Born to Shine is just embarrassing.

More often than not though the BB lead-in leads to the BB spin off, so it's completely wasted.


End of an era indeed. Wonder if Comedy Central will pick up the very next week or whether they'll be a few weeks without Friends on TV. I don't know if such records are noted but Friends is surely one of the most, if not the most, repeated shows on television. E4 alone must have shown the first series at least 20 times (40 actually considering the 5pm and 8pm slot) - and before The Simpsons came along C4 regularly had it at 6pm and still air it in mornings and during T4, so it's probably been shown at around 50 times.

The most obvious challenger to that I can think of is The Crystal Maze on Challenge - only about 80 episodes of that and it's rarely out of Challenge's schedule.


Although arguably now the months Big Brother isn't on air is kind of more important for C5. It's important to remember with C4 it wasn't just Big Brother that boosted it a decade or so ago - shows like Faking It and Wife Swap came along, as well as drama such as Shameless and No Angels and all the property stuff which rejuvenated the schedules in the wake of Brookside - but arguably like so many C4 shows stick around that little bit longer than they should do.


That's the problem though - in 14 years we're still very much talking about C5 and drama in the singular.

P.S. Re: The Transporter series - strange HBO are co-producing but not opting to air it (says alot). I guess the Sky deal is for shows they air rather than shows they produce?

(BTW, Curb your Enthusiasm remains on More4 and returns in the autumn).


I don't get why BBC2 didn't have Dragons at 9pm then MOTD2 at 10pm. There was no real justification for MOTD to be on BBC1 last night. It does seem typhical BBC though - they have all summer with little post-watershed commitment at the weekend, then wait for the new season to begin airing films at 9pm.


Ah, Parliament though is closing even earlier than normal next year under the excuse they'll be easing the traffic two weeks before the opening ceremony.

Not liking these plans though - extending BBC3 almost certainly indicates (to me anyway) they won't be airing the games on BBC2 during the day (repeats of Cash in the Attic are of much greater PSB value), so along with the already axed interactive stream Freeview folk will effectively be losing another channel too.

Or Single Handed - though I think they're just burning it off; as it's a co-production they don't have to be quite so concerned with it's income as they spent less on it.

Prediction Game new week: Channel 4's latest ob-doc Seven Dwarves launches, Twilight adds a bit of spice midweek, a magic Who Do You Think You Are? with JK Rowling, Celebrity Big Brother comes back from the dead on a new channel, a rather different looking lineup for all new X Factor, original British drama in the form of The Man Who Crossed Hitler and more...

Click here for the full schedule and to submit your predictions before the 9:30am deadline.

Thank you, will be a very interesting week ratings wise!

It will indeed. After a pretty uneventful summer things seem to be stepping up a gear in TV land.

It seems like this week will be when the ratings start getting interesting again as Margin said

Its not being burnt off - its a 2nd series recommission which rates only about 3.5m first series. ITV knew what they were getting and ok its a joint commission so the costs are shared with RTE.

I thought The Transporter was going to air on HBO's Cinemax channel? It's also the home of the HBO/Sky1 co-production Strike Back

Cinemax is a completely seperate operation to HBO, it has the same owners but it is ran has a completely seperate organisation for obvious reasons.

It most certainly doesn't have the HBO branding because in the US it is mostly famous for it soft core porn shows

Current Cinemax programming includes Lingerie, Forbidden Science and Femme Fatales. I think Sky Atlantic would get a ratings boost if they accquired these. I believe Strikeback is their first move in diversifing their programming.

If I'm to be honest, instead of:

Sun - Law and Order (N)
Mon - Show Me the Funny (N)
Tue - Homes from Hell (N)
Wed - Lewis (R)
Thu - Single-Handed (N)
Friday - documentaries (N)

I would have done:

Sun - Law and Order (N)
Mon - Homes from Hell (N)
Tue - Downton Abbey (R)
Wed - Lewis (R)
Thu - Single-Handed (N)
Friday - Benidorm (R)

With The Royal in the 8pm slot on Sundays and airing a few weeks later, so Law and Order gets a good lead-in.

Yes, more repeats, but at least you save face with no embarrassing ratings, Benidorm would get ~3m to 4m in repeats if you repeat Series 1, while Downton Abbey would get similar probably.

Show Me the Funny would go on ITV2, documentaries either Sunday at 7pm or 10:35pm on a weekday.

Agree with everything there. Your still getting new programming on 3 nights at 9pm, 4 if you include Saturday and the repeats are going to do better than the cheap rubbish that has aired there recently.

If any parliament or assembly gets recalled BBC Parliament comes back onto Freeview and takes priority (think it remains on other platforms throughout the Olympics). Though if a recall is needed then surely the BBC News Channel, and potentially BBC2 Daily Poliitics will be covering live anyway


I guess the idea is to have an 'adult' channel broadcasting a variety of programming (i.e. not just news or politics) all day with no Olympic content for those not interested. Certainly hope it's not just all of BBC1 daytime on BBC2 but I can see why the BBC have done this

Because of the soaps running all year, ITV are never likely to give up in the summer like the US networks. But I'd definitely put on more repeats - things like Downton Abbey & Doc Martin could benefit from getting primetime repeats ahead of their next series. Put family movies at the centre of the Saturday schedule. Perhaps have just the one original UK drama - either Monday or Thursday.


Well yes, but they do have a bit more money to do that! And because they're taking a dozen shots at new drama in one month, they can afford for some of them to be big, expensive, bold ideas so long as they have a couple of steady procedurals.


True - that's partly because they spend more evenly across the year. And they do seem to have a bigger "base" audience than ITV (just as ITV have a larger base than Channel 4).


Possibly - although usually Endemol/Fremantle will be all over them and distributing them internationally before long.

There are at least 30 other channels though for any non-Olympic fans - and at my count 19 on Freeview which largely fall into the general entertainment category. I think this is an occassion where the BBC should really be doing what the viewer needs and not what the complainer wants and essentially forcing people who would otherwise watch Bargain Hunt repeats to watch a moment in British history, not a cheap daytime repeat.

I like their traffic excuse!

The second last paragraph of this blog...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/rogermose...d_to_read.html

...seems to suggest BBC Two daytime might be used in part for Olympics coverage, because they're only giving BBC Two peak a commitment to be Olympics free. Although, the wording earlier in the blog made me assume BBC Two daytime would be Olympics free. Maybe that's just me being thick, though.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charnham - skittles the game!

Who are you saving face from though?

Running more repeats starts to the attention of the general public who aren't aware of ratings.

Many of the programmes BBC1 have done well with this year haven't been notably expensive. It doubt DIY SOS costs a lot to make.

ITV1's 9pm ratings for the past week:

Mon - 1.87m (7.5%)
Tue - 1.84m (7.6%)
Wed - 3.38m (14.6%) [8pm to 10pm]
Thu - 3.06m (13.3%)
Fri - 2.72m (12.7%)
Sat - 2.42m (11.8%)
Sun - 3.91m (16.3%)

Are those figures acceptable? Averaging approx 2.78m (12.0%) across the 9pm hour for ITV1 any week regardless of time of year is dire.

Press screening has taken place tonight of new Doctor Who episode 'Let's Kill Hitler' (no spoilers attached).

http://twitter.com/#!/radiotimes

That's ITV2, home of The Only Way Is Essex, Peter Andre Here 2 Help and Kerry Katona: The Next Chapter. Please! They have standards

SMTF is repeated on ITV4. It's clearly regarded as a bloke programme.

That's how ITV works, isn't it?
ITV1 for everyone (theoretically. When it's not summer.)
ITV2 for the ladies.
ITV3 for posh people
ITV4 for blokes.

(As an aside, shouldn't Celebrity Juice be on ITV4 rather than ITV2?)


The BBC will argue they have to represent all licence-payers.

Considering BBC1 managed 8m+ once and 5m+ four times in the same period, not really.

Across this week the only BBC1 9pm hour programme to rate lower than ITV's highest rated programme in the above list was My Family.

Cinemax is trying to postion itself as a competitor to Starz with action series rather than HBO style content hence stuff like Strike Back and The Transporter.

Starz is pushing ahead with original content with Boss starring Kelsey Grammer in October, Spartacus: Vegeance in January, Magic City in April and Noir in summer, I would think Torchwood should it be renewed will more likely be 2013 than 2012.

the Celebrity Big Brother launch is one of the most interesting ratings to predict in ages IMO.

There are all sorts of factors in play: will the viewers find their remotes and switch Channel4 to Channel5? is the appetite for the programme still there? will Desmond's control of the Daily Star and Express help draw in the viewers? will Channel5 really spend big to get the big names in?

for the record Channel5's highest audience ever is 5.6 million for an England Football game in 1999.

the last Celeb BB launched with 6.2million.

ITV do seem to be treading an odd middle-ground with summers over the past couple of years. There's no shortage of new content (6 of the 7 flagship 9pm slots last week) but its all got a rather 'churned-out' quality to it. Like they're just hoping to throw enough at the wall (preferably from ITV Studios) and then cross their fingers that something sticks. After the failure of the summer Saturday schedule last year - with three brand new, unsupported shows - it was silly to do basically the same thing again and expect different results.

Really they should either choose the eminently sensible solution D.M.N proposes, or else take the plunge with some properly established hits to try and hang new shows off. I don't necessarily think the latter would be totally crazy when you look at the evidence from the BBC:

- New Tricks is way up on last years' September/October airing, probably thanks to limited competition.

- The Apprentice was up for a July finale this year as opposed to a December finale last year.

- Top Gear took advantage of limp competition on Sundays, and Dragon's Den has picked up where it left off.

On the whole, I think these shows have actually benefitted from their summer slots, where competition might have pinned them down in other seasons in the past. I know the ad rates are lower in summer than, say, in Q4, and thats going to play heavily on ITV's thinking - but I would love to see how a couple of genuinely big shows fared should they ever be risked.


I'm stunned that Downton Abbey hasn't had a primetime repeat run this summer, actually. It would have been the very first thing i penciled into the schedule upon seeing how it took off late last year. BBC One seem to make much cannier use of repeat runs for hot new series as they have with Sherlock and Miranda this summer. They might only get 3-4m but if even half of those are new viewers...