most people would not think of The Royale Family as a BBC show. Outside of forums like this one, knowledge of production company's is rare.

People wont think of it as being made by ITV, in the same way they dont think if Come Dine With Me, as a ITV Studios Production.

Top tens are not enough to check how it's performing as repeats don't normally make them.

Episode three got 1.095m for the single Thursday showing, which was up from ep 2's 995k.

Ep one got 1.172m.

So pretty steady for the first three.

I assume as usual with Sky1, the overnights were much lower.

Never wanted a show to fail more than this, I really don't want England to have An Hilton or Kardassian, we've got our own rich inbred idjits to gawp at, they're called the Royal Family.

Actually how did this show compare to BBBOTS last week?

Last Friday's BBBOTS had 564k (6%), but that was in a later 11.30pm slot.

I think the Sun story about The Royle Family is probably true, simply because they've quoted a BBC spokesperson rather than a "source" or an "insider".

You're just right... by 40,000

DCI Banks: 4.64m + 0.22m = 4.86m
Susan Boyle: 5.47m + 0.35m = 5.82m

And that was pretty much as good as it got for DCI Banks in its most recent series.

Time for the development execs to get on this - an eccentric Scottish woman investigates crime in her small rural community with the help of her mind reading cat, Pebbles. Or perhaps SuBo as The Bachelorette? Susan Boyle's All Star Red or Black... LIVE!

I'm almost certain ITV could commission "Susan Boyle: Paint Drying" and it would still beat the Friday, 9pm slot average.

Or maybe not.

Parachute* her in as an X Factor panel member.

(*Not literally. That'd be asking for trouble.)

I was forgetting +1. Or deliberatly ignoring it. One or the other. I can't remember.

Quite poor for AQOS, HIGNFY and LATA. Especially as the 9pm hour was fully networked across the UK for the first time in ages (ie: no Holby dragging it down). I thought we'd see a boost for the 9pm hour this week. Really wish they would swap the Monday/Friday airings of AQOS round so that the new episodes air on Friday. Graham Norton did very well in his slot though.


Very strong rating from SuBo and the +1 repeat was strong too, perhaps explaining the poor result 9pm-10pm on BBC1. In stark contrast to the rest of the year, ITV1 will have had a good run on Fridays this autumn what with DCI Banks, SuBo, The Jury and I'm a Celeb.


Good rating for Ice Road Truckers at 8pm on C5, this is doing even better than Dangerous Driving School. A win over C4 in the primetime shares too.

Good way to boost the ratings, though. If only they'd done that on Red Or Black?

It'll be interesting to see how The Jury fares next week as series 1 in 2002 started with 8m in the officials but lost viewers sharply, slumping to a low of 5m and ending on 5.35m

On the plus, a stripped drama makes it feel like event TV and Julie Walters is often a strong ratings-winner.

On the minus, it's a legal drama and Criminal Justice was a stripped legal drama which didn't fare too well in the ratings (series 2. Series 1 got a boost from an Andy Murray Wimbeldon game running into late-peak.). And Julie Walters doesn't always win ratings. She starred in A Short Stay In Switzerland on BBC1 which didn't fare very well, although it had a difficult subject matter (assisted suicide).

The Jury launches on Monday in a slot that's been attracting about 9m viewers recently, but episode 2 falls on flopzone Tuesday and will have a very low lead-in from High Stakes.

The big test will be Wednesday up against Frozen Planet. Then on Thursday it faces a DIY SOS Big Build CIN special (DIY SOS BB did surprisingly well in the ratings in a Tuesday 9pm slot earlier this year) and the launch of the much-hyped new Ricky Gervais comedy.

So maybe by Friday The Jury may have worn itself out a bit. Although if it repeats the first series feat of finishing on 5.35m viewers, that would be a good result for its slot.

In the US, NBC's Grimm dropped down to a 1.8 in it's second week (from a 2.1 debut). That's not a particularly bad drop, and it still comfortably beat out a pretty solid opposing line up of CSI: NY, Extreme Makeover, Fringe and Supernatural. But I don't think it's the sort of number that's going to inspire NBC to throw it into a more high profile slot on another night, either.

In fact, NBC in general are extremely (some might say alarmingly?!) inactive, considering the disaster zone that is their fall schedule. Having pulled Playboy Club and Free Agents a few weeks back - replaced with Rock Center and repeats, respectively - they seem to have committed to sticking their head in the sand and waiting for the Superbowl. The likes of Prime Suspect, Harry's Law and now Rock Center, despite pulling hilariously poor numbers, continue where they are.

Talking of hilarious ratings, the second episode of much-loved (but not very much watched) Chuck's final season dropped to a 0.8. Otherwise known as "the CW zone".

Good news for CBS with Blue Bloods up to an impressive 2.1 - easily their best performing Friday drama. The "new Chuck" in terms of fan obsession, Fringe, pulled a reasonable 1.3. I was surprised it got renewed last year, so I wouldn't go making predictions for that one.

More here:

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...hes-up/109705/

I suppose there are two ways to look at BBC1 (potentially) losing The Royale Family on Christmas Day - a disaster or an opportunity. I think they have enough Christmas content to be able to replace it without too much trouble but whether or not any of that will rate as well is another issue. I suspect it might. At this point I'm not convinced its The Royale Family attracting 10 million but the slot.


Its an issue of quality. The first season was (for the most part) a brilliant piece of television and then the second season was (for the most part) awful.The audience tuned out because the show stopped being entertaining.


Early days but I suspect that one of three things will happen when CBS has the Super Bowl in 2013.

1 - 2 Broke Girls will get the lead-in and it'll be launched as the new Monday night flagship
2 - They'll give it to a new drama which will go Thursday nights at 9PM
3 - They'll do the 'Chuck Lorre hour' and have a Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly crossover episode

With hindsight I think CBS gave the Super Bowl lead-in to the right show last time with Undercover Boss. It drew big numbers post-Super Bowl and greatly improved their Sunday night performances for the rest of the season as well. The only reason I can think of for not giving the lead-in to Undercover Boss now is if they'd pulled the trigger on a Mentalist/CSI switch last season. In that instance you give the lead-in to The Mentalist (with the first episode of a two-parter like Grey's had on ABC) and then the next episode is the first Thursday 9PM one.

In general though that post-Super Bowl slot is about bringing in the most advertiser dollars which is why Fox gave it to Glee last year rather than trying to launch The Chicago Code there.


They keep changing their mind on the cast change.

Originally yes the plan was that half of the cast would leave at the end of this season but they've since backed away from that and said it probably won't happen. In general I think that u-turn has come because Fox backed away from a proposed Glee spin-off. The idea was that Rachel, Kurt and Fin at least would have been given a new show set in New York next season and new cast members would have been introduced in Glee. Fox haven't jumped on board that idea though. It now seems like they're going to try and sell the spin-off for midseason next year (presumably in the Glee hiatus) and would set it up in the opening episodes of season four of Glee.


Fox are having a bit of a weird season but that was always going to be the case. I don't think The X Factor was ever going to match the 'new Idol' expectations and shows like House and Glee gave very clear indications last year that they'd be down this season. So did Family Guy for that matter.

On Bones I think its important to remember that it moved to 9PM (a higher PUT hour) and got the benefit of an Idol and now X Factor lead-in. That's why its numbers are up. It is worth mentioning though that Fox haven't launched a successful new drama since Glee (and technically they class that as a comedy so you could even go back to House or Bones). They need a new drama hit sooner rather than later and in theory with The Finder launching out of Idol they should get one but we'll see how that works out.

Essentially though for Fox there's show tend to be either a big success or a big failure. They have very little in the way of stable utility players. Bones is really all they have on that front so their schedule tends to veer from highs to lows night-to-night.


Touch looks locked into Monday nights (the old 24 slot). I'm not entirely sure how they're going to schedule Alcatraz though. It may end up launching very early January on Monday nights and run at least some of its order out of repeats of House.


Heroes and Glee have imploded on fairly similar schedules.

Was the Question of Sport repeat last night replaced by a Jimmy Saville tribute - or is that next week? BBC2 would be wise to do a Jimmy Saville night really - an episode of TOTP, the roller coaster edition of Jim'll Fix It and Louis Therouex - job done!

And must say last nights Derren Brown was the best of the series IMO - and the cruellest practical joke ever! I do think though they'd rate better say on a Sunday at 9pm - but not in Downton season obviously.

They're inactive because they have nothing to replace these shows with. Grimm, Rock Center and (I suppose) Chuck were the only things on the bench at the start of the season that were really ready to go. And even then Rock Center was pushed forward to make a November debut. None of the midseason dramas are ready and none of the midseason comedies have enough episodes in the can (and the only one they could really just throw onto the schedule in an emergency is 30 Rock).

And at this point even if their midseason stuff was ready what would be the point of throwing it onto the schedule now? Neither of Smash, Awake or The Firm for example would benefit from debuting out of nowhere in November out of The Sing-Off or Whitney or opposite The X Factor and Criminal Minds. They'd just be taking shows that might have a chance midseason and killing them now.

Having said that in an ideal world they probably should have done something like this a couple of weeks ago when it was obvious the schedule wasn't working:

Monday: The Sing-Off / Grimm
Wednesday: Up All Night / 30 Rock* / Rock Center / SVU
Friday: Chuck / Harry's Law / Dateline
*or at least have announced that 30 Rock would be scheduled there when production was back up and running.

I suppose they could even have shifted the comedy line-up around a little. Maybe moved Parks & Rec from Thursday to Wednesday 8:30 or swapped Up All Night and Community round. But potentially that would have done much more damage.

Next week.

The constant repeats denting the ratings for new editions. Still want an hour of Comedy Roadshow on Christmas night, BBC?

Oh, thanks, not really analgous then.

My guess:
5.50 News
6.00 Doctor Who
7.00 Strictly Come Dancing
8.30 EastEnders
9.30 The Royal Bodyguard
10.00 The One Jasper Carrott
10.50 News

The papers have only just discovered, the BBC could have known for months.

I think stand-up is a quintessentially 10.35 offering, to be honest. McIntyre seems to get away with it on Comedy Roadshow on Saturdays, but thats probably only because he's a big name. If you look at last nights comedians, they were a bit B-List by comparison (in terms of how well known they are), and you wouldn't trust any of them with BBC One primetime in any other format.

Comedy Roadshow will probably be OK on Christmas Day, but they need to be looking at about a 10.30 slot really. I don't think it's big enough to hold down anything much earlier.

BB not really delivering now, 1.48 million is poor for the penultimate week's eviction. It's a shame in a way as Channel 5 tried their hardest with this show by ditching the through the night coverage, changing the host, redoing the house and making the crowd feel less like they were hemmed in. I'll give them full marks for trying, but the public no longer feel the love for the show.

I can't agree with that at all. They've lost a few hundred thousand over the last few weeks due to daft meddling.

Perhaps it is cost cutting disguised as a "too late to film" excuse. It would certainly save the BBC some money for this year at least. They could probably get away with putting the repeat of Miranda Christmas ep on earlier in the day and shoving the whole schedule 30 minutes later, and then pulling forward whatever they had planned to follow the Family.

I think that it could demonstrate that the slot is what gains the viewers rather than the show. It does work well for the BBC as they will probably have something else that they can slot into that erm slot.

So I would go for something like

6.00 Miranda Christmas rpt
6.30 Doctor Who
7.30 SCD
8.30 Eastenders
9.35 AbFab