http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...how-pilot.html

Please stay far, far away from ITV1.

Well, Hidden was quite intriguing but I'm not sure it was very viewer friendly. Reminded me of State of Play a bit, and we know that was a ratings flop despite being one of the most critically acclaimed dramas of recent years. I'm not expecting big numbers for this one.

BBC One was hurt by the increased opposition, and I think that answers the Coronation Street question - Waterloo Road will no doubt move back to 8pm when the soap switch takes place. Who Do You Think You Are? was slightly dented by the lead in. Planet Dinosaur is not pulling in the Walking with Dinosaurs audience.

ITV1 had a strong night - Pride of Britain seemed to weaken the other channels as it recorded a very good rating, with the Emmerdale hour long ably supporting it. Cops with Cameras did ok after the news.

Big Brother is steady but the rest of the schedule struggled against the opposition on Channel 5. Highland Emergency did well considering it was 7.30pm against soap opposition.

BBC Two had a reasonable night last ngiht; Rab C Nesbitt did well at 10pm especially...How To Win In The Den was presumably a repeat looking at that rating? It Takes Two is starting to grow as the week goes on.

Location, Location, Location and Grand Designs were hit by the tougher opposition but not seriously so. Fresh Meat took a further slide; it's no longer near excellent territory. The Simpsons and Hollyoaks performed well once again.


Strictly fodder if so. I can see their logic considering how family dramas do against The X Factor but I can't see it working.

like it Robbie!!!!

And which party did ex-Prime Minister Blair belong to...........as in : that's the man who is godfather to Rupert's daughter Grace?????


Again, couldn't agree more!

There may be strong & valid arguments against Murdoch and his media empire - the involvment with the corrupt Blair & Brown administations possibly amongst them!!!

Link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...chedule-245185

Week 3 and the claws are starting to come out. The CW has cancelled H8R. It's ratings were horrible, so hardly any surprises there. Ringer repeats will replace H8R, although that show is not doing well either.

Which show is next to be chopped?

I think I could have told the CW that H8r would flop, do TV channels not look at the shows format when they commission them?

H8r is second only to "Epic Win" in the "easiest to spot flop, based on title alone" category.

6% is hardly a small cut - and that's 6% of the licence fee - as you point out the programming budget is smaller than that so the actual cut is greater. From your figures around savings in effeciencies account for around 15% of the licence fee - so when you consider non-content spending which will remain we're probably talking closer to a 10% cut in the budget for content.


It's funny isn't it how most of the first shows to be axed are exactly those observers predicted at the upfronts a few months earlier. OK, there is the odd surprise flop and unexpected hit, but on the whole how on other don't channel execs etc. see what the rest of the world sees when they pick up a pilot which will almost certainly fail.

The X Factor 'big twist' for anyone interested.

http://xfactor.itv.com/2011/news/sto...tem_100094.htm

Actually quite a good one by recent XF 'twist' standards. 4 acts going home should create a good deal of drama for the Sunday night show.

I think it will lose X Factor some Veiwers. The way i get it the public can't vote very very silly

It reminds me a bit of Dancing on Ice...you're on the show, but you're not actually on the show.

Don't think it has a UK pick up yet but FOX have released the first trailer for Kiefer Sutherland's 'Touch' - supposedly debuting in March. Looks quite interesting.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/firs...er-sutherland/

ABC had a mixed night; Modern Family seems to be holding onto it's audience well but Happy Endings loses too much of the lead in. Suburgatory does well to build on it's lead in; Revenge is slowly dropping viewers.

CBS was as solid as always but Survivor seems to be struggling slightly in the 8pmn slot. Criminal Minds is very under-rated considering the job it does. That's a decent figure for CSI at 10pm.

FOX will be pleased The X Factor is not losing viewers and will hope the live shows will produce more hype. I wonder if they're trying certain things out on the UK show to then move over to the US version? Like Happy Endings, Raising Hope didn't make enough of The X Factor's offering.

Up All Night is performing ok for NBC at 8pm but it's no surprise Free Agents has been ditched. That's pretty poor for Law & Order at 10pm too - I think tghey woud expect the demo to be better than that but Harry's Law didn't offer much of a lead in.

Tim Kring seems completely incapable of giving his plots a proper ending though. Even if it has a hot first season, I'd expect it to become incoherent sooner or later.

I actually thought it might have been announced by the time I got home tonight. But if episode 3 holds up (and it seems that it will) then I'd imagine they'll make the announcement.


I think we might see a small gain for X Factor tonight. Last nights rating should have been lower (the show usually posts higher numbers in the 9.30pm period) so that does indicate an underlying rise on last week.

The drop for Raising Hope doesn't bode well for I Hate My Teenage Daughter. Indeed, history suggests that sticking sitcoms at the end of a 90 minute reality show (Idol/DWTS) doesn't tend to work.


In fairness, Free Agents ratings really are ghastly. I'd have punted it off the schedule before The Playboy Club. How on earth a comedy takes


I'm not sure I like that it's entirely the judges decision - I'd have had a public vote and had a bottom 2 in each category which the mentor had to choose from. The prospect of "8 acts in danger" might have driven voting as well.

But I think it's a pretty good idea anyway. The double eliminations didn't really work early on last year and I think anything more than 12 acts is too many. So this does add a bit of urgency to the first week.

Fair point about non-content spend.

But even somewhere approaching 10% of content spend in an organisation the size of the BBC is still not that demanding.

I think it's noticeable how quiet the reaction today has been - not just on here but in the media generally. I think it feels very much that the BBC has been able to find these savings without having to make any particularly painful decisions.

I suspect David Cameron is thinking the BBC has "got away with it" and he could have got away with being quite a bit tougher. At the same time it reflects good negotiating skills by Mark Thompson over the LF as I'm sure Cameron must have expected the BBC to have to make more painful cuts.

But there is one caveat to the above calculations. See Media Guardian article re cuts to BBC News which also contains a bit about Newsnight:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...c-newsnight-pm

This says Newsnight will no longer do anything on site from the Party Conferences. This made me think - is that a content cut or a productivity cut?

- You could say it's a content cut as the content will no longer be made.

- But Newsnight will still exist in full and they will obviously still talk about the Party Conferences. It's just that they'll do it from the studio. So maybe it's classified as a productivity saving - ie the same programme will be being made more cheaply.

So the position MAY be more complicated than the headline numbers suggest. We MAY start seeing changes in the format of programmes so they are made more cheaply with the saving being deemed to be a productivity saving whereas in fact the content will have changed to some extent.

It really is ridiculous the number of people the BBC sends to party conferences and other events - and it is of no great advantage when the interviews can be done ''down the line'' (has any politician ever refused to do an interview because the interviewer is not sitting next to them).We might also see some savings on transmission - the Miliband and Cameron speeches were shown simultaneously on

BBC 2
BBC News Channel
BBC Parliament

Why ?

Sky have signed for ten more episodes for TX next August (Sky's third season).

Ah, an interesting parallel with BBC Breakfast's move to Salford then - it will not be a problem if politicians and others "can't be bothered" to take a trip up the motorway then.


There tend to be tailored commentaries/analysis dependent upon channel and perceived audience, with a straight feed on BBC Parliament, an opportunity to opt out on the News Channel for any breaking news (as well as such a speech being news).

It also takes the wind out of the sails of the Voice in a way as it is basically how the Voice eliminates in it's live shows. It's done basically so Joe Public thinks The Voice stole the idea from X-factor and not the other way around.

BBC1

TOS - 4.3m
EE - 8.4m
Watchdog - 4.3m
Hidden - 5.2m
News - 4m
QT - 2.4m

ITV1

Connolly - 4.6m

I hope that 5.2 holds up on the Digital Spy ratings

That Connolly figure includes +1, by the way.

It got 4.3m on the main channel.

Well, Hidden did a little bit better than I feared and comfortably beat Billy Connolly (although his ratings I think were up on the week - subject to whether the above are aggregated figures or not, of course).

Be interesting to see whether Hidden started higher but fell significantly or was steady throughout.

Re this "BIGGEST twist in TXF's history" (according to the ITV link) let me get this right. Instead of ditching 2 acts, they're evicting 4 this week? Is that it?

It's hardly a "twist", just double the number of evictees they'd normally have. Whooppee flipping doo....

The hype and puffery around this show sheer beggars belief. And yet the tabloids, social media and the viewers just suck it all up.

Good number for Hidden last night. I'm not convinced it'll maintain that across the run (or even close) but we'll see how things go.


Just for the record the only reason both of those shows got a second season is the writers strike.


I suspect Prime Suspect airs all 13 episodes. I don't imagine NBC will want to pull a third show.

On the subject of Free Agents they had to pull it. They couldn't keep it in that 8:30 slot running out of just about the only bright spot they have on their schedule. I think people are dramatically underestimating what a success Up All Night appears to be for NBC at this point (it got adjusted up to a 2.3 in the finals which could very well make it their second biggest non-football show of the week) and they need to do whatever they can to protect it. Keeping a show pulling a 1 in the demo running out of it is not protecting it. Beyond that there's giving shows time to grow and then there's shows flat lining. Free Agents flat lined.


In theory Ringer repeats seem like a good idea in trying to keep that audience stable. In terms of the next show to go all the money now moves to Charlie's Angels on ABC.


Tim Kring has the same issue as Ryan Murphy - he has no idea how to write characters. What Kring and Murphy both do is write plots and then write characters to fit that plot. This works fine during the first season of a show but when you continue that philosophy of writing characters to plots rather than plots to characters your entire show just falls apart.

Heroes is basically a masterclass in how not to write television and increasingly Glee is becoming the same thing. Completely inconsistent characters that change for no rhyme or reason week-to-week to service increasingly bad and nonsensical plots. That either man continues to get series on the air is remarkable.

1.42m for BB. Highest rating in 9 days and highest rated Thursday episode of the series.

What do we think the eviction ill get?