This appeared on Broadcast.

How Cowell ran out of luck

4.3m overnights, 4.7m officially. It won't go near that at all.

If ITV moves away from Syco, what can they do to rebuild? They have tried Endemol over the summer and their two shows flopped (Odd One In & the Marriage Ref). They axed The Whole 19 Yards last year since it was deemed too expensive (ironic eh?). September Films's Penn & Teller didn't work either. Galllowgate failed to get ratings for Push the Button, Duel and Beat the Star. The only firms that has done business for the network lately has been Avalon with TV Burp, ITV Studios with I'm a Celebrity and Dancing on Ice, Talkback's All Star Family Fortunes and the Talkback Thames/Syco combo with BGT and TXF. ITV Studios have got two entertainment hits at the moment and that is I'm a Celebrity and The Chase but The Chase is not a show for primetime. We shall see if Gethin Jones's new show (produced by 12Yard, which ITV owns) performs this Sunday but I doubt it will be a success. I didn't mention Objective's The Cube, or RDF's Sing if You Can. Although they produce respectable numbers, neither can get over 6 million.

I think I'm a Celebrity will be fine as it more focuses on the losers sitting bored in the jungle than Ant & Dec. Their final series of Takeaway and Push the Button did below average ratings but I'm a Celebrity had high numbers in the same year.

How on earth did Red or Black not break 5 million at 8PM against Village SOS? That is a truly terrible performance. And it looks like its a terrible performance that's dragging Corrie down as well. 7.5 million for a promoted big week is not good although given that its out of the usual timeslot I suppose it could be a lot worse as well.

Away from Red or Black, Channel 4 nearly beat the BBC at 8PM last night. That's an impressive performance for Location, Location, Location and the Bid Laden doc performed well also. Looks like it'll have provided one of the few head-to-head victories for Channel 4 against Big Brother.

On another note when you factor in that repeat airing Shameless isn't actually doing that badly. That's around 2 million combined and I refuse to believe there's a large number of people watching these episodes twice. And when you factor in the E4 first look it'll be comfortably above 2 million. So the audience is still there just very fragmented now which doesn't really help Channel 4.

Minute To Win It isn't a terrible format though and until it was over scheduled and thrown into some terrible slots did perform relatively well for NBC. I'd be extremely worried about any broadcaster that watches the UK version of Red or Black and thinks that's a format they need or want.

Amid the burning embers of a £15m flop gameshow, we shouldn't overlook the fact Cowell has form - the widely forgotten World Idol was going to be the show that obliterated BBC1's Christmas dominance, but tanked with 4m viewers.

So he has been in this lonely place before. Bless...

And he did have a rare flop with that Grease reality show. Tried to do what BBC1 did with their musical shows and failed. And that's why I worry about The Voice. BBC1 have tried before to do what ITV are brilliant at staging and flopped badly.

If the BBC have any sense they'll let the production company have free reign over the show.

Are flops rare for Cowell? When you think about it he's only had two hit formats (The X Factor and ...Got Talent) and just about everything else he's done hasn't gone well. Remember American Inventor or Celebrity Duets over in the US? Or the reality dating show he did that was posted about earlier. I suspect if you divide the hits and flops he's been involved in there will be many more flops than hits its just his hits are mega-hits that have sold all over the world.

The Voice should be fine for the BBC as long as they don't change the format or tone. Its not supposed to compete on the same ground as The X Factor but offer an alternative of sorts.

How come the Wednesday 9pm Corrie did worse than the Monday one?


That Bin Laden documentary was very popular. Do you think 9/11 type programming is getting a boost due to it being the 10th anniversary?


Didn't Shameless do better earlier in the year?

You're right. I think the BBC should say to John De Mol "it's all yours" and then stay well out of it. I think the US production company (Mark Burnett Productions) will be doing the UK version.

I'm guessing because ROB performed much worse than Monday & the fact Corrie isn't normally on a Wednesday. Although the competition was much less from BBC1.

I thought Shed were doing the UK version?


Presumably Red or Black dragged Corrie down or the 'big storyline' isn't that big or interesting for fans. Or a combination of the two. What is the big story that's happening this week anyway?

Yes on 9/11. No idea on Shameless but probably.

Out of interest, does anyone know how much ITV paid for the Channel Of The Year award?

ITV Didn't just win Channel of the year becuase of a few bad weeks. I Thought ITV Had a very good winter/Spring with some great dramas that did well in the ratings.

Good point.

But Cowell has been good for ITV with The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent. I can understand why they wanted to keep him sweet. The Voice is an interesting one. It's been a hit all over the world, it should work, but if the production values aren't up there it could bomb.

The Voice is a show to me that needs a big production values and Red Or Black is a show I think needed smaller scale production values.

Simon needs ITV just as much as ITV need Simon. If they were ever to fall out, the only realistic option for him and his shows will be Channel 5 where his audience will be slashed in half and he won't have anywhere near the reach or influence that he once had. If he doesn't have that power then he hasn't got the big platform for his acts.

I agree. They had a strong few months and rated well across the year. I think they deserved Channel Of The Year.

I don't know. I'm sure Sky would more than happily hand over a small fortune for the Cowell formats. Of course the audience would be even smaller on Sky but would probably still drive more press attention than Channel 5 could manage. And at this point I think Cowell is actually more interested in the TV revenue rather than finding music acts etc.

Of course if The X Factor hits in the US then he won't really need ITV. With America's Got Talent and The X Factor both on and (potentially) successful in the US he could probably quite happily and easily walk away from the UK altogether. Plus he has had more success selling formats to the US nets then UK broadcasters (although those formats haven't actually been successful).

Poor for Red or Black last night, it really should've rated a million higher against the weak competition it faced at 8pm. It definitely doesn't bode well for tonight or tomorrow when it faces tougher competition such as the CBB/BB final/launch and EastEnders. It's dipped too far now, I thought with 5-6m it could've got another series to save face, but with the sort of numbers it's now getting it's just not worth doing. It's been so badly received critically, that even if they were to change the format next year, I doubt people would tune in again anyway to give it another chance.

WDYTYA did really well to be up about half a million week-on-week. So far, it doesn't seem like Corrie airing in that 9-9.30pm slot has particularly affected the BBC1 programmes. Corrie itself didn't do well last night, isolating it between Red or Black seems to be hurting it. Really strong numbers for C4 between 8-10pm. CBB's lost some steam in the last few days, with 0.3m week-on-week declines which is bigger than usual and not what you'd expect right before a final.


I think Ant & Dec do initially bring in more viewers for a new show than compared to if it had another ordinary presenter like Dermot O'Leary/Gethin Jones/Steve Jones etc. I doubt Push The Button, for example, would've launched with almost 7m with any of those other presenters or even stayed at the level it did (4-5m) if those three presented it. But ultimately, it is the format of a show which will decide if ratings go up, stay level or go down from the launch. Presenters like Ant & Dec/Brucey can enhance a show but it's the format which will decide if it's a hit or not.

Ant & Dec have a mixed record on ITV now, a hit rate of about 50%. Hits include: BGT, IAC, SNT, but then they've had flops (by their standards) with PTB, PokerFace, ROB. Also Syco have a mixed record too: hits with TXF, BGT but flops with Grease is the Word and Red or Black. Someone was talking about which production companies have been good recently. My pick would be Talkback Thames which produces TXF, BGT, All Star Family Fortunes, Take Me Out, Celebrity Juice for ITV. In addition to that, they have hit programmes on other channels such as The Apprentice and Grand Designs.

Intriguing how WDYTYA actually increased by 0.6m week-on-week against Corrie. Corrie's rating was very low and not the sort of figure ITV will want given its focal point in the schedule.

Red or Black getting under 5m against Village SOS? Oh Dear...

Good night for C4 too.

moving away from Red or Black? to the BBC and some new shows

Ripper Street - not the long suggested Buffy spin-off, but finally a new BBC drama for me to sink my teeth into. stick Underbelly: on the front and I would even watch it on ITV.

Cloned - um I dont think much of this "BBC Future Formats team" were they responbile for Dont Scare The Hare.

Baking Made Easy - a boring program I have little interest in, but it fits where BBC 2 currently is.

You've got to wonder if even The X Factor can help it out on Saturday given that BBC1 will be boosted by the Strictly launch (which along with Doctor Who it'll clash with). Then Last Night of the Proms against the second show on Saturday.

I Think the first Red or Black show on Saturday might even be below 4m. The Second show though i think will be over 5 million as it's after X Factor.

Red or Black will find it tough going against SCD launch and Doctor Who, but I do think just because it's airing directly before TXF, it'll rate better than whatever it does tonight or tomorrow. I think the results show on Saturday will also be about 20% up from the Weds-Fri figures, due to TXF lead-in, and also The Last Night of the Proms doesn't rate too well; last year's averaged 3.7m although it'll probably do better this year I reckon.