Worthy of a couple of

It's been confirmed at a press screening today that there'll be another Downton Abbey Christmas special next year.

Daybreak's percentage of viewers went down on Monday even though they had the x factor winners on. Ratings seem to be going down even with the old favourite back. People must be just sick of the format

Jonwo, you've been asking when new drama Birdsong is airing. According to this, it'll be shown in January. I reckon on Sundays from 22nd January, BBC1.
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Also, it looks like The Exit List is the latest show to head for the Tuesday Night FlopZone. According to another website, it begins on Tuesday 10th January at 8pm, ITV1.

I don't get the thing with breakfast telly. I mean, it's only breakfast TV. Do people purposely get up at 6am specifically for BBC Breakfast or Daybreak? 'Oh no Daybreak is on at 6am, must set my alarm so I don't miss it'.

Surely viewers just put BBC1 on default at that time in the morning as background noise whilst they are getting ready for work, getting the kids to school etc.

If I were ITV1, I'd give up. I don't think it's the format that's wrong or the presenters or anything. I just think people don't care between 6 and 9 in the morning and will stick with their habits and keep on the same channel as background noise.

I've never got the big hoo haa about Daybreak or why ITV made such a big deal out of making hit breakfast TV.

First of all let me say I am a huge BBC fan and I can see why BBC1 gets more than double the viewers of Daybreak, but I have noticed that Daybreak looks amazing in HD. It has a kind of American news feel to it. BBC Breakfast looks pretty bland by comparison, I am so happy they are moving to a brand new Digital studio in Salford. I think BBC will miss Sian Williams, but not Chris Hollins. I can see ratings for BBC1 getting even better once Susannah Reid becomes the main female anchor.

John Stapleton as good a journalist he is, well he is less viewer friendly than Adrian Chiles, Kate Garraway feels so 1990's. Daybreak has a really great look to it - just needs some new presenters, maybe Sian Williams will jump ship and someone like Dermot Murnaghan from Sky News.

Millions of people watch breakfast tv every day, I am not sure just how accurate BARB ratings are, do members log in out each time they run to the kitchen for a cuppa or to go and brush their teeth, mave the kids off at the front door? There are of course something like 9+ million pensioners, millions of unemployed & housewives who are up and about sometime between 6:00am and 9:00am. Also not everyone works 9-5, which the advent of shift working I would imagine less than 1 in 3 people are out of the house before 9am.

Yep, looks like BBC1's Sunday nights are going to be Sherlock and Birdsong in January, another drama in February (Call The Midwife?) followed by Wallander in March. Looks like a pretty solid lineup to me.

As for The Exit List - ouch. Looks like ITV weren't impressed with what they saw. As has been noted on that website, it could explain the extra commission for All Star Family Fortunes, which seems to be a pretty last minute thing and could have been triggered by The Exit List being crap (in a similar way to Celebrity Chase being commissioned at the last minute after it was seen how crap High Stakes was). I know ASFF hasn't been recorded yet but in previous years episodes of ASFF have aired within days of them being recorded so it wouldn't surprise me if it starts on 7th January alongside TV Burp, Take Me Out and Ross. Given that the competition will be reasonable but not too heavy that lineup should actually do OK for them (ASFF should do better than Primeval and is much more compatible with the rest of the schedule).

Also it looks like the next series of The Jonathan Ross Show has been extended to 14 episodes according to SRO Audiences. I believe it was originally going to be 10, so for them to give this series an extra 4 episodes and already commission multiple further series suggests that ITV were pleased with how it did this Autumn. The raw numbers may have looked poor, but the demos were excellent (both 16-34s and particularly ABC1s) so considering how cheap the show is it was probably quite lucrative for them.

Oh yes the year ITV stole Christmas from the BBC by stealing their biggest stars and the top rating of the day, although BBC research at the time revealed 26 million watched The Sound of Music. However, the BBC was still angry at the loss of Morecambe and Wise and their defection dampened their Christmas so much they caved in with this boring film.
Yet the BBC was to have the last laugh as the ITV MW special was seen as below par and the following year's special saw millions switch over to BBC One as the special turned into a boring interview with David Frost and the duo's fortunes went into steep decline on ITV.

The problem with this argument is, it doesn't explain why the gap between BBC Breakfast and ITV's rival offering has widened since Daybreak started.

ITV wanted to change habits and convince viewers to put them on in the mornings instead, reversing a more gradual switch by viewers to the BBC, and all they've achieved so far is send even more viewers en masse in the other direction.

I still maintain what people like most in the mornings is familarity. Daybreak was so different to GMTV it scared many away instantly, before they even had much of a chance to sample the dire format. The upcoming move to Salford will create instability at BBC Breakfast, with a few high profile departures already confirmed. This represents ITV's best chance of bringing an end the current BBC dominance, assuming they have a competent new presenting team in place by then, preferably with more of a journalistic background than the last pair, as well as a more credible output.

Don't they make pilot episodes of these programmes?
Everybody and their grandmother could tell High Stakes was tripe after one epiosde. In fact, most people could tell just by watching the trailer, hence the reason why nobody watched it to start with.

Yeah, it does look like a solid drama lineup there. BBC One has been getting closer and closer to ITV1 in the primetime shares for Q1 Sundays in the last 2-3 years, to the point where this year they even won a Sunday primetime when Dancing on Ice was airing and was close a few other weeks. I think with the above lineup, the gap will continue to close (and they may even nudge ahead a few Sundays). Countryfile will be moving to 7pm and will be counted as part of Attentional's definition of primetime, so that'll help boost BBC1's primetime share too as I imagine that'll rate higher than how Antiques Roadshow was rating in that slot this year, and AR itself which will be at 8pm will probably rate similarly to how Lark Rise was doing. I can see a few of those dramas faring better than Zen and Terry Wogan's Britain which occupied the Sunday 9pm slot in January/February this year.


There was indeed a pilot for The Exit List, which apparently was a bit rubbish. Yet ITV still picked it up . They also picked up The Marriage Ref after a pilot!

Because there is a handome profit to be made there. There is huge potential there and crucial audiences available to exploit.(more than any other slot between 9am- 6pm)
Gmtv still had a turnover of £56m in 2009 one of its worst years ever,
Why do you think ITV paid 22.5m for the final 25% stake of it


Then why was GMTV ahead in 2007 and for nearly 20 years before that?

Isn't Call the Midwife an 8pm drama?

Hmm, I'm not sure. I just assumed it would be a 9pm drama but I guess 8pm is a possibility, with it taking the former Lark Rise to Candleford slot.

A few weeks ago we had a chat about how out of touch the DS Strictly Come Dancing forum is.
There are currently serious suggestions over there that Bruce should be sacked and replaced by Chris Hollins Other suggestions include Gethin Jones and Barrowman!!

Of course, it's not even made by ITV Studios anymore, it's made by Cash and Aherne's company Jellylegs.


That's right, a flm so flimsy it wasn't even in the Radio Times film guide, and worse still the episode of Parkinson scheduled for after it was cancelled because there was a strike the previous week and they couldn't film it. In fact if you look at the Glasgow Heralds from the week before Christmas on Google News you can see they were extemely pessimistic about anything being on at all because of the strike.

Of course Yorkshire were on strike on Christmas Day, so 3-2-1 couldn't be shown on the network and they put on Space 1999 instead, and Yorkshire had to show Eric and Ern in January instead. It also meant that on 21st and 22nd December, all three channels in Yorkshire were off air.

The rest of Christmas Day 1978 on BBC1 was alright, though - the Gen Game, The Sound Of Music, Some Mothers and Mike Yarwood, who of course had won the night the previous year.


Indeed, Anthony Horowitz said Simon Shaps decided to axe it and said he wouldn't commission any more after the last three, hence their dart through the last year.

I'm fairly sure Countryfile ran at 7 earlier this year when Lark rise was on. They aired AR repeats at Six and when Lark Rise was over, new episodes of AR were on at 8.

Eric had his second heart attack in March 1979 and spent the summer recuperating. It was not possible to mount the Christmas show on the same scale as before and it turned into a somewhat lukewarm interview with Frost.They were also without their regular producer at the BBC, Johnny Ammonds, who later joined them at Thames.Eric's health inevitably affected the rest of their career at Thames.Eric died on May 28, 1984. It should also be noted that after they went to Thames, the BBC rather cunningly showed a series of highlights of their BBC endeavours which achieved huge audiences again.

Thanks, I thought Birdsong would air after Sherlock. I think Empire will air in February as it was meant to be shown this autumn but got held back with Wallander then Upstair Downstairs in March and April.

is Casualty or Sherlock on, on Jan 8th?

Sky 1 has recommissioned their comedy 'Spy'. There'll be 10x30min episodes next year as well as a 1-hour Christmas special.

It was a period of tension in the television industry in the run up to Christmas 1978. The BBC had a series of work to rules and lightning strikes that had been causing disruption since November and almost went off air over Christmas when their technicians threatened an all out strike that was resolved at the last minute, Border was knocked off air for three weeks in November. Yet this was mild compared to the ten week ITV strike in 1979 and smaller technicians strikes that disrupted the BBC throughout 1979.

Predictions for Channel 4:

21:00 - Big Fat Gypsy Christmas: 5.5m
22:00 - This is England '88: 3.0m

...although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them win from 21:00 to 23:00 tonight.

Not, the Warren Oates?!