whilst I tend to ignore your posts on ITV as they are usually just trolling but just because something is a hit or miss in the USA it does not automatically follow that the UK will do the same. The history of tv is full of examples that prove this point.

They would have expected circa 3m for The Marriage Ref which though not a success, would not be such an embarrassment to the UK #1 commercial broadcaster. Advertisers must be backing out from such a poor slot in primetime.

Part of me applauds ITV for not showing repeats in such a slot, but sometimes playing safe is the best option. This won't look good on Dermot's resume. Call me crazy but showing classic episodes of ITV Parkinson, Aspel & Company, Piers Morgan would be good for 3 million viewers.

my posts are not trolling, just me expressing a negative view point on ITV, its not trolling to not like something. If my posts were simply trolling I would never have made that point about Penn & Teller.

A bad format is a bad format anywhere in the world, the NBC version had much better known faces on it, so why ITV thought that Dermot O Leary & Sarah Millican would make it a hit I dont know.

Actually Sarah Millican should be pretty good on it, given her show (Sarah Millican's Support Group) on Radio 4, despite the fact it has a comedy and fictional element to it.

Also if I was trolling I would not have waited until Oceams 12 was scheulde to call out ITV like I did this afternoon.

Tastes vary by country seems a pretty obvious point.

Try watching some German, Swedish, Italian or Irish tv and you will soon get the message.


every station has dud movies. Its a fact of life when you buy movies as part of a studio deal. Seems obvious to show it mid summer if you have to play it somewhere?

I suspect advertisers already know what this thread has known for a while now, that if its not produced by Syco TV, it will probaly flop. (Red vs Black aside)

I would also say that 3m would be an embarrassment to ITV 1, but that is personal opinon on where that line is.

let us not be so navie as to believe, as viewers ALOT of us are very american in out taste, I inculde myself in that..


true of course, but why make a bad scheulde worse?

Ocean's Twelve is not the best of the trilogy - but from 101,000+ votes on imdb.com it does score an average 61%.

I have the DVD so won't bother watching it personally, Live Copa America on ESPN @ 10.30 is more appealing.

I have seen all 3 movies, I even have Oceans 12 on DVD, I can say with certainly that Oceans 12 is an AWFUL movie, a major dissapointment after the general awesomeness of the first.

Oceans 13 whilst not awesome is an accpetable sequel to the first.

Oceans 12 is the worst movie on ALOT of actors CVs.

Also just to be clear, when I say Oceans 11 I mean the remake, I feel asleep watching the orginal (on ITV 1 as it happens)

Syco TV produces just two shows for ITV1: The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. The majority of programmes on the channel, including the hits, are non-Syco programmes (although admittedly the biggest 2 shows are made by Syco TV). Syco TV hasn't really produced much for ITV1 besides those two shows, but the last new series they did do, called 'Grease is the Word' was a flop. State-side, Syco also has had flops with 'American Inventor' and 'Celebrity Duets'.

because in tv you do not have an infinite budget and you have to work with what you have sometimes.

of course until last week the ITV line up was doing well enough in the demos, but the drop off last Saturday was disproportionately in the younger age groups. Lets see what happens this week - I have a sneaking feeling some will return, but we will see.

You are just running through the usual twaddle you see in Sun or Mirror articles about tv ratings though - big numbers are good, regardless of the demo mix; lowish numbers with good demos are a failure. Well it aint always that simple.

I thank you for those facts.

I guess Simon Cowells involvement even if its just in the early series is important as well.

A small detail but I make it 7% based on the official consolidated average, from 2.8m for Season 10 to 2.6m for Season 11. And Season 10 contained an episode from the particularly high rating CSI Trilogy which inflated its average, strip that out and the decline is more like 5%. That's pretty awesome retention for a 10 year old show.

The Mentalist did decline a lot year-on-year, much to my disappointment as a huge fan. Factors to consider: it continued airing every Friday night for the 11 week gap from Season 2 to 3 with reruns, unlike the previous season it started in October instead of February (the stats show the second half of the season rated better than the first), and it initally had a next day repeat on Channel 5, again unlike the previous season.

Moving on to NCIS, that fluctuated a lot based on its ITV1 competition. Football it coped perfectly alright with, however those 2 hour crime dramas knocked it for six. A move to another night seems like a sensible step forward, but it did show at times this year that it still has the power to rate brilliantly, especially for a show that has already aired on pay TV, peaking at 2.7m.

CSI: New York, which you haven't mentioned in your analysis, was incredibly resilient year-on-year, posting a marginal 0.3% decline if you strip out the CSI Trilogy episode, or 2.8% otherwise.

Bottom line: the above shows are not the problem. They are powerhouses that deliver excellent results year after year. You say CSI is winding down, but maybe you should tell that to CBS who have had the faith to renew all three shows for new seasons. The franchise might have peaked, but there's life in the old dog yet, and with Vegas set to undergo some significant cast changes for next season, I wouldn't write it off just yet.

Well, I think it's quite important that if you're going to make posts claiming such things, that there's a degree of truth in it. For example, your statement the other day that "Corrie is the only show on ITV1 which rates well (other than Syco TV productions - i.e. TXF and BGT)" was plain false. You don't have to be some kind of expert to know that's not really the case. Yes, they're the 3 biggest hits but not solely the only ones. Whilst obviously you're entitled to your opinion and that's what this forum is for, I find that sometimes you post things as if they're so-called "facts" even though they're not in reality or you just post them to cause a reaction, and unfortunately I reckon that can unnecessarily derail the thread sometimes IMHO.


Sounds like it timeshifted a little bit better this year so the consolidated drop wasn't as much as the overnight figure drop. Excluding the CSI Trilogy episode, the series dropped -8% in the overnights. Not bad, but again the declines of this as well as the two other drama series, has contributed to C5's peak-time decline. There's other reasons, of course, as to why C5 has lost viewers during primetime this year, but given that those three shows contribute to about 70 hours of programming which is quite significant I thought that was something to make note of. Although CBS has renewed all three shows, I would still say that the franchise is "winding down" as ratings have slipped Stateside and I would say for CSI: NY, which media analysts were saying just about scraped a renewal for next season, could be gone in a year or two. Sooner or later (could be in 3-8 yrs time), those three shows will finish, so I think C5 need to start looking ahead and identifying shows which could potentially replace them, hence why I reckon they could look at acquiring one of those three new dramas I mentioned in my previous post.


It was up against Midsomer Murders and football last year too though, but still dropped -7% y-o-y. I think there are other factors involved in its yearly drop. I don't think it's drop, if we isolate it, is anything to be concerned about for C5 and I reckon they should keep it on Wednesdays and look at the long-term because I suspect from 15 months time ITV1 will not be showing Midsomer Murders in the Wednesday slot due to the changes in their schedule regarding the football/Corrie etc. I guess they could move NCIS to another night but the options are limited: on Mondays it'd most likely be up against a BBC1/ITV1 drama anyway where it'd potentially be dented, Tuesdays there's CSI, Thursdays there's football, Fridays there's their current schedule which is doing fine, and Saturdays there's CSI: NY, Sundays there's tough BBC1/ITV1 drama competition. They could maybe squeeze it in onto one of those nights but I reckon for now, it's best left on Wednesdays. For the record, I completely agree that all three shows are strong ratings-performers for C5- maybe not as strong as they used to be, but still definitely strong ratings-wise relative to other programming on the channel. What they need now is more US dramas, which to their fairness they have introduced in the last month, to complement those big-hitters so that they know that if perhaps if one of those CSIs do get axed, they've got a replacement programme waiting in the wings to take its slot.

I agree, and I am sure that process has begun already. C5's acquisiton team is the best in the business and I'm sure their main objective will be ensuring the network's roster of US dramas continues to be as strong as possible. Already this year they've added The Walking Dead and Castle to the fold. Person of Interest should definitely be their number one target going forward, as a number of us now have identified it sounds extremely promising and should be right up C5's street. It's one of those where you read the description and you automatically think of C5. I also think they need to look more closely at US cable for future hits, particularly for 5*/5USA, as the gulf in quality between the main networks and cable TV in the country continues to shrink. And unlike Justified and Sons of Anarchy, the first episodes of any cable imports should go out on Channel 5 to get them off to the best possible start. Even if this means slightly below par ratings for C5 in the 10pm timeslot one week, it would be worth it if it could help establish 5*/5USA some "exclusive" hits of their own- something the two channels are desperately lacking at the moment.

It's official: Channel Seven's unbeaten run remains in tact, taking week 20 of 20 in the 2011 ratings season. This was despite Nine playing host to the top rated programme of 2011 so far midweek, the final deciding game in the Spirit of Origin series, netting 2.5 million viewers. Final shares were Seven 21.8%, Nine 21.4%, Ten 16.7%. It's all very one-sided at the moment but credit to Seven they have found a formula that just works and Nine is struggling to compete as a result. I had thought Nine might have turned a corner with The Block's success, but it's not going to be enough on its own, that much is clear.

Person of Interest sounds great and the fact that CBS put it at 9pm on Thursday shows they have confidence in it. I imagine they'll wait until they know it's a hit plus they already has a relationship with Warner Bros.

Castle is doing decently and I think they should pick up the rights to the next two series. Cable wise, I would go with The Glades and Breakout Kings and I think for 5* they should try and acquire more comedies as it's an area that seems to be growing.

I've never understood the criticism of the whole ITV/Syco thing. What are they meant to be doing? It's not like other channels have loads of X Factor size hits - it'd be hugely important to any commercial broadcaster (or indeed, the BBC!).

The fact that ITV have built that relationship with Simon Cowell from the very first Pop Idol pitch is a credit to them. That's good work on their part (albeit partly the work of a couple of previous regimes). It's like criticising FOX for only having one big hit in American Idol. Total nonsense. Like ITV, they have several other hits which rival anything else on any other channel. But they're both in a situation where they have the biggest shows on TV.

Cowell has some peculiar fascination with them which they've been able to exploit with Red Or Black and getting ITV Studios in on it which is even better for them. There was a Broadcast article (behind the pay wall) a while back which said there might be more co-productions from Syco and I'd guess ITVS will be likely partners if they work well on Red Or Black.

From a business perspective, I think Syco have "under-produced" for ITV. Considering the success of BGT & XF, it's actually quite remarkable (and not in a good way) that Red Or Black will be their first new show in nearly 4 and a half years - although you'd sometimes be forgiven for thinking they were making 20 shows a year for ITV!

In the US, it'd be the opposite and networks would be ordering show after show. Look at Jerry Bruckheimer - this is the first season that the networks seem to have realised "holy sh*t, CSI was 10 years ago and this guy has made about 50 flops since!" . Mark Burnett went years with loads of flops and the networks remained oblivious enough for long enough that he managed to get attached to the US version of The Voice! That'll allow him another dozen failures!


I think E4 are doing one just now? Plus there was that Channel 4 one not long ago.

And Ryan Murphy (Glee) is making some kind of model series for a cable channel in the US - slightly bizzare project for him.

Not sure why the current move into this area?

The last 'ratings exclusive' from the rag. Otherwise known as spin, spin... did I say a bit more spin? http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw...the-skids.html

I had a major LOL when I read the piece in the paper. Even I wouldn't have had the brass neck to claim a slump from 10m in bgt finals week to 7m in a late june heatwave was a "crisis".

They will presumably get a right of reply in next weeks issue?

I had to laugh at the Ashley and Claire then. I doubt anyone has even noticed their absence!

What a ridiculous story!

I'll remember that.

I will miss the NOTW though. Spent many Sundays in the 80's reading that paper. It was the best thing about Sundays back then.

Surprising to see a negative ratings-article about Coronation Street as it's usually been immune from those type of stories in the past. There's been opportunities previously for the redtops to write about Corrie's declining ratings, genuinely so, but they've never (or very rarely) done it. In this instance though, it's a load of rubbish as others have said because they've just taken a BGT sandiwch-inflated rating and compared it to an episode which partly clashed against an Andy Murray match.

As for the facts: Coronation Street has officially averaged 9.75m so far this year (as of latest BARB week of w/e 26 June). In the equivalent period in the last couple of years, Corrie averaged: 2010- 9.76m, 2009- 9.46m. So it's flat compared to last year (would be up if you were to include ITV1+1) and up compared to 2009's figures.

Women's Football match on BBC2 yesterday averaged 1.7m.

As for primetime, no ratings reported/tweeted so far, but 12Yard (producer of In It To Win It) says:

So I guess it must've got another 4.5-5.0m last night.

They seem to have it in for Michelle Collins's introduction in the programme, and are trying to generate a load of negativity, even though most viewers have got used to her now.

It's like when any story about ITV mentions Daybreak and shows a picture of Christine Bleakley, regardless of the story, or any story about BBC Radio 1 shows a picture of Chris Moyles and mentions various rants that he apparantly took part in years ago (but obviously didn't)

They are also tapping into the anti-gay angle, making out the show is awash with gays in your face in every scene, which will interest the typical NOTW readership!

Of course the only thing on the skids is the journalist's career as of Monday morning!