ITV1's favourite movie on again! Last seen February on ITV1.

But on ITV2 it seems to have been superceded by Hot Fuzz, which has been shown 10 times this year alone.

Just astonishing for CBS. The whole saga has been a gift from the heavens in terms of kick-starting Mondays this season. Astonishing to see the best scripted numbers in 6 years - and the whole night was lifted too. Even HIMYM before the main event. Obviously, things will drop back down again - and the two veterans will likely end up in quite familiar territory within a few weeks (which is a victory in itself for TAAHM). The big question I suppose is 2 Broke Girls, but I see no reason it can't at least manage to sustain HIMYM numbers in that cushy 8.30 slot.

Obviously everything else was hurt badly, but DWTS is more than big enough to just absorb the dent and plough on regardless. ABC will be happy with how Castle did and consider the night OK on that basis.

Disaster for NBC with The Playboy Club which is essentially dead on arrival. I don't think this one will even see out its initial order. Another drama flop - what a nightmare. On the other hand, I don't think The Sing Off did too badly against extraordinary competition. It's got a chance to pick up the casual viewers CBS sheds over the coming weeks (though Fox's drama will enter the fray). Frankly, even 1.5-2.0 as an average would be as good as the old dramas used to manage at a much cheaper price. As we know, the Fall seems pretty much all about damage limitation for NBC anyway before a big push at mid-season.


They could probably get away with it - the BBC seems to get the stick whenever anything clashes these days (see the silly articles in The Sun about the Spooks-Downton business). Frankly, there'd be no reason XF couldn't be pushed back. Starting at nearly 10 would hardly be a disaster for Jonathan Ross whose been playing later slots than that all his career.

I'm sounding like Brekkie here, but this is one of those weeks where there is too much in the BBC1 schedule.

Secret Fortune isn't the sort of programme that should be finishing at 9:25pm and Casualty finishing at 10:15pm is ridiculous as well.

Behind-the-scenes footage of ITV Player relaunch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71hnoVqwkGo

I agree, there is no need for Doctor Who, Merlin & Secret Fortune

They just need to keep it up this year as it's been the same story the last couple of years - a new producer comes in, things pick up later in summer and then ratings are expected to rise further come the autumn, but never do.


Hopefully the new freshers arriving next week (5 next week, and with the introduction of Daytona Lights another five to follow) will refresh the shows biggest weakest over the last couple of years - the students.


I think you've answered your own question there.


Exactly - soap fans expect things to be wrapped up in six weeks but this is playing out much more realistically and really on the sort of pace of most soap serial killer storylines.


Now that explains alot - you read the Daily Mail!


Agree - many suggested (including myself) maybe they should just admit defeat and go off air for the summer - but they did the exact opposite and it's paid off.


Looks like The Hollywood Reporter were (unsurprisingly) spot on with that - and I suspect the only show tipped too fair worse (Charlies Angels) will fail too.

Do any Doctor Who fans know if the final episode is only 45 minutes long? Sometimes the final episode of an individual series is longer.

How the BBC can defend the Celebrity MasterChef scheduling is beyond me. It's an unmitigated disaster and depressing to watch unfold. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous, they put forward a schedule with two separate episodes at 4pm and 5:30pm on a Saturday!

Their argument that it's some kind of improvement because there will be "more hours" of it than ever before is bogus if stuff is being repeated in some of the episodes, and the benefit of this is far outweighed by the negative of inconvenienced viewers unsuccessfully finding it in its new timeslots.

What a bunch of muppets, running one of their biggest programme brands into the ground. And even when the viewers speak up about it, predictably the BBC still stands by their decision because they are too stubborn to admit they got it badly wrong.

Danny Cohen, I for one have lost faith in you.

Monday nights might be about damage control but the rest of the week isn't. It will however be interesting to see what they do with The Playboy Club (assuming it doesn't have a miraculous growth next week). They've got Grimm waiting in the wings for Friday and really at this point they have nothing to lose by trying it out on Monday night. Or they could launch the new Brian Williams news show in the slot although it remains unclear when exactly that's going to be ready.


Scheduled for 45 minutes so I'd assume 45 minutes. I'd guess it'll top out at 50 minutes this year.


Which is odd because the BBC Press Office confirmed it for Monday October 3 and Tuesday October 4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pro...html#mon_sarah

That's why the ubiquitous twin-tuner PVR comes in handy

Because of Celebrity Masterchef? I'm not even clear if this was actually his decision. Did he order this series because the length of the order suggests it was always daytime bound and if he didn't order it there's not much he could do. Certainly he couldn't strip the whole thing across primetime for weeks on end. Although if it was ready it might have been a good replacement for The One Show when it was on summer break...?

I know, hence why I have been looking, but so far nothing.

BBC Press has the Doctor run finale running for 1 hour, Digiguide has 45 minutes, so who knows what is going on there.

Is this your answer to everything? The BBC is ratings chasing and not paying due consideration to viewers.

This strategy could be hugely damaging in the long term, as we're seeing with viewers deserting MasterChef, until recently one of its biggest brands, in their droves...

So the BBC isn't supposed to air big shows together or opposite anything remotely successful on commercial broadcasters? BBC1 is supposed to be a big mass audience show so of course they're ratings chasing. Nothing says 'keep paying the license fee' like massively popular shows.

I bet FOX is annoyed that TAAHM has stolen their thunder, if X Factor tops the ratings, I'll be very surprised. I think it'll break 20m though.

It'll be interesting how the CBS dramas perform tonight especially Unforgettable, NCIS will do 18-20m and NCIS: Los Angeles 16-17m. The Good Wife did 13.8m when it first aired so I think Unforgettable has to get similar figures.

Wonder if the huge success of CBS Mondays will put pressure on The Big Bang Theory? Thursday is crucial as it's the first time in ten years that CSI isn't on at 9pm and PoI has been hyped and marketed heavily. I'm going to say for The Big Bang Theory 13-14m, Person of Interest 16-17m and The Mentalist 15-16m.

I enjoy MC and the scheduling is awful but do you think you might be taking it a bit too seriously. Even by DS standards thats

FOX had a bit of a weird season last year because they always knew they had to find room for X Factor and Terra Nova this season. Plus, House was shedding viewers at an alarming rate and everything seemed to be in the shadow of Glee.

I don't think last season damaged Kevin Reilly/Peter Rice, but if this season doesn't go well, then they'll definitely be under pressure.

Channel 4 and also BBC Two are ramping out the premieres, think Big Brother is preventing Channel 5 from putting some on. From 2008 movies, Channel 5 still have Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, 21 and The House Bunny which I think with the exception of 21 could air after Big Brother. Blockbusters like Terminator Salvation, Angels and Demons and 2012 I would save for December or January.

Terra Nova needs to succeed or it will be an expensive writeoff. House I think this will be the final season although if neither TN or Alcatraz, I could see House getting a one season reprieve to wrap things up.

FOX has The Flintstones in 2013 and also Cosmos so I think they'll be ordering less new shows and of course cancelling shows that are underperforming.

Not to mention the fact that The X Factor has been starting at eight o'clock or thereabouts every week so far. Nobody's forcing them to do two hours of The X Factor either.

The Spooks/Downton stuff is unbelievably irritating, drama goes up against drama more or less every week of the year, last week George Gently was up against Appropriate Adult and for half the summer Torchwood was up against Single Handed. And in the eighties and nineties it was drama vs drama every week, I don't recall endless discussion of Lovejoy vs Heartbeat. And Spooks and Downton are two of the least similar dramas you could find.


Well, Casualty always used to finish at that time when it used to be on Fridays, but I know what you mean. But it's no different to the likes of Family Fortunes spanning the watershed, which it often does, and Red or Black finished at ten, so Secret Fortune finishing at half nine doesn't seem like too much of a problem. And if you were to lose that, what would go after Casualty, Live At The Appalling again?


It's hardly ratings chasing putting Masterchef on at quarter past two in the afternoon, is it?

ITV schedule far more aggressively than the Beeb, always have, they showed Emmerdale opposite EastEnders every week for three years, Unfortunately nobody's bothered pointing that out and just swallow the guff the ITV Press Office spew out, hence why Strictly vs X Factor became a big deal despite them clashing of forty previous occasions, because ITV went crying to the Media Guardian who always want to put the boot into the Beeb.

CBS:
How I Met Your Mother - 55%
Two and a Half Men - 49%
Two Broke Girls - 48%
Hawaii Five-O - 37%

ABC:
Dancing With The Stars - 28%
Castle - 32%

FOX:
Hell's Kitchen - 57%

NBC:
The Sing-Off - 47%
The Playboy Club - 42%

at that Doc Martin rating - 9.1m (inc. +1) is excellent. I thought it would be pretty stable week-on-week due to some big Corrie eps, but to actually increase is very good news for ITV. It also benefited from weak BBC competition. Looks like this series os going to have a very successful run. Emmerdale and Corrie strong last night, and thoroughly deserved for Corrie. Hopefully this is a turning point now for bigger ratings as the dark nights close in. BB back to 1.4m (looks like the same 1.4m that watch Monday to Thursday).

Also on a random note- It's the 100th episode of Shameless next Tuesday night and the slot it 10.00-11.45pm. That seems incredibily long me, and I can't see it bringing in a big overnight at a length like that. I know 100 episodes is a landmark for the show, but that duration is ridiculous IMO (and I'm saying that as a fan of the show).

There's no particular reason why Doctor Who and X Factor can't clash, but it'd probably make sense for ITV to shift X Factor back 15-20 minutes so as it starts at the junction on BBC1 rather than halfway through DW. Plus, it'd mean better numbers for Family Fortunes.

ITV have a great night so naturally that's down to hype rather than the channel actually producing programmes people want to watch. Excellent for Doc Martin; Coronation Street has suddenly found extra viewers for the hard hitting storyline; Little England pulls in a good figure opposite EastEnders and that's a very healthy figure and share for Emmerdale. They'll be pleased to see The Chase is now holding it's own in the 5pm slot.

Hollyoaks is really finding some momentum at 6.30pm with not much in way of competition. Dispatches performed very well at 8pm but Embarrassing Bodies is suffering the well known by embarrassing case of over exposure at 9pm...any other shows that you want to air all the time, Channel 4? Rude Tube pulled in a strong figure at 10pm.

Big Brother bounced back slightly but it's not a good figure when considering it was beaten by Rude Tube. Poor night in general for Channel 5; Royal Navy was no doubt strangled by Dispatches covering a current story. OK! TV seems to be doing slightly better than previously; maybe Big Brother is offering it an ever-so-slight lift?

Bang Goes The Theory did well for BBC One; I can't remember it performing that decently previously against Coronation Street - is my mind playing tricks on me? Will The Queen's Palaces did below 3m next week? Looking at future schedules it looks as though they're just throwing filler against Doc Martin. The One Show seems to be finding it's feet again after a weak summer. Panorama struggled against Coronation Street but EastEnders recorded a good figure.

I wish BBC Two hadn't mucked around so much with Dragon's Den; as proven by it's launch it can perform so much better than that.University Challenge did well once again though Antiques Roadshow lost some of that lead in. Eggheads is a very consistent performer in the teatime spot.

It seems like Celebrity Mastermind is being chucked into every available slot, without rhyme or reason. It'd help if it had a consistent weekly/twice weekly slot instead of these seemingly random Saturday shows.