but to be fair you live in Northamptonshire, so you may not get Look North, you might depends exactly where you live, but its possible you dont.

Is her name actually pronounced FosPAIRo, as Alan Dedicoat said? Or does it rhyme with prosper(o)?

Yes, I believe that is the correct pronunciation.

The Sky News TOTH namechecks are useful for something it seems.

I'm wondering if the soap agreement stretches as far as not clashing Coronation Street with Holby City. Ever since the restructure ITV1 have been struggling on certain nights due to the sheer stupidity of the schedule. While I'm glad the soaps do not pollute the weekend I think they should be used far more effectively over the week to try and boost shares. Tuesday should have an 8pm-9pm soap hour with Coronation Street (moved from Friday 7.30pm) leading into Emmerdale (moved from Tuesday 7pm) with the night just switching with Wednesday come the football switch. Thursday should hold the same schedule, with the 7pm Emmerdale moving to 7.30pm Friday to make an hour long episode. It'd bulk up Tuesday; Coronation Street would, IMO, perform better on Thursday without the night suffering and likewise Friday wouldn't dip so much. The 7pm hour can be the documentary filler and quiz shows which'd hold up better against The One Show than whatever BBC One airs at 8pm.

This diatribe is largely thanks to ITV1's dreadful figures last night. I wish 71 Degrees North had done better; it's not a bad format. As already alluded to, has their been more appropriate programme titles than Mayday Mayday and Missing Millions? Emmerdale performed reasonably well considering the lead out.

Considering the relative lack of opposition, Holby City seems slightly on the low side on BBC One; it should've at least hit 5m. The Body Farm has had a great start but we've seen Tuesday dramas drop off before on the channel. EastEnders kept around it's average figure; it appears to be steadier than Emmerdale or Coronation Street.

Shameless has lost the pull it once had. That's a poor figure and, as well as the series being too long now IMO, I think much of its original charm has been lost. The Simpsons is a very strong performer at 6pm, but I guess the Sky One broadcasts prevent Channel 4 from being tempted to air it later (alongside the 6pm episode). Seven Dwarves has seen a dramatic drop off compared to how it launched. They will be happier with the great performance from Film4 at 9pm.

Dragons' Den gained further respectability with it's repeat figure on BBC Two. The Great British Bake Off is an excellent performer - maybe that took viewers off Holby Coty but if so it just shows how the hospital drama is ripe for the picking if ITV1 put the soaps against it. Hairy Bikers also performed very well on what was a strong night for the channel.

Big Brother is continuing to leak viewers, albeit at a very slow rate. CSI has been known to get nearer 2m with a better lead out. The channel benefited from weak opposition on ITV1. The 7.30pm slot was weak again against a big soap.

I was trying to work out where I'd seen her before.

This is Look North Hull people are talking about by the way, not the Leeds or Newcastle versions.

Regarding her appearance tonight, presumably the likes of OJ Borg were busy!

You'd have thought so, but does it normally face Manchester United games for its premiere? I know last year it didn't. So I shaved a few hundred thousand off because of that.

I check my Plus 5 numbers on the BBC lottery page every night, () and on Monday night, they had a photo of OJ, saying he'd be presenting Wednesday's show, but by last night the photo had changed to one of Helen.

Although nominations does usually see a boost for the show the trouble is with a good episode by the time people here about it it is too late.

Football is back on Tuesday as of next season so Corrie will be shifting back to Wednesdays at 7.30pm.

That means they have Wednesday 8-10pm and Thursday 7.30pm-10pm to deal with. What they could really use is a replacement for The Bill but I don't think that's on the table as an option.

One option would be to experiment with the US trend of scheduling 2 hour reality shows. So take the US format of Hell's Kitchen and do it from 8-10pm weekly on Wednesdays. Or perhaps commission The Amazing Race in a similar format.

But then what do they do with Thursday? An hour long Emmerdale seems likely. So Thursdays shouldn't be quite as bad as Tuesdays are now. But there are still 2 hours to fill.

I don't think so, no, but I think the 7:30pm start time will cancel out the effects of the stronger football competition and help it remain at ~5m.

They've claimed they're going to show sitcoms or other comedy shows at 8.30pm.

The 2 hour reality show idea is one worth trying, although the format would have to be strong enough to fill the slot (so no 2 hour Biggest Loser!). Laura Mackie recently said she wants some new pre-watershed dramas so I suspect they'll have a couple of those on Wednesdays too.

As for Thursdays, when the Corrie announcement was made Fincham said that Emmerdale will remain as it is now at 7pm and 8pm and that they want some 30 minute sitcoms for 8:30pm. Again that's definitely worth trying but as we've seen before with ITV, whether those comments from Fincham still stand in a year's time is another matter entirely.

American Big Brother is very different from the UK version but yet it seems to be thriving, the housemates are much more ruthless and scheme in order to win the prizemoney. I wonder if adopting elements of it for one series would boost ratings, they would have to keep the phone voting element but I think Channel 5 should give it a shot.

That's true. Didn't help either that Twitter appeared to be down for the whole of the time BB was on. They've been promoting the hashtag all week on an ident at the beginning of the programme.

I guess the best they can realistically hope for is that it didn't drop further.

Surprised they're keeping Emmerdale split like that - it leaves them with sitcoms as the only real option. And I have a suspicion that might not work out too well! I can write the tagline already "John and Jane have a typical working class family etc" The problem with that timeslot is that they'll end up trying to appeal to soap/Emmerdale viewers and obviously being pre-watershed, it's going to be a bit safer. Although I suppose soap viewers might be looking for a laugh after 90 minutes of Eastenders and Emmerdale?

Good to see that they're looking at pre-watershed drama. Interesting to see if they're just looking for 6-8 part series or something they can potentially run for 20 weeks a year or even all year round.

Big Brother is probably the first entertainment show on Channel 5 that seems to be fully funded by the channel themselves because their recent attempts at entertainment have been co-produced and funded by a investment company called GroupM, it seems to be a good way to share the risk and reward and fill any funding gap. Channel 5 have done well to exploit product placement and AFP as well as outside funding for bigger projects.

I wonder if they make a return foray to homegrown drama whether GroupM will be used as well as traditional methods like co-productions and regional funding.

They haven't. In fact they've taken some noticeable gambles this Fall in attempt to rebuild the network. It remains to be seen if those pay off or not.


Firstly Community will air opposite The X Factor (its Parks & Rec's lead-in).

Secondly short of moving it to a new night there's nowhere NBC could have put Parks where it wouldn't have been against The X Factor - it'll run at 2 hours on Thursday through to October there's really no avoiding it. Not that anyone should be trying to avoid The X Factor.

Thirdly they need to use The Office to launch something new. As funny as Parks & Rec is it has had ample time to catch on and it hasn't.


The general prediction is that Fox will win both Fall and the season as a whole in the 18-49 demo. But that's working under the assumption that The X Factor and Terra Nova aren't complete bombs and also takes into account that Fox will be propped up by what should be a highly rated World Series this year.

CBS will finish second whilst the Sunday Night Football and Superbowl combo should see NBC finish third with ABC in fourth.


I'll be amazed if NBC are the first network to cancel something this season although that's purely for PR reasons rather than my confidence in the strength of their line-up. I'll also say that having seen the pilot I think your faith in Prime Suspect is mislaid. The Playboy Club is easily the strongest of their Fall dramas and I think in the best position to succeed. In theory it should stand out against the two procedurals it'll compete with. When it comes to The Sing-Off I don't think anyone is expecting it to be a runaway hit but I'll be surprised if it doesn't drag up their Monday night average vs. last year and I think that's really all they want from it.


The theory behind the ABC comedy block is sound (with Glee dominating the 8PM hour trying to skew male is a good idea) unfortunately I'd agree that it looks to be a disaster in the making. The quality simply isn't there. I wouldn't be overly confident about Body of Proof. It had a fairly easy time of it last year with The Good Wife on CBS but in theory Unforgettable should pose a tougher challenge. I agree though this season looks like it'll be a rocky one for ABC and it deserves to be. Outside of Modern Family they've produced several seasons of absolute disasters that have gone largely unnoticed because of the complete meltdown that has been NBC.


I remain unsure what the expectation is for Person of Interest. They can't possibly expect it to just land in that spot and be huge but by putting it in that slot they've created the expectation that it'll just land there and be huge. They seem to have set themselves up for disaster here especially as I'm not convinced it'll appeal to the in-built 'CBS audience'. I'm not sure The Mentalist will feel the pain if it bombs though. It managed to stay fairly consistent paired with a slowly dying CSI last season. Two and a Half Men is an impossible thing to predict because I have no idea what goes on in the minds of that audience...


Fox seem to have shot themselves in the foot slightly with New Girl - they released the pilot for free on iTunes and the audience reviews for it haven't been as overwhelmingly good as they hoped. However my concern for that 9PM hour isn't New Girl (the Glee lead-in should see that stay relatively fine) but Raising Hope. I predict collapse now its at 9:30 but maybe its stronger than I give it credit for. I think however that Tuesday 9:30 slot is going to become something of a deadzone for Fox.

And I remain convinced that The X Factor isn't going to be anywhere near as big as people think. I think it'll do fine but I don't think its going to be all the conquering Deathstar that American Idol is or at least was. Ultimately I think it'll be comparable to Dancing with the Stars rather than Idol but we'll see. I really hope Terra Nova pays off for them though. Ambition on that scale deserves some kind of reward and it would be nice to see something give the networks a little more confidence to be big and epic again.

I want Terra Nova to succeed because outside of HBO and occassionly Starz and Showtime, we don't see big budget dramas on the major networks but it's been plagued with problems. I do think the dinosaurs look a bit fake but that based on the trailer, having watched Planet Dinosaur, it amazes me that despite how far CGI has developed, the dinosaurs in Jurrassic Park still hold up and look realistic.

I watched that live and it was really funny.

Ant and Dec are quoted in The Sun this morning as saying Red or Black may be axed.

Oh dear, Daybreak - at least get the name of the show you're plugging (at 7 minutes past the hour) right. It's Downton Abbey, not Downtown Abbey.

Here's an interesting one - Perfect Couples (Thurs, 8:30pm, E4) - logged a very poor AI score of 62 for its premiere last week. I don't actually recall ever seeing such a low AI score for a programme on a digital channel. I wonder if that will be reflected in the numbers tomorrow?

There was an effusive article in the Mirror two days ago giving a huge puff to Downton and saying it was on BBC1

They are not the first ones to make that mistake either!