I agree partly with that but I disagree to an extent. The Bill when it was on Tuesdays in this century, in 2001 for example, wasn't doing that badly relative to the Friday episode, if we take the w/e 14th Jan 2001:
19 THE BILL (FRI 2101) 8.48
22 THE BILL (TUE 1959) 8.22

Even when it moved away from the plum 8pm Friday slot with a Corrie lead-in in 1998, The Bill didn't fare that badly. The 2001 episodes frequently had Friday episodes at 9pm and still on occassion surpassed the 9 million mark.

And bear in mind that 8/9 million that The Bill was getting would have been enough to get it in the top 10 on the BBC1 Top 30 weekly in 2001. The fact that it was only in position 19 and 22 on that week is a reflection of how strong ITV was at that time with Corrie getting 16 million, Heartbeat, Emmerdale and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire all doing fantastic business for the channel.

Or with the upcoming move to Scotland, could the BBC be planning a massive revamp to a soap format with half-hour episodes every Thursday at 8.30pm?

Maybe I'm reading between the lines too much but I'm getting the impression you were a fan of The Bill allthingsuk

Although I wouldn't bring it back now ITV1 do need some drama staples in it's weeknight schedule (both at 8pm and 9pm) and do need a simple non-demanding returnable series which can run for the sort of length Heartbeat did and give them some stability in the schedules, and although it's good to see plans for ITV1 to give the family sitcom another shot, I think realistically they'd have more chance of succeeding with pre-watershed dramas.

I was and still am a fan of The Bill. But I think it was the right time for The Bill to stop as it had been messed around far far too much in its final couple of years.
As regards to Heartbeat, why on earth did ITV axe it? It was still getting a solid 6 million in summer? I know it skewed relatively old but it was a reliable performer for the network.

Sorry if my posts are a bit too much on The Bill and its viewing figures.

The X Factor is scheduled to air every week of October in the US so there's never a week in which ITV2 wouldn't have had an episode of the series to air. The original schedule was:

Wednesday October 12 - Judge's Houses Part 1
Thursday October 13 - Judge's Houses Part 2
Tuesday October 18 - Judge's Houses Part 3
Tuesday October 25 - Finalists Revealed
Wednesday November 2 - First Live Performance Show

I'm not sure how ITV2 planned to schedule all of that but I'm assuming they planned to just mirror the US scheduling. Although they probably wanted to keep it airing on a Thursday or Friday rather than move it to Wednesday for two weeks.

The schedule now is a little all over the place with the current plan in the US being:

Thursday October 13 - Judge's Houses Part 1
Sunday October 16 - Judge's Houses Part 2
Tuesday October 18 - Judge's Houses Part 3
Tuesday October 25 - Finalists Revealed
Wednesday November 2 - First Live Show

I imagine it makes most sense for ITV2 to double up on Judge's House Part 2 and 3 next Thursday and Friday and then air the reveal the following Thursday.

Quite inconsistent scheduling, it has to be said. How will TXF USA be able to keep any sort of momentum with that sort of scheduling? Also, 3 judges' houses episodes seems a tad too much. How long is the runtime for the judges' houses episodes - 60 minutes?

In other news ABC have order a back 9 for both Suburgatory and Revenge. Both will produce 22 episodes this season. Happy Endings has also had an order for 6 additional scripts. If I'm remembering rightly Happy Endings had a 13 episode order for its second season so that would take it up to 19 episodes if they go into production which would just about line it up to pair with Modern Family (it might be one episode short) throughout the season assuming Modern Family has an hour long finale to match its hour long premiere and at this point I'd guess it will.

What's this then? :yawn:


Because we've been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt.

Walking With Dinosaurs was new, fresh and something different. But now CGI dinosaurs are old hat.

I'm enjoying Planet Dinosaur (though I missed one episode and wasn't bothered about catching it later), but really it's just an episode of Horizon turned into a 6-part series.

Fox have and will continue to throw a lot of money into promoting the show so I wouldn't be overly concerned about whether audiences will follow it. Although the Sunday show this week might be a bit of an issue given the short notice but the Tuesday shows shouldn't be an issue. Indeed a big singing contest on Tuesday night's isn't alien to the audience. The irony of this scheduling is that Fox were trying to avoid the World Series and it just hasn't worked out for them at all.

My memory isn't great on this but I believe Judge's Houses Part 1 and 2 were originally scheduled for 2 hours with Part 3 and the reveal show scheduled for 90 minutes (with an episode of New Girl airing out of it). Fox however ditched that plan and have expanded all of The X Factor shows in October to 2 hours. Its possible that the Judge's Houses were all supposed to be 90 minutes though and have special comedy airings running out of them but I don't remember.

I'm not sure about the viewing figures for Walking with Dinosaurs back in 1999 but Walking with Beasts got some very very good ratings in 2001. Its first episode on 15th November 2001 grabbed 13.99 million combined with the repeat showing on that Sunday.

Towards the end of that run, it was only getting a combined audience of 9 million.

Seems like Fox are intent on overkill already, to have all the X Factor USA shows in October 2 hours long. So does that mean that the Judges Houses shows will total up to 6 hours potentially?

Ah, didn't realise there was a "Finalists Revealed" episode too - they really are milking it then, though I wonder with them putting 16 through from Judges Houses to an 8 week run of live shows whether "Finalists Revealed" might be trimming them down from 16 to 12.


Ah - I expect better manners from my smilies and was looking for a hand over the mouth!

Good news! 'Suburgatory' has been a huge bright spot for ABC this year, for a new show to build out of 'The Middle' is no mean feat - and 3 weeks above a 3.0? Very good, ABC have capitalised on a very weakened Fox this week and took a well deserved first win of the season last night. 'Modern Family' must be poised to pass TAAHM soon.

Two and a Half Men
10.3
7.4
6.1
5.9

Modern Family
6.1
5.7
5.7
5.7

It'll be an interesting battle for the top scripted show of the season!

WTD debuted on Monday 4th October 1999 and including a Sunday repeat had 18.91m viewers.

The final episode, including repeat, had 15.69m

My god, that's fantastic. That rating (18.91m) was the same that EastEnders was getting (combined of course) in 1999.

not ratings but I cant believe the BBC just used Rebeccas Blacks Friday to promote Have I Got News For You, however oddly it had a male vocal.

Most Watched Sky Shows - 6th to 12th October
01 - Terra Nova (Sky1)
02 - An Idiot Abroad 2 (Sky1)
03 - Live International Football (Sky Sports 1)
04 - Glee (Sky1)
05 - Two and a Half Men (Comedy Central)

Source: My Sky Week e-mail.

I'm not sure what platforms this applies for, I assume Sky+ only, but I'll put the Top 5 up every week as I get the e-mail every Thursday.

Including commercials the Judge's Houses will indeed total 6 hours. I actually don't think its a problem to fill that and in theory it makes the reveal much bigger because after 6 hours with the final 32 the audience should be much more invested in all of them.


Its not entirely clear how the finalists revealed show will work. If I'm remembering rightly its scheduled to be a live show so it screams 'X Factor twist' on paper.

I suspect ABC will claim a demo victory and describe Modern Family as a the biggest scripted show (and most watched comedy) of the season whilst CBS will claim a total viewers win and describe Two and a Half Men in pretty much exactly the same way.

Although that'll depend on where Two and a Half Men ultimately ends up settling.

I agree. All of which doesn't bode well for The Impressions Show!

Modern Family adjusted up two tenths in the finals. It now ties Two and a Half Men as the biggest scripted (and non-football) show of the week in the demo. Both scored a 5.9.

Happy Endings was adjusted down a tenth (3.2) whilst Up All Night (2.1), Suburgatory (3.1), The Middle (2.9) and Criminal Minds (3.8) were all adjusted up a tenth.

In that case then I guess an exact repeat of what happened here last weekend - although for the US all in one show.

I've seen this trailer a lot and I couldn't believe that someone had covered that bloody awful song.

From BBC's point of view, I think they will fight to keep WR on Wednesdays (probably at 8pm). If WR were to leave Wednesdays that leaves them in a similar position to how ITV are currently on Tuesdays. However, were it to move, I think the best outcome would be moving Waterloo Road to Thursdays at 8pm once Corrie has left. It would give Waterloo Rd an Eastenders lead-in and Emmerdale is a bit more isolated in the 8pm slot that night. If they do that though, they should keep some parts of the year free for other shows, else they will have permanently locked one of the better post-Eastenders slots with WR.

Ultimately I think the relocation to Scotland will be more harmful than what ITV can do to it. If the Scots like it though maybe it could live on as a Scottish only show like River City.


Yes that's fair enough, it probably makes no difference on big soap junctions, when people would be flicking over to ITV1/BBC1 in any case. I would be interested to see one of those 1minute break-downs from TrickyTree to see what happens during a news update though. Do most viewers watch it or treat it like an advert break? In my own viewing, when I'm watching BBC1, I would say I watch it about half the time.