Originally Posted by Pizzatheaction:
“I remember BBC1 reviving Opportunity Knocks in March 1987, and ITV revived New Faces around the same time, although I can't remember the exact year. They were both terrible, and I don't think either rated particularly well. Opportunity Knocks did reasonably for its first series, but I seem to remember it struggling around 7m by 1989. The final used to get 10m, though. And the final series, with a new host (after Bob Monkhouse moved to ITV) was down to 4/5m. It went out in the spring. I think New Faces went out in the autumn, so that helped it a bit, but it was in an earlier slot.”
New Faces returned in 1986, it was actually billed as New Faces of 86/87/88. As you say, that was in the autumn, and although Bob Knocks (the official abbreviation) came after it, it seemed much more exciting because you can phone in, it was the first show to include premium rate voting, while New Faces stuck with fiddly TV Times coupons right until it ended. For a pre-pubescent me, it was no contest.
A look at Television's Greatest Hits points out that all twelve episodes of series 1 of Bob Knocks got it the top twenty, the highest rating being the very first on 21st March 1987 with 14 million viewers. However, only the final of Series 2 charted, with 9.6 million, while in Series 3 only two episodes charted, the highest rating again being the final with 11.6 million. Les' 1990 series didn't chart at all. As you say, it was one of the few new series on Saturday night BBC1 when it ran, spring Saturdays were usually that and Les Dennis.
As for New Faces, six episodes of the 1986 series charted, the highest rating being the final on 13th December 1986 with 13.5 million. In fact the final was the highest rated of all three series, in 1987 it was one of three charting episodes was 12.9 million, and in 1988, the only charting episode with 13.6 million. So on the whole New Faces did better, presumably the autumn on ITV being better than spring on BBC1.
Everyone forgets now that BBC1 did When Will I Be Famous as a spoiler for Britain's Got Talent in early 2007, with Graham Norton hosting and Dave Spikey and Max Clifford among the judges, because BGT had been in the works for ages. They only did three shows though.
Originally Posted by Fudd:
“They'll have to be careful if they start mixing episodes of Pointless up because the money goes up each show if it's not won. It'll look a bit strange of one day the prize money is £5000, then it's suddenly £3000 and so on.”
Not that it would stop them because they're happy to do repeats of Eggheads which also has the jackpot rolloing over. You'd do weeks at a time, though, not changing series every day.
Originally Posted by D.M.N.:
“Saturday 22nd July 2006
BBC1
18:25 - Dancing in the Street: 4.03m
19:30 - Lottery: In It to Win It: 5.60m
20:15 - Casualty: 6.23m
21:05 - Dancing in the Street: 4.09m
22:35 - BBC News: 4.18m”
The second half of Dancing In The Street was only half an hour, Billy Elliot was at 9.30, shown in two parts around the news. The only thing I remember about Dancing in the Street was that at one point Brucie handed over to Zoe who didn't realise she was on air, and she was talking off camera to someone and saying "blah blah blah", as if to suggest Brucie was going on too long. As has been said it was part of some Beeb initiative to promote dancing, there were live links to other parts of the UK and so on, Of course the summer before that, there was that one-off Strictly African Dancing on a Saturday night, but no Brucie or Tess, Tash Kaplinsk presented it.
Originally Posted by Score:
“That was Prehistoric Park's launch and it fell to 2.5m the next week. It's Now or Never was pulled after one episode and replaced with repeats that hovered in the low 2s.”
The great thing about It's Now Or Never is that they pulled it off after one episode even though the series was only two episodes long. They simply couldn't bear it for one more week. Prehistoric Park was doomed to failure the second they decided to put Jurassic Park before it, which is the exact same thing!
I've said this before but the talk page of the Prehistoric Park Wikipedia page is hilarious...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pr...Park/Archive_1
"However, the animals in the opening credits may be in the park, although it is unconfirmed, if events happened in the park that were not filmed and not mentioned"
Originally Posted by Georged123:
“I remember 2006 being a terrible summer/year for ITV1, with Saturdays especially being a problem. I think it was 2005/2006 when ITV's decline truly set in.”
2006 was a terible year for ITV, they even managed to lose money showing the World Cup, The summer was diabolical, they only had three dramas running, Bad Girls and Where The Heart Is, both of which were on the final series and heading for the axe, and Jane Hall which had been on the shelf for two years. Everything was getting dropped, Fat Families, the docusoap, was dropped from primetime after one week. In July they decided to show repeats of Afterlife on Sundays at 9pm for six weeks, which didn't even do that well first time around, but abandoned that idea after one week because it got absolutely nothing and they showed episodes of Poirot from 1989 instead.
Daytime was all over the place too, because they had that brilliant idea of showing Paul O'Grady repeats opposite new Paul O'Grady, which lasted three days, they then showed Rising Damp but dropped it because it was flopping a week before it would have finished anyway in favour of repeats of Airline which were so old one of them was about one of the subjects going on The People Versus, then when that finished they realised they had nothing else to show so put Rising Damp back on.
Honestly, it was a dreadful year for ITV, the worst in their entire history, Simon Shaps was in charge and was probably the worst controller of any TV channel ever.
Originally Posted by grahamzxy:
“As we were getting a little nostalgic here are some Saturday ratings for the nearest Saturday in 2001 (July 21st)
BBC1
19:30 National Lottery / Winning Lines - 5.73m
20:15 Jurassic Park - 5.75m
BBC2
17:15 Golf / Murphys English - 2.99m
19:15 Escape From Fort Bravo - 1.73m
21:00 I Love The 70s - 2.03m
ITV1
19:00 Bruce's Price Is Right - 4.71m
19:30 New You've Been Framed - 6.17m
20:15 Stars In Their Eyes Kids - 8.56m
21:10 Where There's Smoke - 5.49m”
I like the fact that Jurassic Park was on the same weekend five years apart, but on different channels. And that Where There's Smoke was the drama I mentioned the other day that was dropped the previous September at the last minute for being rubbish, and shoved out in mid-July. I remember one of the people in it - Sheila Hancock? - moaning that it was being shown on the first weekend of the school holidays as well so seemingly nobody would tune in.
Originally Posted by
newkid30:
“Gosh great night Friday for BBC2, and Rob Brydons show easily beating Alan Carr, have to say I quite like Carr, but had the misfortune of tuning in when he had 3 shrews from Loose Women on, than God for remote controls. He is good but he had terrible guests this week, I think Rob Brydon and Frank Skinners Opinionated, are great Friday night formats, especially when there's so little else on. 
”
I wouldn't compare Rob Brydon to Alan Carr though, because Brydon hardly seems to be a chat show in its traditional sense as none of the guests are ever plugging anything, unlike the chat show staples on Carr's show, it's just Brydon messing around with his mates. I'll watch Brydon's show regardless of who's on it because even if I don't care for the guest, there's loads of Rob on it and the other elements of the show are interesting, whereas I'll only watch Carr if I like the guest as it's all about the interview.
There are too many chat shows around these days, though, Brydon's show has a very similar format to Lee Mack's show, even down to the stand-up and the band over the credits.
Clearly I'm getting old!
”
