Except you fail to mention that it was on from 02:00 to 04:15, was probably the only live program on in the UK at that time, hence why it had 6 of the 10 trends, so your argument is not really valid.

Indeed, the expectation for the launch rating must be high if they have forked out for adverts outside of the Desmond portfolio!

All series of the Ronnies premiered on Saturdays on BBC1 with the exception of series 3 and 4 which had their first run on Thursdays on BBC2 and series 11 in 1985 which was moved to Wednesdays in place of Dallas because....

You may remember that Bryan Cowgill at Thames Television successfully poached Dallas from the BBC so (I believe it was) Michael Grade dropped Dallas mid-run (and drafted in the Ronnies to fill the gap) so that he could run the remaining BBC episodes head-to-head with the ITV episodes. However, the other ITV regions did not approve of Cowgill's move (fearing the BBC or Channel 4 would bid for ITV's US dramas and force the prices up) and made him give it back to the BBC.

I think Mrs Brown's Boys could solve BBC One's Christmas Day comedy dilemma, do they lean on Caroline Aherne to make another Royle Family, which she didn't last year, revive an old sitcom that wasn't very funny when it was revived, or try a new hit. I.m sure MBB could pull in 9 million in a 10pm slot on Christmas Day.

The point stands that twitter is skewed towards certain things, WWE, One Direction etc. so as to be meaningless. It's not a measure of what is popular overall.

And I'm sure espn were showing something live at the time. College basketball maybe.

Absolutely nothing wrong with having a Boxing Day slot. Back in the 1970s, just about the only big sitcom to get Christmas Day slots was Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Stuff like Dad's Army, The Good Life, Porridge and The Likely Lads all took Christmas Eve or Boxing Day slots.

What sort of numbers does Above Suspicion get? Is it likely to be below Endeavour? Could MBB climb back up in the overnights?

Definitely - MBB has definitely been a grower. It's certainly not the kind of show that the critics rave about, but it has a certain rough-edged charm and warmth which has really won audiences over, and is very well-suited to a Christmas slot.

Not really solving the problem as filling the 2nd (10pm) slot with comedy isn't a problem, they filled it this year.

It's the 9pm slot filled with mainstream comedy which needs filling. I doubt MBB would air at 9pm on Christmas Day, unless they wrote an episode with no variants of the F word!

Yep, it was a particularly rough run for it. And it'll be airing against The Voice, which will have been on for a few weeks by the time DWTS gets going.

DWTS revamped quite a bit a few years ago and that was the template for a lot of the changes to SCD, as I understand it. One thing DWTS hasn't done is change the panel - they've still got the 3 they started with. But I've no idea whether or not they're going to do anything for the spring cycle or just brace themselves and pray for the best.

The fall season averaged a 3.1 rating among adults 18-49 (works out just over 4m viewers in that demographic). The Voice had nearly 6m on average. The most recent series of The X Factor, America's Got Talent, Survivor and The Bachelor have also attracted more viewers in the demo.

I half expected it to start this week, but C.M.W said it might be delayed past January this year.

It would certainly make ITV happy if the BBC put a vulgar 1970's man dressed as a woman 'comedy' show on at 9pm

Better still, the BBC could ask John Sullivan's son to write a new episode of Only Fools and Horses, and stick it on at 9pm.

They would prefer it if the BBC aired The Royal Bodyguard there...at least Mrs. Brown's Boys appears to have found a favourable audience.

EE continues its strong run of ratings last night. Emmerdale should be around 8m really especially as tomorrow night we find out who attacked Cain. ITV1 have also done zero promotion around this episode after the attack which they used "Judgement Day Is Coming". I think it maybe below 8m tomorrow now due to this. I seem to remember they never advertised the climax to the whole Wydle storyline either which also underperformed because of this. TBL did a bit worse than I expected, but in the 9pm Tuesday flopzone, what more could they really hope for.

Also does anyone have the rating for 90210 last night, exc./inc. +1 if possible? Thanks.

Yep, also 2 adverts during Mamma Mia break too.

Its interesting. In the old SCD world someone like Karen Hardy would have been a shoe in. However it might be considered a bit boring to have a known cosy face in the razzle dazzle modern show of today. Since Cowell has made his midnight raid I reckon the pressure is on to do something a bit out of the ordinary.

EDIT: Congrats to "Robert Sykes" flying the flag of the BBC into the dragons den of the Mail

This could be the comedy hit of the decade. Viewers have been waiting for years for a rough edged comedy that is miles away from My Family.

Public Service came before ratings for BBC One; Panorama rated slightly worse than I expected considering how much interest there seemingly had been in the trial. EastEnders recorded another excellent figure and appears to be on a roll at the moment. Holby City's rating looks fine but the share appears to be slightly on the low side. Celebrity Masterchef performed very well at 7pm and hopefully it'll encourage the BBC to try other programming there outside 'holiday' periods other than The One Show.

BBC two had a brilliant night after a somewhat quiet monday with both Nature's Weirdest Events and King George and Queen Mary picking up brilliant ratings. have I Got Old News For You seems such odd scheduling considering the lead in and sure enough the audience disappeared with the monatchs. Eggheads performed well and I'm assuming Great British Railway Journey's held on to a lot of the audience as there was barely a dip between the teatime quiz and Hairy Bikers.

What can be said about ITV1 which hasn't been said already? Not only do they have a problem with the infamous Flopzone, Pointless is also comfortably beating The Chase. I hope the latter isn't another show that ITV1 decide to drop save for celebrity versions because ratings have dipped as it's a good format. It's been quite obvious for a while that the major issue in primetime is viewers desert the channel after Emmerdale and do not return; they need something to bring viewers back after EastEnders and I'm still surprised they haven't risked Coronation Street in the 8pm slot (with plenty of promotion) to do this. Obviously there's no point doing it now with another revamp around the corner.

The Bank Job held on to it's audience which will be a relief to Channel 4, even if it didn't launch that well. Accused performed decently, and it was good scheduling to air something about a 74 Stone babysitter straight after Fat Fighters! The latter may have rated slightly lower than Channel 4 would have liked but it didn't disgrace itself. Hollyoaks is comfortably above the 1m mark once again and the show has had something of a turnaround since last spring when we were talking about whether Channel 4 would put it out of it's misery.

Does anybody have a figure for Trucks, Trailers and Tinsel on Channel 5 (7pm-7.55pm) please? It shouldn't have rated any lower than OK! TV. Charley Boorman's Extreme Frontiers didn't do brilliantly though Cowboy Builders performed reasonably well in the 8pm slot. However, the likes of CSI have managed double the figure of XIII: the Conspriacy which must count as a disappointment considering how the other channels also struggled in the slot.

BTW, are Channel 5 really scheduling a half hour news bulletin at 5pm and 6.30pm from 16th January? Surely they could've found something to fill one of the slots?

I suspect Sky Sports 1 will do well tonight...

Now that all The X Factor ratings are in for last year (we've been waiting for episodes w/e 6th Nov 2011 to be updated and now they have), and also w/e 13th Nov 2011 episodes have been adjusted too the official series average is:

2011: 12.04m (inc. +1: 12.42m)

Last 3 years for comparision purposes...

2010: 14.13m
2009: 13.00m
2008: 10.51m

So inc. +1 last years series isn't as far away from the 2009 series as some may have originally thought. I wasn't a vintage year for TXF, but with over a 12m+ series average and the 2nd most watched show of 2011, its not exactly a complete disaster.

Nah, they never would have expected that to get CSI figures. It wasn't even advertised. With a share of over 5% it did fine.


Yep. From next week the 7pm bulletin is brought forward. It'll rate just as badly as it always does but out of primetime it's better news from a share point-of-view. I think it's possibly just temporary whilst CBB is on as I think it needs to be after 7pm for much of the year in order to contribute to their peak time quota, the reason it's there in the first place.

I do think though with CBB coming back they could have done with more of their mainstays back in the schedule to give them a bit more oomph. Early evenings look depressingly weak with some of these Stobart episodes on their fourth airing now on the main channel alone! With the aussie soaps not back until the 16th, and the talk shows not back until the 9th, everything is a week too late. It's a very slow startup again after the holidays and it will cost them in the all day shares.

Barely a week into the new year and we have a flop already. I'm not talking about Tuesday on ITV1, which until they move they move the ECL back will stiff for ages to come, but a very high profile one. David Jason has hit his first reverse for decades and Yahoo! are claiming the BBC are very unimpressed with The Royal Bodyguard, whose ratings have halved as it just isn't funny.

Another massive piece in The Mirror about it today. I guess it's such a big story because of David Jason's involvement and what that meant for expectations.

Although they shouldn't need to be told by the British public. They should have looked at the pilot episode, spotted it was rubbish and binned it there and then. That's what these executives are paid for.