from a money perspective it would look as if Five have no option but to run BB in the Autumn when ad revenue is higher than during the summer. Conversely though they can get higher ratings in the summer when competition is slacker. So its catch 22 really for Five I'd say.

Channel 4 has confirmed two weeks of Deal or No Deal Live next month

For anyone wondering, the latest Ofcom bulletin has the highest complaints at 94 for a particular show - that being Britain's Got Talent on 4th June. Shows currently being investigated include Cowboy Builders, Police Interceptors and Torchwood. An investigation into Candy Bar Girls' adverts showed Channel 5 to be in breach: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...189/obb189.pdf

No major Big Brother complaints in the list at the end although it does only stretch to 22nd August.

The trouble is nothing ever changes as a result of an ''investigation'' by OFCOM because the individuals responsible are not penalised and the broadcaster simply issues an apology.

Interesting night. The football performed solidily for ITV1. And it the process reduced WR to a fairly average sort of rating. I was expecting it to be closer to 5m as I assume it attracts a completely different audience. I wonder how it will fair against Corrie next week? If if does badly, the BBC might decide to shift it back to 8pm and Corrie is eventually reinstated to that 7.30pm Wednesday slot late next year!

Emmerdale did fine (6.5m tape-checked as it ended at 7.25 last night). WDYTYA did fine as usual and can hold its audience against all sorts of shows it seems. Grand Designs made a nice return with over 3m inc. +1. And finally its another 1.4m rating for BB. Least its audience is steady if nothing else. However, why does BB have two eviction shows on Friday? Surely that 11pm edition is going to flop? One show is fine, like they did with CBB. At least when C4 did this, there second show went out at 10.35pm.

It depends on the severity of the breach. GMTV and others received significant fines for breaches regarding premium rate phone lines a few years ago.

After this amount of time (and lack of promotion fron Channel 5, and lack of tabloid coverage), I would suggest that the casual viewer will be unlikely to return, it is as you say, the loyal hardcore BB fanbase that is delivering the ratings.

I think C5 will see how this coming eviction goes and change it immediately if it doesn't work. Late changes have occurred recently with Big Brother. Most notably on Celebrity Big Brother finale night a week ago today, when The Inside Story was dropped and the start time brought forward by half an hour.

The idea presumably is to boost The Bachelor, although given BB is not at full strength right now the effects you would imagine are going to be minimal.

Maybe with hindsight it might have been better for Channel 5 just to commission CBB and leave BB, as the celebrity version always rated better. CBB at least has people you know and some of us do like to see Jedward suffer
One show which does seem to be a solid performer that doesn't get mentioned on here, but is a good thing to eat your dinner to, Eggheads. 2 million see this as the perfect alternative to depressing news.

The only promising thing about BB12 ratings, is that is had a smaller % drop than most series from launch to the first 4 days. CBB went frlom 5.2m to 2.2m in 4 days.

So 2.6m and then a static 1.4-1.5m is a healthy drop, so I blame it on the low launch, otherwise it would have done much better.

Not an awful lot to write home about for many of the terrestrials last night. Channel 4 can be satisfied with how its old timers, Location and Grand Designs performed. They need them at the moment - cause there's not an awful lot of stability elsewhere on the schedule.


No particularly impressive for pre-watershed BBC One, really. I think they'll be quite disappointed with Planet Dinosaur which seems to have been afforded quite a significant amount of promotion. It's frustrating really, because the channel receives a fair amount of flak for 'blandness' in pre-watershed slots (and often, rightly so) but as this shows, the lack of strong slots or scheduling freedom tends to make life very difficult for anything a bit more ambitious.

I can't help but wonder what prompted the BBC to schedule Planet Dinosaur for a Wednesday night surely it would have been better suited to Sunday night (possibly in the early evening slot currently held by Natures Miracle Babies) or if they were feeling adventurous as part of the Saturday night line-up? It seems to me it might have been a good fit for that 'difficult' Saturday tea time slot that has to appeal to such a broad audience and has so far this year produced disaster like Don't Scare the Hare and Epic Win.

Don't know if this has been posted yet but the BBC have confirmed Merlin for week 40 although haven't confirmed the day or time yet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pro...nplaced_merlin

There also a 4 part drama called Hidden with Phillip Glenister. It says Merlin returns with a 2 part opener so maybe its on both saturday and Sunday, it could easily fit between countryfile at 6 and Antiques Roadshow at 8, there isn't a strictly Results show this week as the scores are held over until the following week and all dancers have danced twice, that makes me wonder if Stictly is also on Friday for the second week running, my guess it doesn't say that.

C4 Autumn Press Pack: http://www.channel4.com/info/press/p...011-press-pack

And quizzes involving premium rate phone lines are still running on Daybreak.I was thinking more in terms of sanctions against the individuals responsible, not fines simply paid by the company.

Also, apart from the Daily Star, the other two redtops virtually ignore it and the celeb mags don't seem that keen either.

There's a case of chicken or the egg about this. Are the press not covering it because the audience are apathetic toward the show? Or is the audience apathetic toward the show because the press aren't covering it?

Week 12 of the Predictions Game: Among other shows in the schedule this week, The X Factor USA takes on the might of a newly rehomed Glee as ITV2 and Sky1 do battle, Channel 4 serves up new drama in the form of Fresh Meat, Midsomer Murders returns to ITV1, and current favourites including Downton Abbey and Outnumbered continue.

Submit your predictions now >>

Always an interesting question, people always assume the Tabs have loved BB since it started, not true.

They were very sneery about it until the Nasty Nick thing, in BB1. A lot of them were saying it would be a one-off after that, the winner of BB1 was signed up as a commentator on Survivor by the Scum, because they considered that would be the new big show, Yet Helen, Paul, Brian soon became household names. T

The Mirror under Piers Morgan, just wrote truly vicious stuff about BB3, the highest rated BB show ever, lost 100 of thousands of readers, he then changed it to the "official anti-bb paper" and started putting BB headlines on the front page again, and he then got a brief surge, but still massively down on what they were when the show had started. Piers called that a success, in his inimitable way.

For a while after that they all gave up and reported it slavishly, but the Star has been the only one to remain massively involved in the three series or so.

Maybe the timeshifts will tell a different story (bearing in mind the football on ITV)

Maybe the falling ratings and the rise of TXF in the late noughties made The Sun move away from its earlier support for BB. Also something like The Sun is far more likely to cover a show with five times the audience of BB. Yet should TXF falter, then the knives will be out.

Yes, commiting mass fraud and stealing money from viewers is different to a few lewd/risque moments in a show.


Its also number one on the iPlayer chart.

Meanwhile over in America

After a so-so start for Parenthood last night NBC had much better news with the debut of new comedy Up All Night it pulled a 3.7 in the 18-49 and appears to have grown out of its America's Got Talent lead-in (3.5 although AGT has been getting upward adjustments in finals). That's a huge improvement on the now cancelled Outlaw's debut in the same slot last year. Free Agents which debuted immediately after Up All Night brought NBC back to earth with a bump though it scored just a 2.1 which isn't a great sign. Both shows will move to 8PM next week.

Elsewhere Survivor premiered down vs. last year with a 3.4 making Up All Night the biggest show of the night. The CW's new reality show H8R's pulled a 0.6 whilst America's Top Model returned with 0.9 down 31% vs. last year. Both those numbers make yesterdays performance by Ringer look fantastic.

So

America's Got Talent Finale - 3.5
Up All Night - 3.7
Free Agents - 2.1

Survivor: South Pacific - 3.4
Big Brother Finale - 2.9

America's Next Top Model - 0.9
H8R - 0.6

(ABC is still in repeats)

Link

The tide turned fully in 2009. Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor soared to astronomical heights, Big Brother slumped to record low's.

2008 versus 2009
- Big Brother: 3.6m vs 2.5m (27.8% drop)
- Britain's Got Talent: 10.2m to 13.4m (31.4% increase)
- The X Factor: 10.5m to 13.0m (23.8% increase)

Had Big Brother in 2009 averaged about ~3.3m, I bet it would still be on Channel 4 today.