Well that's on a smaller channel, but if you think about it, the only hit ITV1 has had in recent years in the celebreality genre is IAC, as Hell's Kitchen ran out of steam, Marco was a disaster, WAGs Boutique was abysmal and shunted into a late night slot and best not mention the one on Fiji

I do wonder what Channel 5 could do because while Celebrity Big Brother is a solid performer, Big Brother is struggling and unfortunately they've still got 8 weeks to go. I wonder if they could negiotate to have two Celebrity Big Brother series a year.

Out of interest Dancc, what are the week starting 1st October's films on Channel 5.

Good point, totally forgot about that! In which case, I'm not sure. Maybe Thursday or Friday at 9pm, but apart from that, ITV2 it is.

Apparently not possible because Endemol want to do at least 13 weeks of BB a year and celebrities won't agree to doing very long stretches.


No premieres that week. They have a nasty habit lately of changing the films at the last minute anyway. The House Bunny was supposed to be shown this week, I wouldn't be surprised if it pops up that week when the final schedules come out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...v-sports-panel

Sounds like a cross between They Think It's All Over and the (very!) short-lived Taking the Pitch.

I think when the two year deal is up, they should try and get Endemol to agree to just airing Celebrity Big Brother.

Channel 5 did well last year with premeries like 300, Beowulf and 10,000 BC but I think Big Brother prevents them from airing anything at 9pm. Channel 4 seems to be airing a premiere a week.

I think if they have any family films they should maybe air them from 6.30-7pm and have a series at 9pm so for example:

7pm Monsters Inc
9pm Paul Merton's Great Escapes
10pm Big Brother
11pm late Film.

I suspect it'll be a complete reboot with new cast members. I agree that it wouldn't do well on ITV1 though. ITV2 seems the best place for it as it could be the flagship drama they need. The budget is huge but will probably be split several ways, so ITV2 could afford to have a hand in it.

Elsewhere, terrific rating for Billy Connolly last night. I thought he'd do well but not that well! Nice rebound for Torchwood but still a low rating and they won't be desperate for more. Excellent for Celebrity Juice and a solid conclusion for Trollied.

As for Big Brother, oh dear. What a disaster. Don't get me wrong, the celebrity series did well but this week has been catastrophic for them. 1.16m is a hideous rating for it and being beaten by Celebrity Juice says it all. I just think people aren't interested in the show anymore. Sure, they'll have a look in on the celebrity version, but the normal version is way past its sell by date and people don't care anymore. The show itself is just a celebration of inanity, as Alison Graham put it, and reviving it now would appear to be a mistake.

Provisional schedules are out for October 1st, which, if they stay as they are will mark the very first time that Doctor Who and The X Factor are up against one another:

BBC One
6:00pm - Strictly Come Dancing
7:05pm - Doctor Who
7:55pm - The National Lottery: Secret Fortune
8:45pm - Casualty
9:35pm - Live at the Apollo
10:05pm - BBC News

ITV1
6:00pm - New You've Been Framed!
6:30pm - All Star Family Fortunes
7:30pm - The X Factor
9:25pm - The Jonathan Ross Show
10:25pm - ITV News and Weather

That X Factor show - the first Bootcamp show - was the same length last year for anyone wondering.

Only other main point of note is that The Pride of Britain Awards air on Wednesday 5th October at 8pm on ITV1.

Media Guardian has more info on the odd scheduling - basically the Friday primetime episode is a three minute round up of Mon-Wed, then the first half hour of Thursdays, with the Saturday episodes then the last part from Thursday and Friday episode repeated. Absolutely ridiculous scheduling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...ity-masterchef

I can see the BBC though repeating this quite swiftly on BBC2 at 5.15pm in response to the complaints.


Substitute for "meidocre" or "disappointing" and that line tells a different story.


A bit of relief for ITV1 with that - no way it would have got that in a Tuesday night slot.


Neighbours seems to be another commission C5 picked up from elsewhere without really thinking of the consequences - it didn't do Home and Away any favours at all and although I'm really over simplyfying things here, Home and Away seems to have performed worse since Neighbours joined C5 than it did beforehand.


So place your bets - tonight at 11pm (looking more and more likely), tomorrow at 10.15pm or Sunday versus Downton/Spook/Xtra Factor.


C5's biggest problem is even if they did a big relaunch they've got to get the message out there - and their big problem is C5 doesn't have the casual audience even C4 had - and the Daily Star isn't as big as it thinks it is.


They'd been running with the rich/poor divide for 4 of the last 5 series - so they basically dropped that and tweaked the house slightly and put three former housemates in and a porn star with big tits - who I think they featured in every eviction show once she'd left too.


C5 and some of the media were far too quick to brand Celeb BB a hit - it wasn't. It just wasn't the flop myself and some others expected it to be.

The short sighted strategy is costing C5 now - arguably had they launched with the regular version they'd have still got a healthy 4-5m for the launch and the higlights would have got less than CBB, they'd have surely got more than the 1.2m the show is getting now - and carried those viewers over into weeks 4-12 too.


I think Holding out for a Hero will take the title.

700k (14%) for it yesterday? By BBC1 daytime standards, that's awful.

its still early, no need to hand out the award for a couple more months.

I think that we can expect to see a massive timeshift for DW then.

Well if we were to dish out awards for ratings flops of the year, my nominations would be Born To Shine, The Marriage Ref, Don't Scare The Hare and Red or Black, the hype killed this and it did little better than most other ITV1 Saturday night shows. However, should BB fall below 1 million and stay there, then this will join the list.
Would it be possible for Channel 5 to axe the summer BB and just have CBB?

I thought Merlin was supposed to be on does that mean its on the Sunday for that week.

Oh come on - it clearly was at 2.5m.

What makes you think you know better than 99% of the broadcast media that declared it a hit? I did a roundup at the time and it was overwhelmingly positive, bar about one outlet which took a slightly negative stance.

You yourself said it had "no chance" of clearing 4m for the launch, which shows how wrong you were about its ratings potential.

I'm disappointed because I was starting to think your contributions were getting better and you were being a bit fairer in your analysis - then you undo it all with a stupid comment like that. :sleep:

I wonder if any heads will roll at Channel 5 or will the blame be placed solely on Richard Desmond as he was the one he wanted the show. I think that they must be internal discussions of how the regular series is struggling whereas CBB was a success, it's not often where the same format will be considered both a hit and a flop.

I don't see how anyone can argue about CBB. It was roughly in line with how summer BB has performed for the last couple of years, the % wasn't that much down on the previous CBB and Channel 5 beat Channel 4 almost every night both in slots and shares for the 3 weeks it was on.

Launching with BB first would have been pointless. CBB is the one with the wider draw and by establishing the audience for CBB, they were hoping 80% most would carry over to ordinary BB. Its fine in theory but it hasn't worked out. If they launched with BB, the novelty of Channel 5's BB would have worn off by January and CBB would have pulled in a smaller audience.

CBB is the one that the tabloids wanted to keep after the last Big Brother, they weren't too fussed about the main series so there would have been small interest in it anyway, just maybe not this low. But it does seem to have a stable following of around 1.3m. I really do think Channel 5 should keep CBB on Channel 5 in January but move the summer series to 5*. With the right promotional push it could do well for the channel getting 500k-1m viewers per night. 5* is a channel that is really lacking and whilst it could make a loss on 5* (depending on how the budget is distributed), a big show could really help them build the profile of the channel and launch a lot of shows off the back of it, so it could be more of an investment than a cash cow. There just isn't the public interest in ordinary BB anymore.

IIRC Big Brother's Celebrity Hijack pulled in a decent audience fo E4 so maybe launching BB on Channel 5 before switching it to 5* like Channel 4 did with CH could work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...-4-big-brother
Channel 4 'not struggling without Big Brother'

The typical thing is - this current series is infinitely superior to Celebrity Big Brother. More is happening for a start. It's got all the dramas you would expect from Big Brother. Okay so it's not the most diverse cast in the world, but they are certainly serving up an entertaining hour of TV at the moment. If the show was poor I would feel less bad about the low ratings. As it is, it's a kick in the teeth.

I'm not going to comment about heads rolling and stuff but I do think Channel 5 would have been absolutely mad not to at least strongly consider Big Brother when Channel 4 dropped it, whoever happened to be calling the shots. If it fails, the plug will be pulled next year and the monies will be pumped into something else I'd imagine. The good news for Channel 5 is, they still have as much money to spend on other programmes as they did before Big Brother, so this will absolutely not break them. Unfortunately it doesn't currently look as though it will "make" them either. But hey-ho...

I'm not bitter, just very very disappointed for everyone involved. There's still a long way to go though.

It's only a two year contract so they'll learn from their mistakes and try and work with Endemol to ensure that both CBB and BB are a success especially Endemol who probably don't want to lose the UK as a major market for BB.

Airing it back to back with CBB was a mistake but Channel 5 won't be doing it again.

Endemol have finally got BBUK and BB Australia back on air, and along with BBUS which is going from strength to strength, they make up the big 3 and the most expensive worldwide. They won't let BBUK go completely without a fight. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see CBB eventually move to ITV1 and BB move to ITV2 should ITV's Endemol bid materialise and if Channel 5 choose not to renew it.

And that's the problem - this show has been run by the tabloids this year, not by people who know television.


LOL - had a shit day today and that statement of irony has put a smile on my face.

I kept relatively quiet via CBB and said the show was doing better than I thought it would - but now my original points stand. C5 revives it far too quickly and as a result BB will probably be axed again next year and be off our screens for many more years to come, indeed if it ever returns at all. I honestly believe if Endemol had waited a few years they could have got a decent second run from the franchise of a few years - especially if they concentrated on the core non-celebrity format.


That I almost agree with you on - it's a much easier watch than BB10 or BB8 for example. I do think there is a bit too much emphasis on the fauxmances and they do need to step up the tasks - but it is a better series than the ratings it's getting, and unlike Celeb BB, actually watchable.


Last things first and although I know they've said that about the budget with ratings as they are I wonder if that'll remain the case. The problem too is should C5 axe BB next year will they get the surplus £40m to play with too or will Desmond keep it for himself.

And agree C5 had to at least consider it after C4 axed it - but the problem is they didn't really spend enough time considering how they needed to address the issues that led to it being axed and the impact it would have on it's schedules. C5 just seemed to think it worked very well once for C4 so it'll work well for us too.

Big Brother needed a lot of work doing to it before it returned to air if it had any chance of succeeding - but it seems C5 have done virtually nothing.

That sounds exactly like the old ITV series With A Little Help With My Friends, where a celebrity carried out a charity project and was reunited with old mates while they were doing it, and it didn't do very well.



But you're never going to find a BBC Chairman who watches loads of TV, because the kind of people who are valuable as Chairman in terms of business experience and lobbying are never going to watch lots of television. He has said that he listens to a lot of BBC Radio and likes the kinds of shows a white middle-aged former MP would like, but he's not been hired for his views on who should be on Strictly or anything, he's been hired to represent the Beeb's interests against politicians and other organisations, which as a former MP he is perfectly adept at.

In addition, he's also in the papers today vigorously defending the Beeb against another stupid attack from Jeremy Hunt, saying it was absolutely vital that BBC News is big and has reporters everywhere, which is exactly right. Sadly he's right that when people prioritise what they want from the Beeb, news and factual programmes are clearly top because they can't be left to the market. But he's mentioned drama is important too, and the reason entertainment is less so is because a million other channels do it. He doesn't say they want to stop doing it completely, he's simply saying that's the kind of decision they have to make. If anything it's good for the Beeb he is out there saying it so people know what's going on rather than sweeping it under the carpet and blindly accepting it.

I'd rather many more people became Chairman of the BBC than a former Tory MP but he certainly seems to be saying the right things, I think.


Well, I hope this is good because Alistair McGowan is a brilliant impressionist, he's amazing at them and he's now incorporated the likes of John Bishop, Colin Murray and Dara O'Briain in his act and they're fabulous, and I'm pleased to see he's back doing what he does best instead of boring serious acting.

In addition I'd be glad to see a show that actually takes the piss out of sport, like Fantasy Football, rather than doing jokes about Beckham being thick and Rooney being ugly, but actually has a knowledge and interest in sport and can laugh at it from an informed perspective.