What are the benchmark figures for ages and social demographics in the UK?

Wonder if ITV might just throw caution to the wind on Xmas Day and go with:

5.00 The Cube
6.00 EmFm
7.00 Coro St
8.00 Downton
10.00 Jonathan Ross
11.00 News

..and see how it shakes down?

It's a pretty ordinary and unfestive line up, and I can't see DFS, Safestyle Windows and Rennies paying top whack for the DA ad slots that the nation's top brands would pay on the 18th, but it will put bums on seats I'm sure.

BBC1's entire Sunday night line up from Countryfile onwards is really pitched at the super old 65++++'s.

Have you ever watched Countryfile, George?

Do you know what it's about?

It's presented by young, attractive, outdoorsy types - and John Craven - and features a range of items on matters of interest to those who love getting out in the open air.

No doubt in your metropolitan media bubble, you think it's all farmers' wives and pensioners' coach tours in "the country".

But that's actually your Downton jam-making audience....

I grew up on a farm so I dont need any lessons from you thanks. And countryfile is a patronising BBC dumbed down country for city folks who like to think that the countryside is all about nice walks and cute animals. It isn't.

I assume that a lot of the younger audience know that Sunday's show is recorded on Saturday and find out the result and don't bother watching.

Last week's 'spoiler thread' had nearly 200k views.

It wasn't Emmerdale Farm, was it?



How you have the nerve to criticise the BBC when your lot turned an established soap opera about a Dales farming community - a TV version of The Archers - into the "tarty wives, lesbian vets and winebars" travesty it is now, is beyond me!

FWIW, I was born and raised in the country and still live there to this day - even if I do work in a city.

I never thought Ab Fab was that special a series, I always thought it was more popular among the media and within the Beeb itself than with the public. The so-called "final" episodes in 1996 were beaten by ITV both nights, I seem to recall, certainly one of them was beaten by An Evening With Lily Savage.

I remember Q reviewing the box set of the first three series and saying you can tell the difference from the video sleeves, as for the first series Saunders and Lumley look suitably silly and embarrassed and are clearly grotesques, while in series two they're taking it seriously, and certainly from series two onwards it lost a lot of its appeal when celebrities were queueing up to be on it, the same people they were parodying in series one. All the famous bits seem to come from series one as well.


I've said this before but it wasn't as if Victoria Wood's show was at 2am on December 29th, it was at 9pm on Christmas Eve, which is a bloody good slot, against bugger all opposition. Not everything can go on Christmas Day, can it? Ther;s only so many hours. It's like how in 1996 the Christmas One Foot was on Boxing Day rather than Christmas Day, because Christmas Day was full up and they wanted something decent for Boxing Day, and it did perfectly well and David Renwick didn't moan,


Not really, although the ratings were up on the nadir under Sharron Davies in the mid-nineties, by 2000 - under Vaughan and Tarbuck, and then Vaughan and the returning Van Outen - it was indeed being beaten by both the kids shows on BBC2 and Channel Five, the average audience in September 2000 was 400,000. Whereas in 1995 they were double that, and of course in 1993 they were beating all the other channels with double that again.

The kids shows on BBC2 had a huge effect on The Big Breakfast, they virtually took the entire child audience away, and they made up a huge percentage of the audience. In terms of profile and credibility it was a big show, but in terms of the numbers it wasn't doing much at all.

I'm sure if the ITV Studios team had managed to deliver the Royle Family commission , then the Beeb would never have given any thought to putting AbFab out on Xmas Day.

But they have been left in the lurch, and having to pin their hopes on this, and a new (and possibly rubbish - the premise don't sound great) David Jason comedy. Not great if you have to go in to bat opposite Downton. A star name alone does not a great sitcom make - see Richard Wilson's ITV Duck Patrol...

Even if DA airs on the 18th or 26th, I'd be reluctant to put AbFab front and centre. Without DA, maybe try EE, TRB and Lapland as something different - would piss all over Poirot, I'm sure.

Re Victoria Wood, I think I'm right in saying it's not been repeated yet. Wonder if it will ever see the light of day again? It was so dire, I bet the BBC bosses couldn't believe what they were seeing when the got the tape...!

It was quite amusing to see This Morning on ITV today screening freeze frames and replays of the East Enders credits so as to allow Sharon Marshall (their soap expert) to admit that she had written her first transmitted episode and is now part of the writing team!

She is writing her next one now and it will go out in March.

which begs the question, should a "soap expert" be allowed to both write episodes of a soap, and do soap spots, there are issues of impartiality to consider.

Indeed - though her episode was pretty good.

She added that she was having anything she said about EE on This Morning 'triple checked' by her bosses!

It has actually, it went out on a Saturday last summer, but under a different name to remove the Christmas branding. Of course, it got a behind the scenes special as well, and was preceded by the (excellent) compilation. It was treated extremely well.

It reminds me of John Barrowman moaning that Torchwood - Miracle Day was "only" five episodes, neglecting to mention they were on every day of the week.

I wonder if The Sun will still be around to reproduce XF stories next autumn.

I suspect it will, people may be morally outraged by the phone hacking, but people who read the Sun dont strike me as the kind of people to be taken seriously, by which I mean they will continue to buy.

since you are always linking to the papers incl. The Sun, does that include you?

I do no such thing, I may have linked to the Guardian a few times, but I do not visit The Sun website (or buy the paper), and I have no memory of posting a link to The Sun on this thread.

Well it could be a steaming pile of excrement but it won't matter. David Jason in a comedy role, on BBC One, at Christmas = a massive rating.

BBC1 can rest easy tomorrow as ITV1 don't have Man U in the ECL, so can have a clean sweep of the ratings. It's interesting how the ECL can fluctuate between 3.5 and 5 million in the group stages because of the team ITV1 are showing. However, when it moves back to Tuesday next year, ITV1 will at least have something that isn't guaranteed to stiff, unless the growing backlash against cheating players and their wages gets too big.

Yeah they aired it against the final of BGT 2010, I bet she loved that timeslot


There was even an entire night dedicated to her on BBC 2 a few nights before it.

George has probably been viewing the Best Boobs on Tv thread and got confused.....

Anyone know the deadlines for the Christmas schedules to be confirmed, and when the newspaper TBA guides come out ?

http://www.bds.tv/broadcasters/bbcTvInternal.shtml

we should get some more information tomorrow, at least from BBC and Channel 5, however aside from specific listings BBC has little to give. It may tell us plenty about Week 51, but Christmas Week I suspect will remain a mystery.

From a population POV, I'm not sure, to be honest. The way I look at it, in terms of ABC1s in TV terms: for BBC1: 50-55% skew is about average, anything under 45-50% is low by BBC1 standards, while above 55-60% is high. For ITV1: below 35% skew is low, 35-45% is average, 45-50%+ is high.

In terms of 18-49 skews% for both BBC1 and ITV1:

<15%: extremely old audience
15-25%: very old
25-35%: old
35-45%: broad
45-55%: young
55%>: very young

And if a show has a particularly high % of kids as well, then a show with a broad 18-49 skew (35-45%) for example, could be considered to have a 'young' audience, etc.

Average sort of Monday really. I expected IAC to be more than 9m, and excluding +1 it netted 8.5m. Still its a great rating for the show, that has rebounded extremely well over the last few years. The soaps can't buid any momentum at all really. They all should be higher. And for EE not to top 9m on a Monday night in November is poor IMO. Also a low share. Emmerdale did OK - the only soap on par with last years figures. Corrie did OK and that second episode should be over 10m officially.