Good night for BBC One. EastEnders' share looks a tad low, but nothing of major concern. The Queen's Palaces did well considering it was against Doc Martin and considering ITV1's horrendous performances against New Tricks over the Summer. I suspect that was the best they could expect for it, really. As for Celebrity Masterchef, I really have no clue why they dumped it to daytime. No idea, at all. Very good rating for University Challenge on BBC2, as for Dragon's Den, the below 'episode order' describes it:

- Episode 1: Sunday 31st July, 9pm
- Episode 2: Sunday 7th August, 9pm
--------
- Episode 3: Sunday 14th August, 8pm
- Episode 4: Sunday 21st August, 8pm
- Episode 5: Sunday 28th August, 8pm
- Episode 6: Sunday 4th September, 8pm
--------
- Episode 7: Monday 12th September, 9pm

Little consistency, its no wonder its audience have sharply fallen. It's like the equivalent of BBC1 throwing The Apprentice from Tuesday to Thursday and one week on Friday for little reason.

Coronation Street bounced back well from its poor week last week due to Red or Black, so I imagine there is a sigh of relief, albeit annoyance from ITV there. Very good start for Doc Martin, second highest launch rating and will easily clear 9 million in the officials, like New Tricks. Question for rzt here once the demo's come out - which is more 'profitable' for ITV: New Tricks or Doc Martin? Of course, we're talking hypthoetically, New Tricks' isn't on ITV, but does Doc Martin skew more one way or the other, or has New Tricks' audience from the past few weeks 'flown over' to ITV? (if doing a comparison, I would compare the August 29th New Tricks episode with last night's Doc Martin, I imagine last week's New Tricks episode is skewed due to ITV's lineup) News at Ten did well relatively speaking for ITV considering it has been under 3 million for the past few months.

Dispatches did well on Channel 4, Embarrassing Bodies is yet another over-exposed brand on the channel, why they keep over-exposing brands, I have no idea. What happened to the 'creative review' or whatever it was after Big Brother? And talking of Big Brother, it looks like it was better dead and buried, extremely bad figure on Channel 5. They'll be hoping that picks up big time in the next few weeks.

So, considering it's achieving the same as New Tricks - which you were praising - I think you can for once admit ITV1 did more than ok...


Apart from Downton Abbey with a 10m+ lead-in, why do you suddenly think a new series of DM after a break would be the highest rated drama series of 2011?

Is this so you can say you expected more - just so you can knock the excellent figure it achieved.

I say well done to ITV for achieving over 8m viewers for 2 full hours last night enabling ITV1 to have a 26.8% share in primetime over BBC1's 18.4%. If you can only call this ok, then there is nothing ITV1 could ever do or achieve that you would give them credit for.

So, New Tricks?

Was this trailed around EastEnders do you think?

Why are you so blinkered when it comes to ITV1 when BBC1 often do the very same thing - yet you never seem to knock them for it?

In fairness I'm not convinced Robbie was criticising ITV for promoting Doc Martin but rather the comment that people might think it was a repeat episode.

Chasers are quiz champions - they have a different one from a team of 4 each day.

The contestants individually challenge them to get through to the final round by answering questions and are offered more or less money according to whether they want to go extra steps ahead or behind the champion chaser.

If he/she catches them on the board (ie by answering questions which they do not) they lose and drop out. If they answer enough questions to stay ahead of the chaser and reach the end of the run they take the money they have won/opted for through to the final round.

At the final round all those who get through (just 1 maybe or up to 4 challengers) act as a team against the one chaser to win the collected total of all winners.

They answer questions against a clock to produce a total. Then the chaser has the same time to chase that total. If they answer wrong and the contestants can get it right they force the chaser back a step.

If the chaser catches the total in the time nobody wins anything. If not the contestant/s win the total earned.

It is a fast paced skilful game and not obviously suited to a typical ITV celebrity version featuring someone out of TOWIE or Loose Women.

As a Welsh person, the only reason I like S4C is because it keeps Welsh language programming away from BBC One Wales and ITV1 Wales.

Before S4C was set up, we used to get regional news in English, and then get it all over again in Welsh! And we missed out on some networked stuff altogether, and what we did get was thrown around all over the place.

S4C is cheaper than rebuilding all the properties the Welsh "nationalists" used to torch

Thank you for explaining. It sounds quite complicated to me.

I used to find that quite scary as a child. Every time I saw the regional news (in whatever language!), it seemed to be about arson.

Not sure how the share %'s work for S4C versus ITV Wales - should the share % notbe based on the total available audience in Wales?

Is it not more likely to be percentage of homes it is available in? On the off chance people outside of Wales watch.

Sounds very much like it. The expanding of the regions should never have happened, now they are inching even closer to quasi-regional bulletins. Ofcom are toothless and are letting ITV get away with murder. Exact same scenario with UK commercial radio and Heart. What's the point in having a regulator that just rolls over at every opportunity?

I predict if this happens the BBC will enjoy even greater dominance at 6pm.

I thought S4C was available FTA in all Wales homes (whether you want it or not via Freeview)

Firstly, Deal or No Deal is going live in a few weeks for a fortnight.

http://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?p=4336



God, just when you thought she couldn't get any lower.


Exactly.


Exactly - in terms of producing the show it's been a very lazy effort for many years - and C5 just seem to highlight the worst aspects of it (mainly Marcus treating viewers with less respect than CBeebie presenters treat their audience).

Although the introduction of bigger twists didn't go down well with everyone, the changes made in BB5 were exactly what the show needed and carried it for a couple of years - but come BB8, BB9 and BB10 when big changes were required once again to freshen up the show and secure it's future they just didn't happen. BB11 did shake things up a bit - and stepped up the production quality too, but from what I've seen on C5 that doesn't feel like it's been continued.




Hopefully that doesn't happen (like other off-air pilots for shaking up the news hour) - and ratings wise I can't see how ITV would be able to avoid losing viewers if national news was essentially put against the Six o'clock News and local news found itself up against the BBC regional news.

They should go back to the News At 5.40 followed by regional news at 6 and a gameshow at 6.25.

I imagine it probably is. I was thinking more about whether the fact it is also available outside of Wales would factor into the percentages or not.

Does indeed look complicated written down but if you see it in action, you'll see that, like the best quiz show formats, it;s actually quite simple.

The Chase is ITV's version of Eggheads and Eggheads has done celebrity specials so I'm not surprised The Chase is planning some.

I completely agree. Making a wide assumption, I believe that the main reason why ITV Evening News does so well is because some viewers prefer ITV regional bulletins over the BBC ones, and when those are finished their only choice for a national bulletin is ITV. The 6pm newshour is fine as it is (speaking about scheduling and viewing figures, it still needs an on screen and editorial overhaul). They ought to concentrate on fixing Daybreak and increasing the ratings for News at Ten before playing about with their strongest news bulletin.

I would have thought Spooks is the more event TV with one storyline covering the final 6 episodes. Downton will be more episodic I would have thought (Ive never seen it though). Plus Downton will be full of those damn adverts and everyone hates them and records the show on their SkyHD++PVR to watch at a later date. Where is Derek500 by the way?


Sgorio is the show that recorded 0 viewers for one episode. That means last night it improved by 7000%, thats some acheivement!

Well, they do now, because there's no relation between the channels anymore as S4C no longer show English language programmes, because everyone in Wales also has Channel Four (which is also the reason why digital take-up in Wales was much faster than the rest of the UK). So rather than casuak viewers leaving the telly on after an English show and catching a Welsh show and enjoying it with the subtitles, there's now no reason for a non-Welsh speaker to watch it at all, apart from the sport of course.

The one bonus of S4C when it showed English stuff was that it used to show Brookside at 10pm and I know a lot of people on the border used to quite like that as an option if they'd missed it on C4, a bit like EastEnders on BBC3.


Yeah, that does appear to be the only way they can do it, because any other way seems illogical. There are parallels here with Sixty Minutes, which the Beeb did in 1983 when Nationwide finished, and there's a great bit in the book The Last Days Of The Beeb about what a shambles it all was.

The idea was that Nationwide was a tired format and when it was on you had the national news at 5.40 (which as the book points out was an odd time with the only benefit being it was five minutes before the ITV news), then the regional news at six and then the national bit of Nationwide at 6.20, but that was awkward because it meant Nationwide was analysing stuff that was in the national news but there was the regional news in between.

So the idea was that Sixty Minutes would be one integrated hour-long show with the news, the regional news and the news analysis all together, and with the two national "thirds" next to each other, but the problem was the regions demanded their news stayed at six because it was the best slot and, unlike the ITV regions, that was the only time of day they could broadcast for any great length. So they were stuck with either starting the show at 5.20 with the national news which was too early, or starting it at six with the regional news, which seemed an illogical order, so in the end they had exactly the same problem with the national news at 5.40, the regional news at six and the news analysis at 6.20.

The show was awful anyway and ratings plummeted so a year later they went back to the regions and said that it was all very well demanding to go on at six but the schedules were such a mess they'd have to go at 6.30 with the national news at six and like it, or have no viewers anyway. Which in the end turned out to be hugely successful.

So if you were to try and merge the two together, like ITV are doing, you would surely have to put the regional news last because the other order seems illogical, the more important news goes on first. But then you're just replicating with the Beeb are doing.

I remember when Channel Five moved the news to six, they ran billboards saying "SEE IT FIRST ON FIVE NEWS AT SIX - REPEATED ON ITV AT 6.30", which was quite clever, but of course the elephant in the room was that the BBC news was at six as well. But as it sort of pointed out, one problem with ITV News is that at lunchtime and teatime it's on after the Beeb so it seems out of date, and the same was true with the 10.30,


We used to like the ITV 5.40 news in the early nineties, of course some regions showed Home and Away at six and the regional news at 6.30 and some showed Home and Away at 5.10 and the regional news at six. Granada did the former and it worked out well for our family, as my mum and my sister liked Home and Away but not Neighbours, as I'd start with CBBC, then when Neighbours came on we'd switch to ITV and the whole family would watch the news, then my mum and sister would stick with ITV for Home and Away. I'd grown out of CBBC when Granada moved Home and Away to 5.10.

It wasn't a bad slot, 5.40, and it was a nice bulletin as well, snappy and concise, just right for teatime. It would have to be 5.30 now, though, obviously, and I dunno what they could do at 6.30 apart from another One Show rip-off.

There were rumours a while back that they want Adrian & Christine to front a show at 6.30pm, so this could be part of a wider plan.

Of course Sgorio used to be a big show for S4C because it was the only place on telly you could see Spanish and Italian football, and people in England used to tune in, not understanding a word of it, to see the goals.

They may look bad at first but when compared to...
(Share of audience wise- thats the only fair way to look at it)


They dont seem so bad.
I dont think beating C4 and C5 and having comparable results to BBC2 is that bad. When added to this the channel is targeted at the what 25% of Wales population i.e Welsh speakers or learners then the channel actually does very well, getting comparable results to ITV and BBC1. For example Pobol Y Cwm got a 16% share, if we take its targeted at 25% of Wales population, and extrapolate it to be aimed at 100% of Wales population it would have had a share of 64%, somthing ITV and BBC can only dream of for EE and Corrie on a normal Monday night.

S4C has a problem IMO that a lot of its programming is either a) repeats b) a load of crap c) Both. It shows programmes what I would describe as being true PSB, not like the BBC at all which is more like a commercial channel in its programming today.
Wedi 7- you think they couldnt make the One Show more boring, yet S4C managed it.
Pobol isnt as good as it was a few years back, but its still the cornerstone of S4Cs nightly programming.
Taro 9- a consumer affairs programme, but limited to things releated to Welsh speakers
Llwybr Yr Arfordir- essentaily a walking programme.
These dont exactly light up the roof tops in entartainment factor IMO.

A problem with S4C ratings is also with the accuracy of results with such a small sample used in Wales.

While I agree there are many many things wrong with S4C, its unfair to attack its viewing figures when in reality they arent that bad.

Yeh, but that seems pointless, because one reason why The One Show gets an audience is that people who hate Emmerdale switch onto it, whereas this will be opposite the regional news which surely has a similar remit and a similar audience profile. And surely it would just weaken the news because I would expect quite a lot of the audience for that is people turning on early for Emmerdale. That's why my mum sees it anyway.

a daily stripped gameshow? Blockbusters, Millionaire, or even Red or Black