The whiff is from the rotting corpse of a former 19m rating juggernaut, already consistently beaten by Holby, now only managing a tie with Question of Sport, a show brought from late night to fill a gap in the schedule.

Surely the Westlife show was the first? This is the second Christmas turkey of the year.

I think The Comedy Annual tonight may be the third.

I'm sure A Question of Sport got more than 19m when Princess Anne did horse impressions on it. I must look up my records from 1987.

Pretty poor all round last night. Also interesting how EE didn't get its usual bump for Xmas week (although it didn't last year either due to the aftermath of the tram), but 8.8m is pretty disappointing it has to be said. Corrie only did marginally better once +1 is stripped out. Emmerdale remained fairly solid, and is the only soap thats done well over the last few months IMO. Young James Herriot lost a massive chunk of its viewers. I wonder how low it will go tonight?

I dont think it will go much lower tonight (mind you people said that yesterday). Safe to say we wont be growing old with Jimmy. I'd say 4.2m versus 3.5m for Comedy Annual on ITV1

Interesting that Rock & Chips, another BBC1 prequel did similarly well in first episode only to crash in later episodes. Maybe the BBC will stop trying to mine this lazy derivative stream now (and yes thats why they get a licence fee to take risks as opposed to ITV that has to live or die by advertising alone)

I knew it would drop I was more surprised it didn't drop during episode 1. ITV wouldn't have made the same choices BBC1 did. You'd be able to see everything for a start.
John Sullivan was way past his prime. And even that show was all wrong. A drama based on a successful sitcom? Riiiggghht! And the jokes weren't very good.

Only Upstairs Downstairs worked.

Agreed - I think there was a particualar risk attached to Young Herriot in that its parent series stopped production two decades ago, so you've therefore got a whole generation of potential viewers who've got no idea who James Herriot is. Added to that you've got the rather dark, industrial look of the series with would been completely off-putting to anyone who remembers the glorious Yorkshire countryside of the original.

Just William worked apart from their bizarre scheduling. they seem better at copying ITV shows that their own archive. So maybe we will see London's Smouldering (prequel to Londons Burning); a 1950's Heartbeat and Foyles Inter War Years coming soon to BBC1


you had Robert Hardy, Peter Davison and Lynda Bellingham in the original - a very strong cast. But the stories were upbeat and the scenery played a big part. Very Hearbeat like really.

Home For The Holidays got 0.73m (inc +1) on C4 yesterday.

It's Tuesday; I can't see it dipping too much further to be honest. However, it's safe to say that Young Herriott is probably the second turkey of the season considering it didn't have much in way of competition. EastEnders is really struggling to find any momentum but will this matter come Christmas Day? I don't expect so, despite the opposition. A Question Of Sport performed reasonably though benefited from a lack of Coronation Street.

Reasonable night for ITV1. Considering Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? claimed 6m+ viewers before they'll maybe be slightly disappointed with yesterday's figure but then again A Question Of Sport had the better lead in. Though the figure appears low, Coronation Street's share looks decent and Emmerdale did well. Countrywise Kitchen at Christmas held up well.

University Challenge was yet again a stand out performer for BBC Two but The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff really didn't take advantage of the lead in and Rob Brydon seem to struggle off the back of it though Never Mind The Buzzcocks performed reasonably, starting on a BBC1/ITV1 junction.

Channel 5 will be heartened by The Gadget's Show figure in an earlier slot and they may be tempted to move it there full time; certainly it didn't lose any viewers including plus one while Extreme Frontiers only saw a drop of around 0.1m on last week. However, Trucks and Trailers and Top 50 Soap Moments struggled somewhat in the early evening slot. I'll be intrigued to see how Step Brothers did considering I'm under the impression that the schedule change was so it could be given the 9pm slot.

King of The Christmas Lights was a hit for Channel 4 while The Year The Earth Went Wild also performed well; again, possibly enhanced by a lack of Coronation Street at 8.30pm. Hollyoaks is maintaining it's above 1m figure while Come Dine With Me recorded a decent figure in the tea time slot. Awful for Home For The Holidays, though; the drop isn't as much as Young Herriot's but it didn't have such a high starting point.

There was a risk but they made the wrong choices with it. They bleached out all the colour. Ridiculous. They ended up potentially alienating old and new viewers to Herriot. That's a hell of an achievement!
Just William worked very well so naturally they axed it!


Correct. YJH looked to be a Sunday night drama.Not a chance. Too depressing and a charmless cast of characters.

Another success for Channel 4!!

EE did get a further 953k on BBC3 so that's nearly 10m. Hopefully they will all watch the first run on Xmas Day.

Could be Eastenders fatigue with Wednesday being the only night off between Dec 19th and Dec 27th

Rating for Step Brothers?

I think it'll be reasonably steady tonight as it's got a Holby City lead-in and weaker competition than last night, so about 4.5m. I'm sure the BBC were looking to turn this into a potential returnable series, but after falling below 5m in the overnights against what was not particularly tough competition, I don't think it'll happen.


Speaking of Foyle's War, the writer has said on his blog recently that it may be coming back in 2013 (not next year). And he's also writing a new 8-part drama series for ITV1.

Upstairs Downstairs worked. High ratings across three episodes. If Young James Herriot gets turned into a series I'll be shocked!

21:00- Step Brothers: 1.44m (6.5%) , +1: 116k (0.75%)

Poor night for 5 with the exception of The Gadget Show which as well as being in line with its recent 8pm performance, was also up around 200% on their usual 7pm performance and Step Brothers which did very well.

Surprised that Top Aussie Soap Moments didn't do more in the Neighbours slot, but its a dirt cheap in house production by C5 so no biggie. Trucks and Trailers should never have gone in the H&A slot though, something like Cowboy Builders would have made more sense.

That's a decent figure for Step Brothers in what turned out to be a very competitive 9pm slot. I think Five will steer away from premieres at 9pm on most Monday's as ITV1 at least will tend to be more competitive that they were yesterday.

It depends on the film really. Some titles that 5 have got coming up like 2012 and Angels and Demons will rate well regardless of what the other channels are doing. Some they have to be more careful with.

I think last night was another attempt to drive viewers to +1 and it's working. From figures of 40k or less in prime last week to 100k+ these past couple of nights is very rapid growth, but then films do tend to fair better on +1 than certain other genres.

I'm surprised a film running for two hours from 10pm did so well on +1 considering it wouldn't have finished until midnight on a work night. I think Angels and Demons and big film premieres should air on Wednesday, as it's a weak night for the BBC and ITV1 will probably be aiming for the elder viewer with the soap hour followed by presumably a two hour crime drama.

I'm stunned we haven't heard more arguments about the +1 figure being used from certain quarters, to be honest, as it gives Channel 5 an unfair advantage over the BBC.

Mondays suit The Gadget Show. It never should have moved to Fridays. Step Brothers got lost in the shuffle at 9pm.

And of course, without the monster success of the 1950s set Yorkshire vet series All Creatures... there would never have been the 1960s set Yorkshire cop/doctors series Heartbeat.

I think it was openly acknowledged that Heartbeat was an attempt to create a cosy Sunday night drama a la All Creatures. Save that when ITV bosses saw how naff Heartbeat was, they shunted it into a 9pm Friday slot for its first series, presumably so it would pass by unnoticed. They were as stunned as anyone presumably when 13m a week tuned in - and quickly moved it to Sundays for s2 onwards.

As for the notion of YJH being a try out for a long running cosy Sunday night series, is there any evidence of this?

I'm sure the producers would have made it a lightweight whimsical fluffy product along the lines of ACG&S if that had been the plan. I can only assume they wanted to make a 3 part grittier post watershed version of Heriot's early years - but clearly overdid the grittiness and the period gloom, causing viewers to switch off and putting authenticity ahead of audience figures.