After the Ortis Deely fiasco, surely this shows that the likes of Ant & Dec are worth every penny. Presenters who are confident and engaging on screen are worth their weight in gold.

They could have had someone like Kate Thornton or Christine Bleakley hosting Red or Black

You fail to mention the rush for the window you can't see on Sky Sports News which closes in 88 minutes...

They are keeping it away from X Factor, seems like they care enough about it not to want it to be heavily dented on the Sunday.


From a ratings perspective its a surprising move but surely removing several hours of a celebrity cooking show from primetime is a good thing.

This is just your usual Syco rant - if I've read it once, I've read it 100 times here. It doesnt make it any more right just because you repeat it every single day.

Or Phil Schofield who seems to monopolise all the other ITV1 LE.

I don't like BBC1 at all but there is still that sense of a menu of programmes, most nights. Starters with "The One Show" and then it goes through various courses.

Maybe that's what an older generation grew up on?

ITV1s choice of programmes at the moment almost feels designed to stop people watching the channel. And so many soaps!

They don't care about it too much, if they did it would be in the same slot all series instead of Sunday 9pm, Sunday 8pm and now Monday 9pm. I'm certain they did the same last year with it too. Way to treat your audience.

He only does The Cube and DOI.

What about Paul O'Grady, Ross, Vernon Kay, Dermot O'Leary?

Is that the window they're filming through to bring us the excruciatingly exciting pictures of Peter Crouch STANDING IN A ROOM. Still, I expect SSN will have a very healthy share. Deadline Day just gets more ridiculous each year.

I don't think the Dragon's Den scheduling has been as bad as its made out. 9pm on premiere allowed it to take a Top Gear boost and the shift to 8pm has really enhanced the overall schedule - so at least there has been sound reasoning for it till now.

The Celebrity Masterchef thing is really inexplicable, though. I can only assume Danny Cohen has simply decided he didn't want 2 versions of the same show in his primetime - though it would certainly have done a solid ratings job. Even if that is the case, though, you'd have expected it back on BBC2 or even perhaps 5.15 (presumably, they don't want to shift Pointless). In any case, I suppose the daytime controller must be delighted!

Good on Danny Cohen for moving Celebrity Masterchef to daytime. It's no more daft than airing a series of big name Jimmy McGovern dramas at 2.15...

Shine should threaten to take the format elsewhere. The MasterChef brand deserves better, just look at how it thrives on commercial networks in other countries...

We don't need two and a half hours of a cookery programme in prime-time. One hour a week is adequate! (Though it looks as if Danny Cohen only thinks it's worth half an hour of primetime.)

And maybe if Eastenders was cut back to 2 episodes a week the writers could put more thought into their scripts and the programme wouldn't be continually slated by the critics for having rubbish, far-fetched stories and characters that change their personality episode by episode.

Ditto Coronation Street which has been getting quite a severe kicking for quite a few of its recent plots.

Yeah, right. And only 6m people will watch The X Factor final this year too.


Absolutely agree. Masterchef was a daytime series to start with anyway and even when it moved to primetime and then to BBC1 it was still commissioned as such and squeezed into the schedule as and when (I think it was the Professional series on BBC2 which was clearly commissioned in 45 minutes slots then chopped to fit 30, 60 and 90 minute slots in primetime).

Primetime certainly doesn't need it - although 5.15pm probably better than 2.15pm. The only primetime slot I'd give Masterchef is 7pm over the summer and let The One Show have a break.

Let's go back several decades to ITV1's strongest night, a Monday, you had huge ratings hits like Opportunity Knocks, the imperial era Coronation St, George and Mildred, World in Action, The Sweeney and News At Ten. These were all programmes that were so good and popular they developed loyalty to the ITV brand and also kept established viewers tuned in as BBC1 was fighting back in the ratings.
Nowadays, for all ITV1 has made a bit of a comeback in the last few years, apart from Corrie and Emmerdale( and even these aren't such huge hits now), I doubt the older viewers who grew up watching ITV would be that tempted by Show Me The Funny and Born to Shine.

I heard a rumour ITV Sport are sniffing round...

Its beyond weird, the Friday night 10.35 is now a repeat zone as WILTY is moved to 9.30. While an expensive well made primetime show is moved to the 2.15pm slot



But what did you lose by having it in primetime? Traffic cops and Question of Sport repeats

Was that the line up in the middle of summer?

Or more to the point was that the line up on any single day at any time of year, or the usual rose tinted specs combination of a whole decade's big hits?

If they wanted to move it off BBC1 prime time they should have given it back to BBC2 instead of moving it to daytime. For a show that got 6.6m viewers for the latest series final to be moved to daytime is just baffling.

Robbie has to bring ITV up in every discussion as per usual.

I can't think of any ITV Sport presenter who has ever been anywhere near as bad as that. Adrian may umm and err as part of his normal speech, but he generally knows what is going on and can read autocue as well as ad-libbing well.

It's nice to see criticism of sports coverage involving something that was on the BBC but is now on commercial TV not involving ITV for a change. Also for once Channel 4 are not just quietly 'getting away with it' under the radar.

That was ordinary Masterchef though, wasn't it?

I think Celeb Masterchef is a Masterchef too far.

It was never on BBC 2, it was created especially for BBC One. Though the principle still stands if they don't want it, give it to BBC 2 who could really do with it.

According to the thread on the TV forum, Comedy Central will begin showing Friends on October 1st. It'll air at 5pm and 8pm as has been the case on E4 and CC will add showings during the day and at midnight. They'll air 12 episodes a week from Monday-Saturday with "marathon" Sundays showing all 12 in one go. So it'll be a cycle every 20 weeks or so (2.5 cycles per year).

It's also going to be in HD which I think is a good move as it gives them an angle for promotion as well. Quite surprised that promotion hasn't started already, tbh.

And they don't seem to have made any big acquisitions from the US this season - they should have been lining up more comedy for the 9pm slot after Friends, IMO.

Surprised that E4 are experimenting with the 8pm hour. I'd have thought they'd look for consistency (TBBT at 8pm, HIMYM at 8.30pm or the other way around).

Given that the amount of US comedies on the broadcast networks cancelled is high, I'm not surprised they're holding off just for now.

Hell that was excruciating.

I won't be surprised if Cheryl ends up on BGT. She seems to be making up with Cowell a bit and she doesn't have a TV gig at the moment, and apart from The X Factor, BGT is the biggest show around, and it's also less of a commitment from her. Getting Will.I.Am to agree to enter negotiations with Cowell again might be more difficult though! Not sure if Michael, Cheryl and Amanda would work as they wouldn't have a tougher judge which they missed this year (although I agree the judges weren't the real problem this year, it was the talent).

Peter Fincham sounded keen to keep Cowell on-screen on BGT at Edinburgh last year so he might pop up again. Really though I think he needs to either do the whole series or not doing at all as turning up halfway through the series again would be ridiculous. ITV would probably like him to do the whole series but he's probably got other ideas. Him, Cheryl and Michael could work, although they could keep Amanda and have 4 judges.

Alternatively if he doesn't come back (and I think the likelihood of him coming back depends on how well X Factor US does) they could do with getting someone who would be a bit tougher. Jonathan Ross is doing a lot with ITV just now and it would give him a nice boost too so Ross, McIntyre and Cole could work. Amanda has been a good judge overall during her 5 years but it might be time for her to move on now, particularly if she's going to be giving birth during the auditions (somehow I don't think Amanda returning for the live shows would have quite the same impact as Simon!).

I don't think the Hoff did a bad job at all in fairness but he didn't get the warm reception that McIntyre did and I don't think he particularly gelled with the other 2 judges. He was definitely the one that Simon overshadowed the most on the live shows. I also get the impression that ITV didn't necessarily choose him either, as it sounds like Cowell picked him and ITV picked McIntyre, so they had one choice each, so they might not have particularly wanted him on there in the first place (fits with the rumours of him being axed that started just 3 weeks into the series).