Saturday 30th July Overnights
BBC One
17:30- Total Wipeout: 1.65m (13.4%)
18:30- Tonight's The Night: 3.04m (19.6%)
19:30- The National Lottery: In It To Win It: 4.44m (24.9%)
20:20- Casualty: 4.79m (24.7%)
21:10- John Bishop's Britain: 3.8m (19.8%)
22:00- King Arthur: 2.1m (15.2%)

BBC Two
19:30- Dad's Army: 1.39m (7.9%)
20:00- The Impressionist: Painting and Revolution: 1m (5.3%)
21:00- BBC Proms: 587k (3.4%)

ITV1
17:40- Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban: 3.64m (24.1%) , +1: 519k
20:15- Odd One In: 2.89m (15.2%) , +1: 155k
21:00- Penn & Teller: Fool Us: 2.96m (15.3%) , +1: 263k
22:00- The Marriage Ref: 1.8m (11%)

Channel 4
18:50- Crocodile Dundee II: 1.09m (6.1%) , +1: 243k
21:00- Camelot: 943k (4.9%)
22:00- Cloverfield: 713k (4.9%)

Channel 5
19:00- Test Match Cricket Highlights: 1.08m (6.4%)
20:00- NCIS: 828k (4.4%)
21:00- CSI: Miami: 1.09m (5.6%)
22:00- Law & Order: SVU: 1.15m (7%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 20.7%
ITV1: 16.6% (+1: 2.3%)
Channel 5: 5.7%
Channel 4: 5.5% (+1: 0.9%)
BBC Two: 5.1%

Source: DS

Very good rating for Potter, kicking Tonight's the Night - then the tide turning with Odd One In getting mauled by Casualty.

PJ, do you have the F1 rating from yesterday from 12:10 to 2:20? Obviously interested to see if Friday's news had any effect on the Qualifying rating.

Surprised Penn & Teller is coming back at xmass but it must be cheap to make so maybe that's why.

The Potter films seem to be boosting ITV Saturdays right now and that's a great share for POA. I think Odd One In seems to perform ok in an earlier slot with weak competition, but isn't enough to be at the centre of the schedule. I reckon it should be recomissioned, but for a 10pm slot on ITV2 to see how it does there.

P&T seems to get good reviews, but has underperformed in the middle of a weak schedule. I still think it has potential though and is different from other ITV entertainment shows, so could do well with a good lead in.

The Marriage Ref is completely dead though and should never return.

2.37m (28.5%)

The overnight series averages of ITV1's three shows which ended last night were:

Penn & Teller: Fool Us: 3.23m (16.0%)... inc +1: 3.49m (17.3%)
Odd One In: 2.97m (15.9%)... inc +1: 3.12m (16.7%)
The Marriage Ref: 1.86m (9.5%)... inc +1: 1.98m (10.2%)

The Marriage Ref is definitely finished, as ZoeMcCallister says. There's no hope for it. I'd think Odd One In would also be axed however last year's average (excluding TXF inflated episodes) was even lower (2.96m) than that and it managed to get another series. I suspect ITV might've been hoping for more this time though given that last year's last few episodes experienced a boost from TXF and they might've hoped some of those viewers would stick around this time, which didn't happen. As for P&T, I think it could get c.4m at another time of the year but I wouldn't be surprised if ITV axes it as they've axed summer Saturday programmes in recent years which have rated higher than that (although perhaps not as good demo-wise which is in its favour).

Solid return for John Bishop's Britain last night by the way.

Not sure why the Beeb pushed everything back so early last night. Were they keen to get John Bishop on in the 9pm hour? They would have been better off starting everything 30mins later as 6:30pm is far to early to begin primetime during summer. Casualty had a decent share though - its 2nd highest of the summer so far.

The things people will do for their country.


As I've said from the outset Fool Us is a show which I think would perform better as occasional specials rather than in series form, so hopefully if the returning episode does well ITV may order some more specials.

That said I wouldn't be surprised if both are burned off against the Strictly final though.


Yes - finally going down in the ratings. I really don't know how anyone can sit though 30 seconds of John Barrowman - it's saying something when viewers must be relieved when Dale Winton comes on screen afterwards.

I think it was in preparation for next week when they need to start the late film at 10pm so that they can start the returning Football League Show before midnight.

Although what they've actually done is start everything 10 minutes later next week (allowing Final Score to run until 5.20pm) with the film Con Air starting at 10.10pm and the FLS starting at 11.55pm.

The following Saturday Match Of The Day will be back starting at 10.30 so everything will start 30 minutes later than last night and 20 minutes later than next week.

Saturday night television - the most fun you can have as a TV scheduler.

Although the share only dropped marginally from 19.8% to 19.6%

TTN still had a good audience share though, nearly 20% (about the same share as John Bishop got later in the evening)
Now, Odd One In (15%) really did get a kcking by Casualty (nearly 25%).

I actually think that TTN held up well, considering the earlier start time and good weather.

Its the exact same share as last week. BBC one pushed their schedule back a half hour for some reason, surprisingly the weaker opposition didn't help Penn and Teller.

They're showing an episode of 'Fool Us' at the end of August, according to their official Twitter page. So that episode possibly might get a XF lead-in or might air on Friday at 9pm after SDSS finishes. Presumably that's one of the two unaired episodes, with the remaining one airing near Christmas, possibly burned off on the Saturday a week after TXF ends up against the SCD final.

It actually said in The Guardian yesterday how they're going to work out the picks - the Beeb get first choice of three races they want to show, which they've already decided will be British, Monaco and the final race of the season. Then Sky pick three they want to show exclusively live, then the Beeb pick another three, and so on. So it'll work out...

Picks 1-3 - BBC
Picks 4-6 - Sky
Picks 7-9 - BBC
Picks 10-12 - Sky
Picks 13-15 - BBC
Picks 16-18 - Sky

Then if there's one left, Sky get it, and if there's two left, presumably the Beeb toss a coin. When you get that far down I doubt it matters much.


I think they get them for free anyway, certainly they used to do midweek fixture lists when they only had the rights to Saturday highlights, so they're definitely included, and I'm sure the Sunday highlights rights are included in the package as well. And it'd be no value to any other broadcaster on their own.

But yes, I'm sure the Beeb will hang on to MOTD, as has been said ITV couldn't make it pay last time so they're highly unlikely to try again, and I don't think anyone else can afford it. And live football works better for a commercial channel than recorded football.

Wow Five was 3rd out of the 5 channels, picking up maybe in momentum leading up to Celebrity Big Brother? C4 had a awful night. This time last year C4 was getting 2.4-2.8m constantly in the overnights, now they are down at 700k in the 10pm slot!

Yeah, it's a tricky one. It looks as though they'll have to bid less, and hope they've still bid enough to get away with it.

I don't know. Maybe they just didn't have a decent-rating, cost-effective repeat to slot in between 5.30 and 6pm?

A Walk on the Wildside repeat might not have cleared 1m yesterday.

It didn't occur to me it would be decided in that way. I'd assumed the BBC would just decide which nine or ten races they'd show live, but I suppose the way it's been done has made the contract cheaper for the BBC than it would have been if they could just have picked any nine or ten races.




Ah! Thanks, Steve.

Me too.

Dont know all the race start times but does this mean the BBC can get Britain friendly start times with all or at least most of their races?

Also has it been established if th BBC will be able to show the whole race delayed or just highlights?

That method also means by default the BBC can simply not pick up to four races it doesn't want to air (so during the Olympics for example) and Sky will get them.

It's also worth noting as a financial decision (which this is) it's actually a very good deal for the BBC. Although every article seems to quote different figures, based on £40m/year for the current contract and £15m for the new contract (saving £25m/year) each race the BBC shows will actually cost around half a million less than under the current contract, plus they get highlights of the rest thrown in too.



Worth noting though the deal does differ for Saturday and Sunday - for example the BBC can only put the Sunday edition on the iPlayer.

ITV - I don't know whether it would pay but a package of 23 games would cost them less than the highlights and probably be of more value to them - though only the Saturday 5.15pm (with the odd Sunday 1.30pm kick-off) would work for them. There is no way Sky will be out bid for the Sunday 4pm games, while Sat 12.45pm or Monday nights is not going to work for ITV.

Potentially yes.

They could let Sky have exclusive live coverage for Australia, Malaysia and China, and then put their highlights on from 1pm to 2:15pm.


Looks like extended, but not officially official.

Thanks

To be fair to BBC Two, they only finished behind C5 last night because of the Proms. Normally they are very strong on Saturday nights and C5 has little hope of topping their share on this day.

Channel 4 however is back to very disappointing figures on Saturdays. The day has long been a problem for them and you have to question their strategy of scheduling high-profile acquisitions like Camelot there, which lost out to a repeat of CSI: Miami last night.

Wouldn't have thought Saturday 5.15 would be much good either, as they'd have trouble fitting stuff around The X Factor, and if they don't get first choice - which they wouldn't in that situation - some of the games would be very poor. Of course in 2004, Sky were actually asked to sub-licence eight games to another broadcaster to avoid EU worries over a monopoly, and no broadcaster offered the reserve price so they didn't sell them. You'd think eight games would work better for them than 23. That's why that ten first choice match package the Football League offered was specifically aimed at terrestrial broadcasters.

Nobody's mentioned but the Beeb are piloting another Saturday night show, it was in Broadcast, called Pros and Cons where the audience are challenged to guess who's full-time expert in a subject (the pro) and who's an MOTP who's had a bit of training (the con artist, you see). It says this is part of Danny Cohen's drive to make LE shows more inclusive and celebrate the Great British Public. Might be OK, it's only being piloted at the minute.

D.M.N. answered that much better than I could.