ITV1 really dropped the ball with Text Santa last night, they have had months to plan the launch show and get it just right, no wonder viewers switched off in droves - they needed to keep it fast, fun and upbeat, all those people who had texted for TXF would have have been tempted to stick around a while longer.

I can't believe I am saying this but it needed, JLS, One Direction - even pre recorded and edited in. A competition element - say a prize where 25 viewers who texted last night would be selected to receive VIP invites for the live show on Christmas Eve. I hope it doesn't collapse on Dec 24th, as the good causes it will help are very worthwhile. It just needs to be ten times better or viewing figures could be as bad as last night.

I think people were sick of paying money for voting after the x factor and parents probably told their children to go to bed after the marathon length programme. Text Santa should have been on before the x factor but definitely not at 9.30 after that long drawn out show.

Basically, once you've texted your donation, you've done your bit and there's no need to sit through two and a half hours of the thing on Christmas Eve. I wonder if Channel 4's premier of Hairspray could beat it in the ratings.

I'm hoping Outnumbered on BBC1 beats its personal best.

Body of Proof is an interesting buy for Channel 5, I think it'll be paired with either NCIS or The Mentalist. Wonder if they'll show Series 1 and 2 back to back or just Series 1 which is 13 episodes. I think they should acquire American Horror Story and pair it with The Walking Dead from March or April.

I'm not surprised the US imports are being held until late January/February, it'll give them new content until June which will be when Big Brother starts although I think if they want it done and dusted by the Olympics, they should launch in the second week of June say June 6th or June 7th,

i think the ratings will be very high this week. The weather all across the UK looks awful

BBC1's Young Apprentice final bowed out on a series high of 4.3m (17% share) - winning the 9pm slot.

Source: Michael Rosser

ITV's Real Thumbelina in 2nd with just under 4m

Monday 12th December Overnights
BBC One
06:00- Breakfast: 1.5m (35.5%)
18:00- BBC News at Six: 5.4m (26.8%)
18:30- Regional News and Weather: 6.4m (28.9%)
19:00- The One Show: 5.4m (23.5%)
19:30- Inside Out: 4.0m (17.0%)
20:00- EastEnders: 8.9m (34.5%)
20:30- How to Survive the Meltdown - Panorama: 2.6m (9.9%)
21:00- Young Apprentice: 4.3m (17.0%)
22:00- BBC News at Ten: 4.8m (22.6%)

BBC Two
18:00- Celebrity Eggheads: 2.1m (10.3%)
18:30- Strictly Come Dancing - It Takes Two: 2.8m (12.7%)
19:00- Return of the Lost Boys of Sudan: 0.6m (2.8%)
20:00- University Challenge: 2.9m (11.2%)
20:30- MasterChef: The Professionals: 2.9m (11.1%)
21:00- I Had The X Factor... 25 Years Ago: A Wonderland Special: 2.2m (8.5%)
22:00- Never Mind the Buzzcocks: 1.8m (8.4%)
22:30- Newsnight: 0.9m (6.1%)

ITV1 (inc ITV1+1)
06:00- Daybreak: 0.8m (18.7%)
08:30- Lorraine: 1.1m (20.2%)
09:25- The Jeremy Kyle Show: 1.3m (25.7%)
18:30- ITV News & Weather: 3.7m (16.7%)
19:00- Emmerdale: 8.2m (35.4%)
19:30- Coronation Street: 9.5m (39.9%)
20:00- Countrywise Kitchen: 3.4m (13.2%)
20:30- Coronation Street: 8.6m (32.9%)
21:00- The Real Thumbelina: 3.8m (15.1%)
22:00- ITV News at Ten & Weather: 2.3m (11.2%)

Channel 4 (inc C4+1)
18:00- The Simpsons: 2.0m (10.0%)
18:30- Hollyoaks: 1.2m (5.6%)
19:00- Channel 4 News: 0.8m (3.6%)
20:00- River Cottage Christmas: 1.7m (6.4%)
21:00- Jimmy's Grow Your Own Christmas Dinner: 2.1m (8.5%)
22:00- Chris Moyles' Quiz Night: 0.9m (4.7%)

Channel 5 (inc +1)
17:30- Neighbours: 1.3m (7.3%)
18:00- Home and Away: 1.0m (4.8%)
18:25- OK! TV: 0.3m (1.4%)
19:00- 5 News at 7: 0.2m (0.9%)
19:30- How Do They Do It?: 0.5m (2.1%)
20:00- The Gadget Show: 0.9m (3.5%)
21:00- Charley Boorman's Extreme Frontiers: 0.9m (3.4%)

Ratings include HD and are full-slot averages

Miserable sod.



At least you won't be your usual miseryguts self on Boxing Day this year.

One assumes...


Indeed it does, although high winds probably don't keep people as housebound as a foot of snow. (Or an inch of snow for viewers in the South East... )

With the battering set to hit the NW at the weekend, I did wonder if that has SCD Final implications. Wasn't there an issue before with an OB from the Tower (it may even have been an SCD edition in an early series) being cancelled due to gale force winds imperilling not the structure itself but all the OB equipment/vans etc parked outside?


It's got its best ever and least competitive slot, so you would think it will do well even if millions "default view".


I watched last night for first time in weeks. Hard to engage - it's a bleedin kids show in primetime. As it is coming back in 2012, I do hope they find it a better slot. It has damaged the brand IMHO.

Just being realistic - has anyone seen anything that makes one think these teams are world class?

BBC Two and Channel 4 the major beneficiaries then with the big two somewhat below where they should have been at 9pm on a wet and windy Monday just before Christmas.

Young Apprentice will be fine next year. It's never going to be a massive hit, but that's okay. I'm sure they'll find a slot for it that works better.

Could someone tell me what Question of Sport got yesterday

Those Channel 5 overnights include +1 by the way.

Yes, just saw that on the DS soaps report.

What happened to Neighbours at lunchtime? I doubt +1 could do much to fix this...

13th December 2010: 838k (10.9%)
12th December 2011: 476k (6.6%)

The Beeb's done up like a kipper now with all 3 main commercial channels having their repeat showings included and reported automatically. For example, Coro looks to be healthily ahead of EE with 9.5m vs 8.9m. But it wasn't really. Do we know what it got at 7.30pm? Seems like before long no-one will care. Perhaps they will bring out ITV1+1+1 soon to massage the numbers still further...

I can see us very shortly not even getting access to the "unaugmented" figures unless BBC staff tweet them when reporting the true picture on head to head battles...

Just to make it clear, the overnights above are from the Beeb's own data themselves. Alongside BBC News reporting the +1-included numbers as well as certain BBC staff on Twitter recently, they generally don't seem to have a problem with +1 being included in the overnights.


We actually never know what a programme gets 'live' in its allocated timeslot because overnights are live+SD. So for example, 8.9m didn't all watch EastEnders at the same 8pm-8.30pm time last night. Coronation Street incidentally had 9.48m (39.6%) excluding +1 so it was "healthily ahead of EE" anyway: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s3...ls-in-95m.html

A general rule of thumb is that the ITV1 soaps usually get 100k/200k on +1. So even if a +1-included list is posted, you can sort of estimate how the soap did without +1. Or more easily, just visit DS's soap ratings section who post the overnights pretty early every day: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/co...e/soapratings/

Its called a PVR - maybe you should get them all banned?

Do you think the BBC will ever bring out +1 channels. I think i read a few weeks ago that they are not allowed to is this correct?

In fairness all overnight figures are augmented as they include anyone who has watched before 2am. I get what you're saying along the whole different channel route - but for commercial broadcasters - which is why ratings are really recorded, and not for us to mull over on a forum, - to look at who watched the adverts. The company that paid to put on that advert only paid once - not for the +0 and +1 channels separately.

Exactly how many people do think are watching Channel 5 on +1? 10K 50K I hardly think they are going to pose a threat to the BBC in anyway shape or form.

Wow Robbie do you want me to go and get your toys and put them back in the pram?

The viewing figures are nearly as good as BBC HD already, maybe we shouldn't bother including those either as that is not likely to add that many viewers.

One multichannel rating in from last night: 586k (2.3%) for NCIS on 5USA.

Highest rated programme on the channel since 13th October.

That's an unfair advantage for the companies that get their region on the single +1 channel, or do they pay more?

Good point! I'm not entirely sure because up in Scotland we only have the one set region adverts it seems.