Not a Poirot repeat, no. A Downton Abbey, DCI Banks or Doc Martin type repeat, a show that would actually benefit from being repeated on ITV1 in primetime yes, but not Poirot.

BBC2 schedulers are doing a bit of BSI scheduling tonight. Bumping Shooting Stars out of it's 10pm slot for one week only.

I think Poirot would do fine in the Tuesday 8pm slot, where it can't do much worse than what they are showing already. Same with Wednesday 8pm though Lewis is doing ok there.

They put a repeat Poirot in that slot last September and it didn't break 3m. MM and Lewis are far more popular.

Just looking at the scheduling for next weeks RoB and it does seem abit messy in places. I really don't know if its going to be hit or not. For example on Monday it starts at 8pm against EE then Corrie is on at 9pm that night against ratings juggernaut New Tricks. There's going to be some very interesting numbers next week! I can see Monday's Emmerdale benefiting massively in the 7-8pm hour as many viewers will no doubt tune in at 7.30pm in search of Corrie. Emmerdale could get about 7.5m-8m next Monday IMO.

Tuesday 8pm then. ITV1 cannot break the 3m mark there anyway.

Sounds like a long shot, but would ITV1 actually benefit by moving a hit like I'm A Celeb to a summer slot? Obviously it would impact on the pre Christmas ratings, though ITV would be very well served by TXF, but IAC would at least guarantee ITV 1 at least 7 million viewers and the follow on show on ITV2 would have a million or so watching.

Celebrity MasterChef returns on Monday 12th September on BBC1, according to Daily Star TV critic Mike Ward.

Does anyone know if they've revamped the celebrity series like the normal version so if it'll be in the 9pm slot or is it back to its old pre-watershed slots?

Only one episode so far, but Fraud Squad performed well last Friday


ITV1 didn't just do slightly worse than their worst ever primetime share, they were way under it. Embarrasing is an understatement

And very good for Channel 5. A very comfortable third place


Guess the news will be at 11.01 then

It'd be the Australian winter...what's the weather like in that part of Australia in the winter? Their spring looks very much like our spring from what we've seen (a lot of rain).

It's only just really occurred to me that Million Pound Drop will be going up against Red or Black? next Saturday night.

Battle of the gameshows!

Not sure about their stock falling since then. Push The Button didn't really work but they're still big names, and remember that despite Push The Button falling throughout the first series, down to 3.9m for the last episode, it still returned with 5.9m for the first episode of series 2, which was higher than any series 1 episode except the launch. So they've clearly got a strong appeal where they can bring people in to something new, but if people don't like it they won't stick with it.

I've got a good feeling about ROB. As you've said the trailers look great and if executed well the endgame could be really tense. It should launch well, but where it goes after that depends on how good it is.

As for gameshows I agree they don't seem to be working in primetime just now outside of the lottery. The only recent success in the genre for ITV is The Cube and that doesn't even do that well. Family Fortunes is doing well this year though, and I think they should do a version for ordinary people alongside the All Star version.

In terms of gameshow launches, ITV have 2 this Autumn - Holding Out For A Hero and High Stakes. Holding Out must be starting soon as they advertised it last night during Penn and Teller. It basically looked like Secret Fortune with a lot of extra cheese! It'll probably do OK alongside TXF (likely to go on Sundays at 7pm) but I can't see it setting the world alight. High Stakes sounds pretty bad as a format and Jeremy Kyle is hosting it so I think they could have a stinker on their hands with that one.

I think High Stakes may go the same way as Duel - it'll rate around 4m, get a cult fanbase but ITV'll judge it as a flop and axe it.

I completely agree. I know they don't want their biggest shows on in the Summer but they've gone too far the other way this year and it's been a disaster. They need some solid performers in the schedule next year alongside the new stuff and the repeats. Law & Order was probably the only show in the schedule this Summer that was an established, solid-ish performer.

Looking ahead to next year they'll have Euro 2012 in June, but July and August need sorting. I agree that new Midsomer Murders like they did in 2008/2009 would be good. I can also see the next series of Monroe airing in the Summer. It won't be ready in time for the Spring again and I don't think there will be room for it in the Autumn. Providing the competition isn't too bad it could do OK, and ITV should advertise it a lot and try and 'do a Luther' with it. I think I'm right in saying that the BBC release a while back of the Olympic schedule had no BBC1 events on one Thursday and football on the other (which isn't a massive event for the UK at the Olympics) so they could probably keep it on Thursdays through the Olympics. They also need a better balance of repeats and factual. Here's what I think they should do next July and August (fantasy schedule alert!):

Monday: Quality factual such as Fraud Squad, Smugglers, Strangeways etc.
Tuesday: 8pm: Cops With Cameras, 9pm: Downton Abbey (R)
Wednesday: 8pm: Midsomer Murders (3 new episodes followed by some repeats)
Thursday: Monroe
Friday: Benidorm (R)
Saturday: Harry Potter (x6), You've Been Framed, Best of TV Burp
Sunday: 7pm: Doc Martin (R) 8pm: Family Fortunes, 9pm: Scott and Bailey

I assume Scott and Bailey will be back in the Summer again next year as it's filming from November so it won't be ready for the Spring but that seems too early for an Autumn start. It could actually prove to be a good alternative to the Olympics, particularly with the female skew, although it'd have to skip a week on the night of the Closing Ceremony. Overall though that schedule has a decent bit of new drama and a few drama repeats, plus some decent factual and Family Fortunes and the Harry Hill hour repeats adding a bit of entertainment.

Possibly. It depends where they schedule a bit. I've read that it's starting in October and will be on Saturdays before TXF, but that can't be right as that's Harry Hill's slot and I doubt they'll want it at 6pm. I think it'll go on Sundays at 7pm as both it and Holding Out For A Hero are 7 episodes, so if Hero starts on the 11th, both could run in that slot with High Stakes ending on the night of TXF Final. It has the best possible chance in that slot, but I have a bad feeling that it could go the way of The Colour of Money and be laughably bad and rate poorly because of it.

It sounds better than the Colour of Money as it at least relies on knowledge and skill as well as luck.

Colour of Money's problem was it was built up as the next best thing. It wasn't; it was a teatime gameshow (a la Deal Or No Deal) which may have done a reasonable job in that slot.

Moving existing hits to the summer is hard to justify. Especially when we're talking about 9pm shows (where the only benefit is to the news). You can immediately take the big hitters off the table - Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, I'm A Celebrity - none of them are going to move.

In a dream world, what ITV want is to find some kind of reality tentpole for the summer. In the US, these shows carry the broadcast networks in the summer while they do what ITV did this summer and take a load of swings at finding a new reality hit (usually with terrible results as has happened, once again, this summer). They tend to occupy a middleground. Yes, they're hit shows. But not so big that they need to be moved (as for example, American Idol was) out of summer. It's why ITV were so envious of Big Brother until 2007. It's why we got Celebrity Love Island. It doesn't even need to be stripped, just a couple of nights a week would do. But trying to find these shows is immensely difficult. When you do find them, they often last up to a decade.

Then there's sport. Every other year, ITV can forget about all of June and early July. I'm not sure what, if any, options there are to acquire sport rights for July/August?

The most likely thing to happen is that ITV make some better decisions for next summer without radically changing their strategy. Shift the family films to anchor Saturday nights as they did with Harry Potter in later weeks. More repeats but better selections. Perhaps have Law & Order in the stronger Thursday 9pm slot rather than the wasteland that was Sunday nights (admittedly, I have little idea how that nights issues can be easily solved without moving the soaps).

ITV1 needs a show that can fill the gap between BGT and The X Factor, maybe not a 8-10m hit but something that can draw a decent audience. I do think they should try and persuade Ramsay to do a UK version of the US style Hell's Kitchen although he's not only got Hell's Kitchen but Kitchen Nightmares and Masterchef so finding time for him to do would be hard but it would be good because it can be prerecorded with maybe a live final.

There is live swimming or live athletics every night of the Olympics (except Ceremonies).

Someone prepared a schedule of supposed highlights which either wasn't very accurate or they wanted to make the document look interesting so introduced some variety in what they considered the highlights of the day.

There will be live swimming or live athletics on BBC1 every single evening.

I'm either misinterpreting this, or have totally missed something, I haven't seen any BBC release saying which Olympic events will be on BBC One.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...r-Endemol.html

Oh dear

Channel 5 Data Bank Holiday Monday 29.08.11

06:00 Milkshake!: 154k (3.7%)
09:15 The Wright Stuff with Matthew Wright: 326k (4.1%)
11:10 The Wright Stuff Extra with Gabby Logan: 220k (2.8%)
12:05 Celebrity Big Brother (rpt): 404k (4.6%)
13:05 Neighbours: 546k (5.8%)
13:35 Mutiny on the Bounty: 646k (6.0%)
17:00 5 News at 5 with Matt Barbet: 629k (4.0%)
17:30 Neighbours (rpt): 828k (4.8%)
18:00 Meerkat Manor: 433k (2.3%)
18:30 Cowboy Builders (rpt): 499k (2.4%)
19:20 New: Alone Among Grizzlies: 937k (3.9%)
*excluding last 10 minutes: 968k (4.0%)
21:00 New Series: Soho Blues 1.06m (4.2%)
22:00 Celebrity Big Brother: 2.14m (11.3%)
*5 minute peak: 2.43m (13.8%).
23:00 Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side: 632k (6.0%)

these are full slot ratings

Good rating. Steady week on week. Bank Holidays are like another Sunday really. Did think nominations would have got more attention though.

Disaster for Neighbours yesterday. Is that its lowest ever teatime rating?

Good for CBB. As for Neighbours, I imagine some of its audience didn't expect it to be on yesterday hence the lowish rating.