the last few years (apart from Heartbeat which they messed about with cos they knew it was being axed). They now let series run their full-length without interrupting them mid-run, so I have to say it's highly unlikely that they'd interrupt something like Dancing on Ice - one of their big ratings winners - mid-run to show Endeavour. You say that's mundane and boring, but that's the reality of the situation. Only really Saturday night schedules these days are flexible.


ITV have been making noise about midweek entertainment for a couple of years, and as you've said they've done nothing, so it's pretty unlikely they'd suddenly now want to move Dancing on Ice to Wednesdays. If they haven't done it by now, they're unlikely to do it next year. Champions League football begins in mid-February, so that would mean DOI having a run of just 5-6 weeks on Wednesdays - I understand you think it's bloated (I completely agree it is a bit long with often 3hrs of it in one evening!) but they're just not going to suddenly halve the running length of the series from 12 weeks. Alternatively they could air the second half of the series back on Sundays, but then it'd be a bit pointless having the first half of the run on Wednesday and then second half on Sunday, as that would just confuse viewers, and also cause a few logistical problems.

Whilst on the subject of Millionaire, there was an interesting little discussion between Chris Tarrant and Richard Bacon on Radio 5 yesterday afternoon.

He said he was "constantly arguing" with ITV about these specials. ITV want to continue to go down the celebrity route only, whereas Chris feels there should be a version for members of the public. He said it was "wrong" that the "people's quiz" wasn't catering for everyone.

Here's a link to the interview above in case anyone is interested:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...rrie/?t=11m16s

They were though alone in the schedules - much better to have a comedy block than them just dotted around the schedules.


Didn't Downton actually do rather well with 16-34s, though I might be mis-remembering that.

In other news the BBC looking for contestants now for Winter Wipeout. They already have a series of Total Wipeout in the can, so you'd think then that would air before the new year - so perhaps a 5.30pm slot before Strictly/Merlin in the autumn. Also the "final" of the repeat run airing now is next Saturday, so they could run the first six episodes of a new series alongside Doctor Who from the 20th August, then drop it a couple of weeks when Strictly shows will be longer before putting it back in the schedules for a few weeks.

Well, that's as maybe, but there's enough of them about, ranging from frantically texting sixth formers to dull balding office drones in their thirties like myself.

I'm not sure what is the worse scheduling, BBC1 replacing a serious documentary with stand up comedy or ITV1 running a series of serious documentaries Fridays at 9pm!

Tonight's BBC1 10:35pm slot is probably in the worst shape it has been for quite a while, just showing a repeat of last Saturday's John Bishop's Britain. I don't think it is great to run a 'same week repeat' in such a high profile slot.

I can see both points of views to be honest. The celebrity specials do seem to hold up better than the public version, yet the original premise was to make 'normal' people millionnaires.

It's only through the Summer they are running repeats, I imagine Graham Norton is back next month.

Provisional schedules for week beginning 20th August look odd. BBC's schedules are missing, ITV1's Saturday schedule is littered with TBA's and Channel 5's appears to be inaccurate somewhat.

Digiguide does look a mess, the15 hour BIg Brother (Monday) & 11 hour TBA (Tuesday) on Channel 5 seems to have screwed up its listings totally.

I do fear Digiguide doesnt have the staff it needs to do the job well anymore.

Well people have been moaning about live feed...

where have they been doing that?

The BB forum.

I am not sure we should be taking them too seriously.

I was only saying it tongue in cheek because digiguide had Big Brother down for 15 hours.

but they dont want it in a tounge in check way.

Agreed. And BBC1 sneaking a win in primetime too. Torchwood though was asking for problems with this elongated format.Ten hours worth of commitment over ten weeks is alot to ask over summer and school holidays. Much better stripped over a week.

Nobody has mentioned it yet but the release of "The Inbetweeners Movie" coincides with CBB launching. That's a sizeable 16-34 audience out I'd imagine.

I wondered why Channel 4 had started repeating the most recent series.

Isn't it out the day before? I'd describe the impact from this to be minimal to none. Apparently it's going straight to Film4 in early 2012.

Adopting the brace position for tomorrows 9pm rating on ITV1. I didn't sit through the documentary so I can't comment on quality, but it seemed an incredibly grim and serious subject matter for the slot it was given. A post-news show (on another day than Friday) if ever I saw one. Would be in no way surprised to see it sub-2m, actually.

Film4 also has One Day and I think Fright Night so Channel 4 will have plenty of terrestrial premieres next year aside from The Inbetweeners Movie and 127 Hours. Surprised Channel 4 havent shown Four Lions yet but I imagine theyre saving that for the Autumn.