It looks like Celebrity Masterchef could become a bit of a problem for BBC1 there. That is a worse rating than how the A Question Sport repeats were doing a few weeks ago. Surely it wouldn't be to difficult to move the main episodes to 5:15pm for a few weeks. It doesn't matter what The Chase is doing on ITV as when Pointless would potentially come back The Chase would of finished anyway.

Outnumbered I think is doing quite well. I personally don't like the BBC's decision to move comedy night back to Fridays as I think it automatically knocks off about 10%-20% of the viewership whether its a high or low rating program. I am a little surprised by the drop for Would I Lie To You, I thought it would at least be able to maintain around 4m after the episodes have been good so far. Again, it would benefit from the comedy night having remained on Thursdays. However, should the ratings remain around 3.5m (in its current slot) it could return as a strong performer in the Friday 10:35pm slot, so either way I think it has a good few series in it yet.

DCI Banks did alright for ITV1 at 9pm. Looks like being one of their highest rated Friday night 9pm shows this year. I don't know whether it would be financially viable for the show itself, but it should do a good job in that slot of giving ITV1 some respectable ratings. They can always repeat it on ITV3 as well to catch any missed viewers.

Re DCI Banks. It didn't air in Scotland last night - STV had a charity appeal instead. It will air in Scotland from next week though. Obviously don't know how that affected the overnights but it could give it a boost next week if STV's charity appeal didn't rate well

Also in England at least it has a 10.35pm repeat on Tuesday. So allowing for timeshifting and that repeat the overall rating might be quite respectable

Whatever happens to it's ratings in the coming weeks though, at least ITV1 are trying to get better than mediocre ratings in the Friday 9pm slot again


Excellent share as usual. Any figures for Gabby Logan's spin off?


Decent share for 95 minutes. I guess the afternoon movies are very cheap to purchase, but they do their job


Seems a little bit higher than normal recently. Guess tragic events in Wales may have given a little boost


Clearly got a very core audience of around 1.1 million. Not hurt at all by the 2 week break or the lower lead in. While 1.1 million isn't spectacular looks like at least Big Brother has created one modest entertainment hit for Channel 5 - enough for a recommission or the Bacherlorette I'd have thought. And I guess the demos are good too

(I think I posted something negative about The Bachelor's ratings a few weeks ago, but I've been surprised since then at it's consistency)


Decent share. Not flopped as it easily could have done


Shame they can't get these out any earlier. Wasted in such a late slot

Good to see the athletics rating well on BBC2. Hopefully less Diamond League on the red button next year and more on either BBC2 or BBC3. And to think the BBC seemed to only pick it up as no one else appeared to want the rights. With ratings like that it might even be worth Channel 5 considering a bid when the rights are up for renewal. Even allowing for a loss of viewers away from the BBC they could get some 1 million-ish ratings. Channel 4 might not be best suited because of the 7pm news though

Disappointed to see Outnumbered drop below 5m but actually, this week, that puts it on a par with Holby City, Waterloo Road and Who Do You Think You Are?.

Clearly, now that the kids have gone back to school and the evil profiteering holiday companies have put their prices down, the BBC's posh, middle-class, middle-aged audience have all gone away for a late sunshine holiday.

Good afternoon excel99. Firstly on The Bachelor, I too have been impressed with its retention over the 4 episodes so far. It might not be a mega hit, but it's doing alright. The reaction to this programme has also been pretty good - most viewers are taking it for what it is which is just a bit of lighthearted fun on Friday night, a guilty pleasure if you like. Scheduling it after CBB and now BB has proven to be a masterstroke as I think it would have been below the magic 1m without it. I think we will be seeing it back in some form, probably with The Bacherlorette which is supposed to be in development now.

Since I started getting the overnights one of the things that has surprised me the most has been the strength of the afternoon movies. They always tend to rate really well. Cheap made-for-TV films that are nothing special but offer a decent alternative to what is being served up elsewhere and people just flock to now out of habit. I guess BBC One's weakness in those timeslots due to CBBC helps a lot. It seems to really help 5 News too which is trailed during these movies, encouraging a lot of the film viewers to stick around to get the first word on the day's news and entertainment before the bigger BBC and ITV bulletins follow later in the evening.

As for The Wright Stuff Extra, it is continuing to struggle I'm afraid. Yesterday's edition could only muster 101k (2.0%). I don't know if you saw my post a few days ago but the new plan is to rebrand it as LIVE with Gabby in a week or two's time. I think the main problem is there just isn't the appetite for another show like The Wright Stuff straight after The Wright Stuff. Gabby's a great talent though so it's a shame if they can't make it work.

Friday 16th September - Soap Overnights
BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.6m (22.7%)
20:00- EastEnders: 7.64m (34.6%)

ITV1
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.23m (32.4%) , +1: 69k (0.3%)
19:30- Coronation Street: 7.59m (36.3%) , +1: 104k (0.5%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 7.86m (34.9%) , +1: 184k (0.8%)

Channel 4
18:30- Hollyoaks: 1.04m (5.8%) , +1: 126k (0.6%)

Channel 5
13:45- Neighbours: 679k (9.5%)
17:30- Neighbours: 1.19m (8.1%)
18:00- Home and Away: 858k (4.9%)

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Multichannel
BBC Three
22:00- EastEnders: 779k (3.8%)

E4
19:00- Hollyoaks: 543k (2.8%)

Source: DS

EastEnders and the second Coronation Street especially seem to be low share wise though Emmerdale did ok. Neighbours is staying steady in the teatime slot and Holllyoaks is holding up after the shaky start to the year.

I think Neighbours is one of these shows, like BB, that seems to have a hardcore of viewers and it seems to have settled around the 1.8 million mark. Obviously massively down on the glory days in 1988, but the show still has an audience.

Bit of an iconic show for Channel 4 as it has been broadcast since day one and I don't think they'll ditch it yet.

The Bachelor is the best performing of the 10pm shows which makes me wonder how it would do at 9pm. It could alternate between Bachelor and Bachelorette.

I think The Wright Stuff could be cut down to 90 minute and have Live with Gabby at an hour. TWS is too long but it performs well for its timeslot especially as OKTV and the 7pm get similar ratings in peak.

I don't think it's strong enough to hold a decent figure at 9pm; it'd be swallowed up by the big two channels. It could do ok at 10pm away from Big Brother, though.

From all reports Friday's episode was a recap of the Monday and Tuesday daytime episodes and then a repeat of the Wednesday episode. Tonight's episode will apparently be a repeat of Thursday and Friday's episodes. Presumably that isn't going to last though because when Strictly starts presumably the scheduling will change slightly - namely the Saturday episode won't be so long so I'd guess they'll just morph into recapping Monday-Thursday on Friday night then the Saturday show will be a repeat of the final daytime episode of the week.

Not sexist, because as a woman I feel much the same.

I guess someone like Jo Brand could do it (she is usually good fun when in dictionary corner and knows the show)

But the banter between Carol and Richard and now between Rachel and Jeff drives the show between the game itself and that dynamic would be changed a lot if a woman took the reins.

You might as well employ a hologram of Richard Whiteley if they think that dynamic does not matter.

It would certainly be unfair to replace Rachel with a Himbo to compensate as she has more than established herself.

Jeff was an ideal partner for her and I cannot see why they would not gladly accept his desire to carry on.

Unless they have some very extraordinary applicants that they think will boost ratings.

I guess we can only fear that Celebrity Countdown might be around the corner to try to revive the show (if this was on ITV it would have happened already!) - no doubt with the 30 second clock extended to 3 minutes and the number of letters cut from 9 to 4 to give them a slight chance.

I'm not convinced we'll see Celebrity Countdown anytime soon.

Countdown is a bit of an odd one though because there's not a whole lot you can do to refresh the format. Its always interested me that they've never really tried a junior version of the show. What might be interesting to try is a season of kids vs. adults that might grab some interest.

They desperately need to some stability from the presenting team though.

All very close between Corrie and EE with the 2nd episode just edging in front. With +1 it pushed that 2nd Corrie over 8m which is OK for a Friday night in September. I wonder if Corrie will get a boost next week with the Frank/Carla storyline hitting it's peak. Also it gets an extra episode on Wednesday too. Hard to say how that will rate as I assume ITV won't advertise the episode, but in the past, IIRC, these occassional random Wednesday episodes have generally rated OK-ish. Everything else pretty normal. HO above the 1m mark and H&A did well for a Friday too. Strange how DS haven't reported the 5* H&A. They are be so inconsistent some times.

I'm not sure it's worth keeping a show on just for sentimental reasons though.

Channel 4 is simply nothing like the network it was in 1982 and Countdown sticks out like a bit of a sore thumb in the schedule. Why continue the facade if the show is no longer popular?

The Whiteley era will never be beaten. Stelling & Riley are easily the best thing to happen to the show since, and if they aren't doing it for the audience, I don't think there's much hope for it going forward.

Relaunch after relaunch and new presenter after new presenter is probably making matters worse. It's a bit like when they kept mucking about with the start time, the lack of consistency breaks life-long habits and puts viewers off.

Didn't A Place in the Sun used to get closer to 2m, if not over, in the same slot though. Come Dine with Me is definately wasted in that slot when it could get 2m+ in a less competitive 8pm slot - and they've over commissioned it IMO - they seem to have 2 or 3 primetime series a year when really they could get away with one plus repeats as we know CDWM repeats very well.

As for Comedy Showcase - I thought The Fun Police last night had potential for a series.


It already has - 13 years ago - surprised it's never happened again really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmRiE...eature=related

Looks like Tyson Fury has won by knockout quite literally on Channel 5, he's sent the coverage onto a black screen of doom!

The screen's been black for me during the last 10 minutes. Any idea who's won?

Edit: It's back now at 9.30pm, round 5. Missed the previous 4 rounds. Sounds like the London area was affected.

The boxing's over now - 15 minutes until Big Brother.

Fudd, you were watching a replay, they replayed the last few rounds from about 21:50 due to the earlier outage.

Oh right - that'll teach me to tune in late. I have to admit, I thought it was on the drag; only being on round 5 at five to 10 with potentially another seven to fit in in 15 minutes.

I had no problems watching the fight here in the East Midlands. It's a shame a regional technical problem occurred, spoiling the coverage for some viewers. But these things happen, at least the presenter apologised.

I see what you mean about too much of the same sort of programming. Channel 5 have done well to get an extra 20 minutes out of The Wright Stuff without causing any harm to it. However a rebranded show does offer the opportunity to deviate a lot more from The Wright Stuff format if they want

What gets better viewings 5news at 5 or 5 news at 7?
5news at 7 or C4 news.
5 news at 5 or live at 5?

Five lose Manchester, Leeds and London for 10 minutes and nobody notices! Not sure which is worse.