For obvious reasons the structure lends itself very well to US imports. I do honestly think that the UK commercial channels should make the move to that ad structure. The sponsor bumps present a bit of a stumbling block for the smooth running of it though obviously.


I'd take a punt on the resurgence of comedy at this point.

Sky1 have committed to comedy, both domestic and imports, in a major way recently and have seen great success with it. On top of that we've got the head of BBC1 chasing more comedy scripts and with Miranda it looks like they might now have a proper comedy hit to schedule a comedy block around. Channel 4 have brought a shed load of US comedies and I'm hopeful that might prompt to invest properly in British comedy to pair with it.

The major stumbling block here might be ITV who don't have the greatest track record with comedy. Having said that I do think they should take a gamble and try airing a new sitcom in that 9PM slot during Britain's Got Talent final week rather than Corrie. Although obviously I know they won't.

Considering how TV Burp struggled in the Britain's Got Talent sandwich when it was used as a quick replacement I don't think ITV1'll risk anything new in that slot. They seem to be looking for a quick fix now - simply flogging their strongest shows for the cash, not minding if it's actually detrimental to the programme itself.

I'm not sure any of those examples are permitted under UK rules - they certainly couldn't show adverts on the screens behind people (although I think Hollyoaks talked about the possibility of sponsors being on billboards).


Re: Deal or No Deal Live - I'd have thought C4 might have pushed the Sunday edition a bit closer to primetime tonight and next Sunday to test the water a bit for a primetime live series next year.

I agree. I think IMO 2009/10 was a mini-golden era for comedy with Outnumbered, Miranda and Gavin and Stacey all proving very successful for the BBC.

But can the BBC replicate the success it had in the 1990's with its various comedies like OFAH, Brittas Empire, One Foot in the Grave, Keeping Up Appearances, 2point4 Children, to name a few? It needs scripts, but it needs quality scripts that are genuinely funny.

The BBC is doing reasonably on the comedy front with Outnumbered, Miranda and Mrs. Brown's Boys, but it does need more.

Sky1 have done well in their commitment to comedy with new shows like Trollied and Spy. I think a bit more homegrown drama should be good - something like Dream Team would have been good in a Tuesday night slot, had it not been axed. Good solid drama for 32 weeks of the year.

Excellent set of rating for BBC1, it would have been sweeter if Casualty had topped 5m. Even with a 25 minute lead-in more people choose to watch MotD at 22:20.


I recall TXF getting 50% audience share in the past, maybe some viewers are getting wise to the fact that they can see highlights of the show right at the end, or on the Sunday show, then watch the Sunday show for the elimination. ASFF and HHTVB getting squashed by SCD.

Embarrassing for The Xtra Factor: 605k (3.1%), beaten in it's slot by

I Don't think it's ever got 50% apart from the final has it

Well certainly on timeshift it has, I will take a quick look at last year's overnights to check.

He is right it rarely gets 50% on the overnight averages

I think if they don't want commercial channels to go the same way as the US with adverts after the titles then I think they'll have to relax product placement further.

I think the big mistake was to relax the advert rule across primetime rather than per hour, as already stated.

I will keep an eye out for it.

Probably, but people had no internet to complain on in those days.

You're making a lot of anti-BB posts today, trying to deflect attention away from TXF's fall from grace perhaps?

Yeah, okay, Big Brother rated poorly yesterday. Let's not gloat about it too much though. Only Friday night it recorded 1.6m for the first show and a share of over 10% for the second, which for Channel 5 is very good going. Not quite the stellar figures seen for CBB, but decent enough.

The Saturday shows were always going to struggle and I thought this right at the beginning so I'm not changing my tune here. Even during CBB there were some nasty lows on Saturdays. And when the show was on Channel 4, ratings fell to 1.0m / 5% for an episode in July 2009, not far off what yesterday's episode on Channel 5 averaged. The rest didn't fair much better for that particular series.

Good rating for Strictly last night, still doing great numbers. My attention however is drawn to the Casualty rating, which looks very strong for a full on X-Factor clash. I had previously been a supporter of moving Casualty to 9:40pm permanently (news at 9:20 ish) to reduce the X-Factor clash time, however having seen what a Merlin lead-in can do I am impressed. I'd like to see more of this scheduling and whether the ratings pattern can continue. In fact the whole night just worked and rated better for BBC1 like this, even the lottery draw had a decent rating.


X-Factor did alright, obviously underwhelming compared to previous years but still ITV's top show. Jonathan Ross should be doing better with that lead-in though; it is basically the same ratings it got at 10:35pm on Fridays with a 4m lead-in.


Really bad primetime shares for Channel's 4 and 5. I think the NCIS/CSI/other repeats were much higher than that last year under similar circumstances. Die Hard 2 just about scraped a respectable rating, given it went on til late.


This issue is annoying for me too.

They've gone right back to the beginning with NCIS. So we're talking about episodes that are 8 years old that have been shown numerous times. No wonder it rated poorly.

I ran out of time editing, but here are stand out audience shares for 2010.

I think 'fall from grace' is a bit of an exaggeration for The X Factor to be fair; yes it had dropped but everyone expected it too and it's still pulling in brilliant figures.

Strictly had a bigger spread in my paper of choice today. I would say that's almost unprecedented.

Oh right, that could account for the drop then.

Newspaper inches does not constitute a fall of grace - especially when looking at The X Factor's current figures.

It could be that the two shows will now go through highs and lows against one another; until the move Strictly was on top, then X Factor, now Strictly's gaining momentum amd so on.

I do wonder how the two shows would do if directly head to head now (both starting at 6.25pm, say) instead of Strictly having an hour and a bit lead.

They could do worse than sliding in a repeat of Alphas next Saturday. Even if it only does 500k or so like NCIS has been doing, that kind of exposure could be valuable for increasing its audience on 5*.

Yes but that is peaks over 50% and that was mostly before live shows

Of course not. More a sign of the times.

Oooh, I didn't realise it was the same guy. Early 1990s' hairstyles have a lot to answer for!

Of course all of the rules restricting adverts and product placement make it harder for FTA commercial channels to earn revenue which in turn makes it harder for them to compete (against both the BBC and Pay channels) which in turn leads to weaker FTA commercial channels and a stronger Pay TV sector.

We've already seen this with sport - compare the amount of top sport FTA in the UK compared to the US.

The question now is whether we are going to start seeing similar trends in more general programming. It's looking pretty likely.

That would suit me!