This is correct because if any PR has mentioned Downton it wasn't the BBC.'s PR.

GeorgeS should have gone to Specsavers!

There is however almost 4 weeks between Euro 2012 and The Olympics and then 3 weeks after The Olympics to the start of the Autumn season which might result in a situation where there isn't enough time to run a proper length series but too much time to just fill with filler.

The way to look at it is what % of viewers will Sky lose for shared races.

Looks like they think 62% to 63% for both races and qualifying.

I wonder if Silent Witness might be delayed until the autumn.

And that's with a dedicated F1 channel!

New Tricks into the Doc Martin Autumn slot perhaps this year since there won't be a series of Doc Martin there on ITV? Presumably it could pull similar (if not bigger) figures to the summer run there and it would scare ITV off of putting anything there as well.


I would imagine Pat's death has bumped the figures up but the fact that (so far) 2012 has produced good-great episodes probably isn't hurting. The real test will come after Pat's funeral I would have thought.

The DVD release date of Silent Witness' previous series is 6th February, which is probably an indicator that the next series is starting in February sometime. I'm guessing it'll begin on Monday 13th February the week after Mrs Brown's Boys finishes, run for 5 weeks on Mon/Tue like last year, ending the week before MasterChef finale (Mon-Wed) week.

Morecambe & Wise moved to BBC1 in 1971 and I say their shows were on Fridays/Sundays. They rarely if ever had their shows on BBC1's on Saturday night. The Two Ronnies were more of a Saturday night fixture than Eric & Ernie.

The other F1 consideration is that the BBC highlights will generally air at more viewer friendly times than the Sky exclusive races, the US ones excepted. So even if Sky gets 1.5m to 2m average for exclusive races, the BBC "extended highlights" on a Sunday teatime could get 3 times that or more. I can see some BBC highlights packages pulling 6m+ at say 5.30 to 7pm on a Sunday.

So with both the Apprentice and the Voice starting in March it could be a good few weeks for BBC.

It is quite scary also that after Euro 2012 and the Olympics finish there will only be about 3 more weeks till the Autumn programs return and then of course it will be the countdown to christmas.

I think F1 would get more viewers if it was on SS1/SS2; though there are limitations with the coverage when on a general sports channel which has other sports to show, as opposed to a channel dedicated to the sport. Quite frankly, football deserves its own channel, but then again, from August to May, Sky Sports 1 is predominantly football. As a pointer to see how the BBC/Sky ratio will be when they share races, does anyone have the ratings from the BBC and Sky to FA Cup Finals before 2009 so we could work out the ratio; as well as BBC and Sky figures for Carling Cup finals. It may give us a decent pointer to how the audience will be split.

Could certain timings for Olympic shows provide a boost to those that follow I wonder?

That's where I'd put it.


So Pat got people through the door and the quality is probably keeping them there.

With all the talk about catchup TV iPlayers and how many really watched a show. This article is worth a read.

BARB online TV viewing research not detailed enough, say experts

I imagine it would actually do better on Sky Sports 1. But as is often the case, it's an issue of attracting new subscribers and offering an entire F1 channel makes a stronger statement to F1 fans. Plus, like allthingsuk says, scheduling such long events might be difficult on SS1.

Its very true - but pressure needs to come from Broadcasters for change until BARB will.
BBC is increasingly annoyed I think - launching their own research and stat gathering in-house.
I think with ITV doing badly on some nights (collapsing) they'll want more info on 'first time viewers' in order to really identify the strength of certain brands (plus it gives them much needed stats for their advertisers on ITV Player to know who the demo is watching)

Hopefully after the pilot (any idea how long its lasting?) into online viewership included in final figures is done, it'll be quickly spread out across the system (2008 iplayer was set up, its taking far far too long to get specific info - we all know BBC probably does better with iplayer included for its Finals (and maybe Ch4 - whilst ITV I think have poorly branded and run a poorer system for too long now - its not a 'go to' for rewatch like iplayer) - theres no excuse for it not being set up quick tbh.


Anyway its long overdue.

When is Public public Enemies being shown?

Obviously that depends on the result, there's a very clear difference between "Vettel strolls to another win" and "Hamilton wins thrilling wet race" - a boring race/wrong result for Brits will not get 6m on BBC One in the evening.

Regardless, it is interesting nevertheless, hopefully Sky Sports F1 channel figures appear as soon as it is launched.

Sure. It's inevitable if you are on channel 408 and competing against channel 101.

Sky may argue a 37% or 38% retention is actually pretty good.

Try putting BBC1 on 408 and see how it gets on!

Look how hard it is attracting people to 105, let alone 408!

Wednesday to Friday and it starts tonight at 9pm.

Michael Rosser has tweeted to say that 1.6m recorded Boxing Day's Mrs Brown, which should mean an astonishing consolidated audience of 8.21m if correct!

rzt - do you have anything for Boxing Day from your sources?

Mrs Brown's Boys was the most recorded show from Boxing Day with a timeshift of 1.6m.

EDIT: Robbie got there first!

Bad example - it's on NBC. Although I'm not sure being a "Fox wannabe" is a bad thing.

I can't see this happening as it's from the Daily Star but would be a shocker if it did.

Is Nicole Scherzinger set to replace Alesha Dixon on Strictly Come Dancing?

Boxing Day Officials
EastEnders... 11.27m (37.7%) [BBC3: 905,000 (3.8%)]
Coronation Street... 9.06m (31.45%) [+1: 281k (1%)]
The Royal Bodyguard... 8.25m (29.1%)
Mrs Brown's Boys... 8.24m (30.4%)
The Borrowers... 6.24m (23.4%)
Agatha Christie’s Poirot... 5.35m (19.28%) [+1: 370k (1.75%)]

Source: Broadcast

Quite a remarkable rise for MBB in the space of a year. Its first ever episode had 2.84m, last episode of the series had 4.10m, and Christmas special had 8.24m!

I mean the PR stuff they have got into The Sun, The Mirror, The Telegraph, etc. The soft placed stuff not the stuffy release that nobody uses.