If Hollyoaks posted 800k the night before on E4 and has 1.4m that's a healthy 2.2m (not including +1 and the omnibus) .. definitely a show on the increase although they have to keep finding strong storylines for the main characters as the freshers and sixth formers will struggle to come up with a good story between them!

any ratings for Gossip Girl and TOWIE?

So - the Waterloo Rd "ratings crisis" is over then?

Strong rating for Panorama. Thought that would struggle to get much more than 2m. Dismal for the Champions League match.

How did the brilliant Python drama do at 9pm on BBC4 last night? I'm not sure it will have got the big numbers the other comic legends biogs/dramas have got, but it really was a first class bit of telly. And it's not as if the mainstream channels offered much resistance.

20:00- Gossip Girl: 161k (0.69%) , +1: 73k (0.3%)
21:00- Peter Andre: My Life: 858k (3.6%) , +1: 130k (0.73%)
22:00- The Only Way is Essex: 938k (4.9%) , +1: 182k (1.9%)

Gossip Girl is a flop series for ITV2, it hardly ever gets more than 250k or so, and that rating was below its previous series average of 177k. TOWIE got its highest Wednesday rating of the series so far.


21:00- Holy Flying Circus: 574,100 (2.54%) inc HD

They might be a little bit disappointed with that rating, it's lower than what previous BBC4 dramas have had, even though it was double the slot average of 306,000 (1.3%).

thanks

edit: forgot to add GG episodes have been on iTunes for a few weeks already, may explain a bit of the decline

The Simpsons is in syndication but my understanding is that its sold into local rather than national syndication which isn't anywhere near as lucrative. Partly because national advertising can't be sold during the broadcasts and partly because it means it can't be sold to cable. I'm not entirely sure what the nature of the contract is that won't allow them to now sell the show into national syndication but apparently whilst the show is still producing new episodes Fox are locked into this model. Interestingly Fox is talking about launching a Simpsons cable network as and when the show comes to an end although I suspect that may very morph into all purpose Animation Domination network allowing them to reap the rewards from Simpsons and Family Guy repeats in particular.

A show can go into syndication at any point. Firefly for example has aired syndicated repeats (largely on cable) and it only produced 13 episodes. However the major money from syndication comes from 'stripped repeats' where episodes are stripped across the week a lot of the time in double bills (almost always for comedy) and to do that the new industry standard is at least 88 episodes. As noted it used to be 100 but its become increasingly difficult and expensive to get shows to that point so expectations have been lowered a little.

It should be noted that a lot of shows - NCIS: LA, The Mentalist, Hawaii Five-0 - sell into syndication well before reaching 88 episodes. That tends to be on cable though rather national syndication.


There's no locked in answer to that question and it varies wildly from show to show because of things like actor costs, producers and locations. It would for example be more expensive to book a big name actor for 12 episodes rather than 3 or 6. Equally it would be more expensive to pay a big name writer for 12 episodes rather than 6 or 3. Certainly though there is the money for some shows to be have extended episodes order my point however was that the money simply isn't there in British television for the standard series order to be 13+. This is especially true for new and untested shows.


It is a bit of an interesting situation this. If I had more time I'd talk about it a little more but I will however say this. It should be noted that the same team of three people wrote the first two seasons of Glee and Aaron Sorkin basically wrote the first four years of The West Wing by himself (although admittedly he was high for a lot of that). In theory one writer or a team of writers can produce larger episode orders.

However again this comes down to money. I suspect most of the time its probably cheaper to hire one or two writers to produce 6 episodes than 4 or 5 writers to make 13+.


Sky is also doing a lot of drama co-productions and is much more aggressive than any other British broadcaster about selling their shows internationally. Plus they have access to deeper pockets.

Hollyoaks
Wednesday 19 October 2011 | E4 | 19:00 | 0.92 million viewers

A little disappointing, but like I say it wasn't likely to get that big a number as it was nothing like as mainstream and straightforward as the other dramas. It was very much a love letter to Python by someone who was clearly a Python fan, and aimed at Python fans with all the various nods to their other work and the in-jokes.

I loved it.

Really pleasing set of Channel 5 figures from 7.30 onwards. Merton did especially well, I think his highest ever overnight. Dangerous Drivers' School was also well above the recent average for these 8pm shows. A relief to see BB back at 1.4 as well.

The icing on the cake is the strong 5* Bit on the Side rating for the task conclusion.

DS says that Dangerous Driving School had 932k (4.1%) but that's a mistake, as that's the rating the slot had the previous week. It had 1.4m (6.2%) as D.M.N.'s post indicates.

Some more ratings from yesterday:

BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.6m (23.5%)

Channel 5
13:45- Neighbours: 795k (11.6%)
17:30- Neighbours: 1.26m (8.1%)
18:00- Home And Away: 926k (5.1%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 18.2%
ITV1: 16.3% (+1: 0.3%)
Channel 4: 8.3% (+1: 1%)
BBC Two: 7%
Channel 5: 6%

Other terrestrial ratings: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=1147

Multichannel
5*
18:00- Home and Away: 515k (2.5%)
23:00- Big Brother's Bit On The Side: 362k (4.1%)

BBC Three
20:00- Don't Tell The Bride: 670k (2.9%)
21:00- Up for Hire Live: 215k (0.9%)
22:00- The Fades: 453k (2.6%)

BBC Four
21:00- Holy Flying Circus: 574k (2.54%) inc HD
22:30- Friday Night – Saturday Morning: 345k (2.79%)

Dave (inc +1)
22:30- Qi: 307k

E4
19:00- Hollyoaks: 741k (3.4%) , +1: 200k (0.9%)
20:00- Independence Day: 889k (inc +1)

Film4 (inc +1)
18:45- The Phantom of the Opera: 165k
21:00- Volver: 168k

GOLD (inc +1)
22:00- Gavin and Stacey: 188k

ITV2
20:00- Gossip Girl: 161k (0.69%) , +1: 73k (0.3%)
21:00- Peter Andre: My Life: 858k (3.6%) , +1: 130k (0.73%)
22:00- The Only Way is Essex: 938k (4.9%) , +1: 182k (1.9%)

More4 (inc +1)
18:45- Come Dine with Me: 332k
19:45- Grand Designs: 301k

Watch (inc +1)
20:00- Dynamo: Magician Impossible: 311k

Sources: Broadcast, C4Sales, DS (1) (2)

Much better for Waterloo Road benefiting from weak ITV competition, but with all the soap interuptions it has lost its momentum and I doubt we'll ever see overnights of 5m+ again. There's also the issue that the quality of this series is awful, so I reckon it's going to struggle in coming weeks.

Great night for Ch5. It's been a while since they saw 1m in the 7.30pm slot and also much better than expected for Dangerous Drivers. I thought that would be another sub 1m flop! Excellent for Merton too. I've also noticed how well Bit On The Side seems to be doing for 5* now!

The rating of the night though has to be Hollyoaks attracting nearly 1m for the first look! A lot of Ch4 episodes this year haven't even been that high. Seems like it finally may be a turning point for the show.

Great stuff. It's a shame it was a fairly weak episode, hope it hasn't put people off.

Yea i think it was back to the under 18's mixed with other stuff. Either way it's a great figure and it's also good that it hasn't stopped people tuning into C4 the next day by the looks of things.

I suspect their Halloween party episode is going to the most watched this year (combined).

BBC2 has recommissioned comedy crime drama 'Vexed' for a 6 x 60-minute run.

The first series aired quite a while ago (August 2010) so it seemed like the show had been cancelled, but it's coming back according to Broadcast.

On another note, Moira Ross - the person who revamped Strictly Come Dancing last year - will be executive producer of BBC1's The Voice. The other executive producer is Mark Saben who has been the very successful series editor of The Apprentice in recent years. So two big names there in terms of off-screen talent.

Not surprised by this announcement that Just a Minute is coming to TV, its been threatening to do it since the 24 hour game show marathon.

however the spin put on it by Monkey over the Media Guardian is worthy of RobbieSykes123 himself.

article


YouTube Video

Tonights The Night has been sold to Canada

Barrowman told everyone at his concert last night.

I assume they're doing their own version, as he also showed some clips of the TTN versions in a few other countries (which were indeed generally remarkably similar to his show here, same style opening credits, same cheesy singing. Sweden in particular seemed to have their own version of Barrowman).

The atmosphere in a staudium with one stand empty didnt help. Reminded me of some sort of eastern European or Soviet 1970's style place.

I dont know if that is such a good thing, can Europe really handle 2 John Barrowmans?

isnt the plural of Barrowman, "Barrowmen"?

John Barrowman should present Eurovision, if we ever win it again.

This was the show that bankrupted its production company wasn't it? I'm fairly sure that's the reason its taken this long to get a second series because if memory serves it performed relatively well for BBC2. Presumably Lucy Punch won't be back for this second series though given that she's found success in the US.

Hope she will, as she was key to the success of the first (mini) series.

Glad it's coming back. But this is the sort of programme though that should be heading for BBC1 and a mainstream audience.

Yeah, Lucy Punch isn't returning. She'll be replaced in the next series by Miranda Raison.

Now that is a nice surprise, Vexed really grew on me over the course of its short run last year....IIRC it was produced by the same (sadly failed) company who made Foyle's War, anyone any news as to whether that will be coming back?

He was here in Northants wasn't he?

I didn't go mind.