Yes, viewed that way it does make sense for ITV. Commercially they have guaranteed revenue from 4 big games, come what may.

It could be a fantastic summer for the BBC though, audience wise, with c20m audiences possible for the Olympics opening ceremony and an England SF match should it happen (though given the likely opposition, a QF could do the business as well I expect), and maybe 15m for the Golden Jubilee concert - as well as other very big peak ratings at times during the Games and Euros.

Its a curious thing ITV's chequered history when it comes to charity. ITV or rather Thames brought the telethon format to the UK in the late 70s, but it wasn't until the late 80s that the network went all out with Children in Need style fundraiser.

Although they are often derided the three Telethons raised about £60 million and delivered a peak audience of 30 million in 1990 so they couldn't have been that bad.

Since then any rare effort ITV has made in this field has felt rather half arsed, Text Santa is good example, for what is supposed to be a big event they have'nt put any real resources into it in the way the BBC would for Red Nose Day or CIN.

I think (if) we see the breakdowns we might see people turning off from Little Mix announcement onwards. Thus not being around for the ad, or even Text Santa after.

Problem with Text Santa is a number of things, but I'll start with the commercial POV:
- Its brand is awful. How am I sppose to know what its about? Could be a game show very easily, but a home interactive one which never works. Even when you know its for charity...very general. As a 'campaign' the brand is brilliant, as a TV show is muddled, if ITV do it again in future years they should try to establish the charity FIRST.
- Its staring a woman who the entire country and their dead cat knows has just been sacked for being ****ing awful (add to this a main criticism of her on Daybreak, shes married to an footballer, and made a huge severance payment - hardly the woman to sell ITV as the big charitable lovable channel)
- Pretty dire feed from X Factor, a show all about competition, making money and becoming famous. If the winners song were for 'Text Santa' then it might have worked really really well. Its not. Thus again major major brand problems.
- Last but not least - we just had a veyr very bloated X Factor finale, it was tiring, I stopped watching at times and wished MErlin had a weekend two parter or something! Didn't even watch the song sung at the end, as I say breakdowns will probs show people tuning out in large numbers before the end of X Factor.

From a 'I'm a nice charitable person':
- BBC have two HUGE branded and trusted charities (Wogan being the only hiccup and he fixed it fast) which are very much a celeb infested show, but ones you recognise and connect with and see day to day on TV (Text Santa was just a bit 'we have loads of stuff...but none at the same time' - if that makes sense, never really crossed demographics frankly) whilst nice positive and sad stories play out. ITV never said they were doing this, I have no idea if they even did so on the programme. Hell if i wasn't on DS/GB I wouldn't have known it was a TV show or for charity! So why am I watching or giving money to this?
- ITV are a profit hungry company (who are still trying to wash down the foul taste of diarrhea inducing R/B). They'd need to promise that all charitable money is going to charity and that it was all for the sake of charity. I don't know if these people are paid, and the public ain't thick, soon as an advert pops up they know its to make money (add to this X Factor on before, and the show stinks)

It's this generation's Wizard Of Oz. I look forward to it each year.

Virtually everything Charlie Sale writes about sport on TV turns out to be wrong - I'm surprised the editor of the Daily Wail hasn't rumbled him yet.

I didn't watch Xfactor, never do, but I think Text Santa was on too late. I mean, a school night for children and work night for most, I start work at 5am this morning so wouldn't want to start watching a TV program at half 9. Maybe pre X-factor it should have been on? Hope the Xmas Eve show rates better. I'll have to watch the first on ITVPlayet

Most read story on the BBC News website?

But of course, the "TXF 4m ratings slump"...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16141504

However, they do report the augmented overnight average figure not the actual one, so that's some success for the ITV spin dept...

Amazing Robbie....you are beginning to sound just like Mark Thompson

So now X Factor is over and Strictly is coming to a end. How does everyone think reality TV will do in 2012. Celebrity big Brother i think will be up a bit, I think Dancing on Ice will be way down with a change of presenter and judges.

The Voice i think will do ok with ratings of 6-7m. Britains Got Talent i think will be up from last year. X Factor will be up about 5% but i think Strictly will see a tiny drop. And I'm a Celebrity will be down

Celeb BB will be down. But only slightly tbh.

DoI will be down a hefty amount from the first ep and will continue to fall throughout.

The Voice - those sound pretty decent, a 9 million finale possibly.

I expect The Apprentice to be the hidden hit again (yes people notice it, but no one mentions it in 'BBCs biggies' tbh - which is very unfair) with 9/10 million weekly.

Strictly will be the same, up or down a bit.
IaC...be the same - I always call its end, but it never comes. And always gains and loses viewers each year.

Yeah, although it's surprising how they haven't got a semi-final because it'll make the entire tournament seem like one big anti-climax after the group stage, nobody will need to watch ITV with a week of the tournament to go, and surely a semi-final would have a way larger audience than two extra 5pm group games.

This is a bit like 1994 when ITV nabbed Ireland's two prime time group games and then let the Beeb had the first choice in every other round, so they ended up with the semi-final that kicked off at 12.30am, which was as bad as having no semi-final at all.


Yes, the basic problem is, what the hell is this thing about? Even the name of the thing doesn't make any sense. And also, there's too much charity stuff on ITV these days, they're really bashing viewers over the head with it thanks to Born to Shine and Sing If You Can and Holding Out For A Hero.

In other news, Word magazine has a regular feature where an expert explains how a part of the entertainment industry works and this month, Dan McGolpin, BBC1 scheduler, is interviewed and talks about the various tricks of the trade. Not much we didn't already know, but there's some interesting stuff about how putting stuff on in the summer is no big demotion as total viewers are only down by about 3%, and that 10.35 is a good slot for BBC1 as they have a regular audience for the news as a lead-in then bugger all competition. Though he does refer to My Favourite Joke as "fantastic", presumably why they've already repeated it about three times.

There lies the problem. No doubt ITV have seen the huge ratings delived by Comic Relief and CIN and thought that would please the advertisers. But those are now established events with a life far beyond the TV shows, CIN makes as much money after the telethon as it does during it and the fundraising for RND starts weeks before the day itself.

When ITV did do the telethons in the 80s and early 90s they were proper events too, every regional centre was involved, there were OBs everywhere and adverts were kept to a minimum. But that was a different ITV as demonstrated by the fact the Telethon itself was the first major casualty of the post 1993 ITV.

running late, sounding great

data is live on BARB website for w/e 4th December 2011

enjoy!

TV3 Ireland

452k 27% for Tallafornia launch last night. Not bad for 10.45pm - 11.30pm

Cheers Mike! And if we don't see you again beforehand, have a fab Christmas.

you have one more week on my (vague) posts, then we're shut down for Christmas

don't expect any website updates till 3rd January, but don't hold me to that

What about X Factor and BGT how do you think they will do.

I forgot about the Apprentice. I Agree with you it's a show that gets 8-9m a week but doesn't get much press covrage at all.

One problem there could be the timing, it was originally thought that it would start at around 7.30pm [The Olympic Countdown clock even counts down to that time].

But according to the Standard, Reuters and a few Olympics forums its being moved to a 9pm start after lobbying from Danny Boyle who wants the fireworks to go off at Sunset.

20m from 9pm-12.20am is going to be hard to achieve imo.

http://af.reuters.com/article/sports...79701520111008
The IOC wants it finished by Midnight to ensure that there is no boycott by athletes but these things always run over.
Personally I hope they see sense and move it back to 8pm or 8.30pm.

Channel 4 inc +1
17:45 - Elf - 3.89m

Bad night for old Pip Schofield, the lead-in show and the lead-out for the X Factor and neither hit 4m.

My spies tell me he didn't begin This Morning with his usual gloat about the numbers.

Can't think why...

Part 1 of the MasterChef Australia finale managed 232k for Watch last night. It was beaten in the latter half of the hour by another cookery show Man v Food on its free-to-air sister channel Dave, which had 247k.

The second and concluding part airs tonight at 7pm.

Source: C4 Sales.

Any other ratings talk from you today, George?

There's plenty to talk about, before we get on to Irish TV....

Elf is ALWAYS a ratings winner for Channel 4. Brilliant film and well deserved.

Bit lower for The X Factor than I was expecting, but not by much. A relatively poor end for a poor series in the context of the last couple of years - SCD has a fighting chance of topping that next week and I wouldn't be all that surprised.

It at least means the pressure is off for next series as they have a bit of room to grow rather than having to compete with the ridiculous peaks of last year's series. Bad news though if it continues to fall at the same rate.