Irrespective of how Red or Black and XF perform it rather highlights the fact that the staple of BBC1 Saturday nights, ie the Lottery and Casualty are, if not tired formats, at least tired in those slots. Casualty maybe needs to be shortened to six months and perhaps made to be a bit grittier or maybe they should take the bull by the horns and move it. I suspect that moving it though would be the beginning of the end.
As for the Lottery, it was rumoured the BBC would not bid for the continuing rights after next year. This begs the question regarding the future of shows like Secret Fortune and In it To Win It as presumably the BBC could not sustain the potential of £100,000 prizes.

EDIT: Just had a horrible thought-what would a Cowellised Lottery look like!

Channel 4 over-exposed Deal or No Deal like all their other hits too fast.

Although, unlike ITV1 and Red Or Black?, they took longer than a week to do so.

I am a huge, huge fan of SCD but am concerned with the cast this series. There are some really third rate names among them (Edwina, Russell, Nancy, Anita etc) and the women especially are skewed to older people who simply haven't been in the public eye for a long time.

fair enough, but my main point was that there us nothing to suggest that an unskilled show should not poor ratings.


I suspect that you are correct and that it would soon go the way of The Bill.


What the BBC do with the hole in the scheulde is a good question, I actually think it might be good for In It To Win It, or Secert Fortune, it will free them up to air in other slots, rather than having to be on Saturday night. Still its a high profile 50 minute slot to fill and they will be looking for shows that can go up against some of ITVs strongest programs and get respctable ratings, that is a tough ask for any show.

Over all I think X-Factor is the problem, such a big show is always going to dent the auidence for other shows, Big Brother and Million Pound Drop dont help matters either.


im guessing this is the BBC looking for an easy way to get older female faces on TV, as is now apparntly more important than making good TV.The BBC should work with Lulu more, shes is still very attractive.

C14E's post has reminded me of something. He doesn't watch much ITV, and I watch even less. The only thing I saw this week was the last quarter of Fraud Squad on Friday night: a documentary about a group of people who lost life savings of something like £20m to a gang of fraudsters. It ended with a continuity voiceover about winning £1m on Red or Black!

So that's my award for Most Tactless Piece of Telly for this week.

Back to last night, and a decent ratings start for Jonathan Ross, which he's going to need because I suspect his start time will be messed about with over the next couple of months.

I reckon this will be part of BBC One's fightback. LNOTP is always our top rated classical show and is suited to the BBC's PSB remit.
Also once SCD starts the BBC is guaranteed one big hit to follow Doctor Who. I'm going for 10 million for the new series.

ive always wonered why the BBC doesnt do a SCD: Proms specail

get the BBC Concert Orchestra in, and dance to some classical music.

Well said. I think I've only seen the trailer once and press coverage in comparison to other Cowell shows has been on the quiet side.


Completely agree there as well.


It's all or nothing everynight - and arguably a worse format for it as there is zero jeopardy. Deal or No Deal works because although the prizes in the box are determined completely by fate, it's the decision whether to continue or not where the jeopardy is.

When it's all down to luck with no get out there is little to invest in. Viewers have no emotion towards players choosing (or having forced upon them) the wrong colour.

For a show ultimately based on roulette they forget one of the key ingredients to gambling - knowing when to walk away.


Probably around where I thought it would be - the highest non-talent Saturday night show rating on ITV1 by quite some margin for some time, but failing to compare to the juggarnauts that are TXF and BGT. I think how it rises or falls throughout the week determines how successful it really is.


They should never have bothered with the Saturday show, especially as unlike C4 the main series is airing during the autumn when BBC1 and ITV1 have their big hitters out to play.

I LOL'ed at the fact Horrid Henry only got 0.8m but i'm not surprised for a show that hasn't shown new episodes in over a year.

But back to ROB & XF, i don't know what the criticism is about, ROB had good ratings on the first episode for such an expensive gameshow so what are your expectations?

There was skill involved in Play Your Cards Right, you had to answer the We Asked A Hundred Vicars questions correctly before you got to the cards.


It was The Weakest Link and Millionaire Manor, which was one of the worst of all the lottery formats and never came back after its first series (although the first series was about sixteen weeks long).



I was going to say that, at the exact same time as well. And like Parky, it was just his (awful) BBC show ported over exactly, and dead dull with it. The first episode of The X Factor was preceded by Grease, of all things. Unlikely that would have got a big audience in primetime on 2004, given I remember having to record it for my sister at 11am on Boxing Day 1991 (because the video, which she wanted for Christmas, had been deleted).

A slightly interesting thing about the first episode of The X Factor is that it was on the cover of the Radio Times, but only in Scotland, as the rest of the UK had Jack Dee on the cover for the launch of Live At The Apollo but Scotland weren't showing it until the following week so they had to put something else on the cover, which turned out to be The X Factor. The first X Factor was also up against an England match on Sky which like this week's didn't have highlights on terrestrial.


Yes, it was an attempt to launch some new comedy dramas although they were all from different writers and different production companies, and they didn't have much to do with each other, Beauty was a rom-com while King Of Fridges, which was pretry awful, was a weird offbeat workplace comedy. None of them really worked on a Saturday night either.

It was a bit like when BBC1 did half a dozen one-off comedy drama pilots on a Friday night in 2006, none of which went any further.


Yes, I don't know how many people are going to be spellbound by watching people you don't know (and don't like, in the case of her off Big Brother) win a million pounds. In fact if anything proves how it's definitely not fixed, it's the fact her off Big Brother who was going to spunk the money on a load of rubbish was able to get anywhere near the prize, if she'd won nobody would have come back.

But you're always going to have this trouble on shows with a million contestants, you simply don't have enough time to get to know them. So we had the bloke who was going to split it with some guy he met, but he was out after five minutes, then you had the bloke blubbing in the car who we had met precisely two minutes previously. Then there was that woman who said it was between "paying the bills or eating", but we heard nothing else, and I don't think it works putting sob stories in shows based on luck because putting their faith in complete fluke just makes them look pathetic and certainly doesn't generate any sympathy. You may as well have sob stories on the lottery draws, bringing in someone who's spent their last quid on a ticket.

In addition, even with the VTs I still couldn't remember who was who and I can't remember if they guy who won was the engagement ring guy or the other one, because they did so little. And I was watching both parts in one go, so God alone knows how live viewers coped with the hour long gap. Another reason why it shouldn't be in two parts. I didn't even think the spin was much of a climax as they filmed it from a weird angle.

Why isn't Tim Vine a millionaire after devising Fluke, which was way more fun than this?


And also you're struggling with anything on Saturday night C4, let alone a LE show opposite LE shows on BBC1 and ITV.


You should get yourself a Virgin TiVo, you could have recorded all three...

Well, if the early results from this poll are to be believed http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...5#post52522795, then of the people that watched the first episode of RoB:

about 7% will watch again (top 2 categories)
about 33% may watch again (middle 3 categories)
about 60% won't watch again (bottom 2 categories)

K

Although DOND is a daytime success on Channel 4 with 2 million viewers, such a rating for peak time Saturday ITV1 would be a disaster. I'll say ROB will fall to 4 million by the end of the week as most people, including me, who saw it have said it's rubbish.
Anyone got the overnights for Doctor Who including timeshift, as last night's episode was miles better than Let's Kill Hitler?

4 million is possible, however that is very much the border for it being a hit, or worthwhile for two reasons, 1) its presented by Ant & Dec 2) at a cost of £15 million you hope for something better than 4 million.

Obviously 2 million in primetime would be awful, but in theory a show should increase a bit when it moved to primetime.

That poll result is interesting, bu its a Digital Spy poll, so like any other Digital Spy poll result, it shouldnt be taken as anything other than the views of Digital Spy posters, but the % of people who say they WILL tune in again is low.

Hold on... Red or Black didn't get 10m viewers? Well just wait while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

It's a decent enough start for it. But take out The X Factor tonight plus a usual second episode drop and it could be alarmingly steep based on the reaction* so far. Then on Monday... Eastenders. A night off on Tuesday...

At least Domino's ought to have sold a lot of pizzas last night.

* While I've been critical of it, I didn't think it was awful. It was watchable. Once. Which is the problem. It was nothing special and I've seen it now. I'll be out again when it's on tonight. This time I'll not be watching it later on Sky+.

[quote=Steve Williams;52522900]

It was The Weakest Link and Millionaire Manor, which was one of the worst of all the lottery formats and never came back after its first series (although the first series was about sixteen weeks long).

QUOTE]

Certainly agree there-one of the worst conceived ideas ever and evidence of how much the BBC have lost the plot when it comes to creating/commisioning entertainment programmes.

I imagine Domino's are raking it in both with Red or Black and CBB as they are the eviction night sponsor for the latter.

Celebrity Big Brother seems to be the only big show that is taking full advantage of product placement, haven't seen it on X Factor yet.

I assume there is some way Dominos can tell who is calling off the back of which? "mention Show X and get some free Y" type thing

Very mediocre start for Red Or Black, I think ITV execs will be very disappointed with that figure.

For all the costs involved in the show, it got less than 1m more than Family Fortunes last week.

CBB seems to be turning in respectable numbers on Channel 5 and 2 million is very good for them. I think this is the core audience for the veteran show now, with maybe a million or more watching the eviction night, and I think Channel 5 did the right thing by reviving and refreshing the show. For all some people say its ratings are low, well, what about Show Me The Funny, the biggest ratings flop of the year?

I Agree that Show me the Funny was a flop but i think Born to shine falls into the biggest rating flop of the year.

Have tonight's ratings been released yet? I'm getting impatient.

Tonight's main BBC1 competition for ROB? is Nature's Miracle Babies, a natural history documentary that's had little promotion from the BBC - and, possibly, none at all.


edit: announcer just mentioned it just before the start of Songs Of Praise.

If the average for CBB is above 2 million, then im quite sure Channel 5 will be thrilled, and I will judge it succesful.


sounds like something alot of people would enjoy, got the cute baby animal factor


It should get at least 5 million.

The real test is normal Big Brother which was the series which needed refreshing, CBB is only three weeks so doesn't drag out as much as BB does when Channel 4 upped the number of weeks to 13. It'll rate lower but if Channel 5 can win back viewers then it bodes well for the 2012 series.

That never got above 1.8 million. I still reckon the relative success of Popstar to Operastar could see a re commission. After all, this was quite innovative for ITV1, a show based around opera, and for all it never went above 3.5 million, it did have a 46 pc ABC1 share.