I wonder where ITV might schedule this - possibly post-watershed, say Sunday 10pm - or perhaps straight into the Harry Hill slot if it's off a similar vein, or a candidate for the new Thursday 8.30pm comedy slot.

At the bottom, I spot this from Adam Crozier regarding Red or Black: "It launched higher than either The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent. It's the biggest entertainment show launched this year. It averaged 5.2 million viewers across the week. It was an absolute smash online and it caught the imagination."

Which show was he watching?


I actually remember watching that as well when it was on.

The money saved from Big Brother on Channel 4 went into drama and factual and while it hasn't produced huge ratings, it'll help them in the long run.

We're talking about Channel 5 now though - it's owner has pumped in extra money specifically for Big Brother. When Big Brother goes, will the money go too?

Or much in the way of new drama or factual content.

Looking at the complete lack of movement at Channel 4 over the past 12 months I do find myself wondering if what they paid for Big Brother has been vastly overstated. I just don't understand how they could have been investing that kind of money into their programming budget and still have nothing to show for it. Unless I'm just forgetting a huge wave of new content what exactly has Channel 4 launched this year that they couldn't or wouldn't have launched if they'd still been airing Big Brother? Famous and Fearless (or whatever that trainwreck was called) is about all I can remember...

Now the ratings have dropped Five are (deservedly) catching heat for Big Brother but I still think the story remains the complete lack of movement at 4. Nothing is happening there at all.

On the subject of Big Brother on Five I don't think there's any need to panic about the long term future of Big Brother just yet. The real panic can begin if Five and Endemol don't change the format for next years run. I think with the right format changes the show still has legs. When does the new version launch in Australia? Will that be early enough in 2012 for Five to be able to incorporate aspects of that into the UK version (assuming its successful)?

I don't envision a situation where Richard Desmond is going to be heavily investing in new drama or factual content but I would imagine that if Big Brother dies next year he'll invest in a new reality format of some kind. At this point it seems as if he brought Five purely to create new content for his publishing arm. And actually by that measure it'll be interesting to see how much of a success Big Brother is or isn't. Will Desmond continue to throw millions at the format if its having a positive impact on sales of the Star and OK?

Well if there is little interest in BB, they'll be little interest in the ex-HMs the Daily Star and OK! try to flog. Indeed stick them on the cover and they might to them more harm than good.

Last night was a good one for BBC One yet again. Yes, Torchwood's figures can be argued as poor but it didn't collapse entirely; instead staying around the 3.9m mark. Question Time performed very well in the late night slot, EastEnders is keeping a string number entertained and Watchdog is an excellent show to air against the (stupidly scheduled) ITV soaps.

Mock the Week performed very well for BBC Two which proves that the lead in is not the be all and end all as How Facebook Changed the World rated quite poorly, Monty Hall did pretty poorly against tough opposition.

Emmerdale did ok share wise for the 7pm episode but the 8pm episode performed poorly and effected Coronation Street - yet again - in the process. However Billy Connolly's Route 66 performed very well at 9pm. The question is whether it sustains that level but it's a good start.

Hollyoaks performed decently for Channel 4 and House Rescue did reasonably well at 8pm but The Killing USA is struggling, especially back to back, though one plus point is it doesn't lose many episodes between the 9pm episode and the 10pm episode.

The football pulled in a strong figure for Channel 5, but Big Brother was dented by the later start - it should bounce back tonight. Bit On The Side still did ok, though; I guess it's always a late show so a slightly later start doesn't effect it quite so much.

Not necessarily. There will still be interest amongst those that are watching. Take TOWIE for example. Their audience is similar sized to BB but is a hit mainly due to the channel. It all depends on how invested viewers get, and the two programmes appear to have a similar demographic. Those that read Daily Star and OK! will generally be within the BB target bracket anyway. I read on this site the other day that internet searches for Big Brother is at an all time high, so the interest is there from those that are watching (as shown by BOTS ratings), just not for wider audiences.

The wider interest is all about Celebrity Big Brother these days which is why I think ordinary BB should move to 5*. It could get a healthy audience for that channel and still shift Desmond papers whilst CBB should get a bump from lack of casual viewers in the summer series.

I suppose the other question for Five will be whether or not they can launch a Big Brother 'spin-off'. They tried that with the winner of the last series on Channel 4 but it didn't work out so well for them but they may very well try again.

With the Bachelor brand up and running now Big Brother could be a good feeding ground for that and The Bachelorette spin-off if that goes ahead. And could we soon be living in a world where Kerry Katona has a prime time show on Five?

I get the impression that Five will be much more willing to try and launch new shows with Big Brother contestants than 4 ever were.

channel 5s net format could be "Beauty and the Geek" seems to fit with Big Brother and The Bachelor.

Moment of truth on MPD.

Clearly Crozier was not watching ITV1. I assume Simon Cowell wrote the script for him

Kerry is still doing her ITV2 show, I don't think she'll be moving to Channel 5 in a hurry. Whilst shes on ITV2, she'll get a lot of exposure on ITV daytime shows and will get to appear on programmes like Celebrity Juice. She won't get those opportunities at Channel 5.


I'm really interested to see how MPD and BB both do tonight. CBB just edged ahead in the first week and last week with the BB launch MPD dropped to 1.4m. The combined audience between the two is usually around 4m and whilst I wouldn't be surprised if it got 1.8m, I also wouldn't be surprised to see it get 2.4m. It depends how good/bad BB does, another figure I'm intrigued to see. With the peaks being 1.6/1.8m, it could do a lot better than most are expecting, but with it seeming steady around 1.4m and last nights drop to 1.2m, it could just as easily do very badly (relatively speaking).

With regards to Red or Black, we may be underestimating how well it does online. Million Pound Drop often drives up to 100k unique hits over the hour which is an absolute gold mine for online advertisers.

if he serious said that, and I had shares in ITV, I would be selling them right now, that kinda of comment is unforgivable, and shows he knows almost nothing about TV.

If I was ever lucky enough to go to the cinema with BBC Breakfast's Susanna Reid, I would remember her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13809734

I honestly forgot she had the ITV2 show. The things you can block out when you try.

Tashie, the first housemate to be evicted from BB12, is trending worldwide on Twitter. The 5th most tweeted term. Normally I don't pay too much attention but it's the first time I believe in a week that I've seen it trending so could be a good sign for the ratings.

Wow expensive night for Channel 4 with big payouts on MPD.

I like him. He did some good sports-related stand up spots on Auntie's Sporting Bloomers in the 1990s.

I wonder if he'll work his Dot Cotton into the new show?

Possibly, yeah. My guesses are 1.5m for the 9pm show and 1.1m for the 11pm show. I think what they need to be going for is just a 0.1-0.2m improvement each week, so that by the end of the series they're near to or at 2m most nights. It won't be easy but it is doable. The producers need to be engineering controversy and using the controversy to advertise the show more widely. They need to act and act fast, as it's sink or swim time, and I'm beginning to wonder if it has already sunk.

I don't think the live feed has anything to do with the low ratings by the way, as I'm A Celebrity does really well with no lead in. I appreciate that this view isn't exactly popular on the BB Ratings Thread - I had a read of that thread earlier and decided to keep out - it's scary over there!

I'll be interested to see how The Bachelor does tonight too. It's missed a week and will have a much lower lead in, which could possibly send it below 1m.

Elsewhere, Outnumbered vs DCI Banks should be pretty close. My guess is a narrow victory for Outnumbered, 5.4m vs 5.0m (with 4.5m for WILTY).

If there was any justice Outnumbered and WILTY would trounce DCI Banks 2 to 1.

I just sat through 90 minutes of top-notch BBC comedy (QI on BBC2, or BBC HD where I watched it, completing the set). WILTY is the best programme on television by a mile. By comparison Banks has me spitting feathers. I've only seen the trailer but that's enough for me. A bad-tempered male detective with a young female sidekick. Oh, learn the meaning of the word original FFS. Boooooorrrrrrrriiiinnnnnggggggg!!!!!!!!

Unless its just a slow night on Twitter.

It means nothing. WWE trends a lot on twitter and their main show has about 5 million viewers in the USA and 200k here.

Credit to Chanel 5 for commissioning something worthy, but in ratings terms I can see this being like their Starlight doc earlier in the year - a huge flop. Is this a 30 minute 7.30pm show?


Do Channel 5 get paid to show this, or at least get the rights for free? It's usually on at 10am on a Sunday morning so I can't see them getting loads of ad revenue

I wonder if they ever considered going for the World Athletics Championships. I bet it would have done almost as well on C5 as C4, which by C5 standards would have been pretty good