Thanks.

The big problem for Sky Atlantic is the fact they're showing British stuff on it, including that Ann Widdicome-hosted daytime quiz in the new year. This completely confuses the audience, the name and the trailers will lead most viewers to assume it's supposed to be 100% US imports.

I realise that seemingly Sky Atlantic is supposed to be the posh upmarket one and Sky One the brash family-focused one but it's been terribly badly communicated. Even in the interview with the controller in Broadcast failed to explain exactly what the purpose of Sky Atlantic is, other than the vaguest of generalisations. And this is just going to confuse viewers, on another forum I'm on they mentioned that Sky Alantic are going to be showing the new Alan Partridge series and everyone's going "Sky Atlantic? How can it, that's the US import channel?", and so nobody will find it.


There's always one night of the festive season when BBC1 have a biog-standard schedule. Showing a New Tricks repeat was no worse than putting on a film repeat.


I think Five would be better off concentrating on post-10pm slots. There's no point commissioning a new drama and putting it on at 9pm because it would be crushed by the big guns on BBC1 and ITV. Five would be better off looking for shows like Celebrity Juice (only not as awful) to attract floating viewers when the big guns are giving up.


That gets remarkable ratings and virtually justifies the series in itself given the weekly show gets very small audiences (way worse than Top of the Pops used to get, even on BBC2, natch).


It's been shown on New Year's Eve, as far as I can see, four times before. The first three were in 1966, 1977 and 1983 - I dunno about the first two but the latter ran 10-10.45pm, the show was of course much shorter in those days. In 1988 ITV had the rights, not that they did highlights shows in those days, and although New Year's Eve as a Saturday in 1994, they didn't do one, back then they didn't do an MOTD for every fixture list over Christmas, they just showed the goals on Final Score and the next MOTD (which in that case was January 2nd). That Christmas they didn't do one on Boxing Day either, but did one on December 28th. In fact they didn't do an MOTD on Boxing Day until 1999.

So the only previous MOTD on New Year's Eve in the modern era was in 2005. In fact despite all twenty teams playing that day, it was shorter than this year's, 10.30-11.30, though they darted through them and there was only one pundit.


I wonder why they never do trailers like this outside Christmas these days.

...and so the underpredictions begin.

That's less than watched the finale of the normal version! No, no, it will do much better than that. Not as much as 6m granted, but somewhere in the 3-5m range.

If it came in that low I think I would probably have to retire from ratings commentary altogether and find another hobby.

It's fascinating seeing how ITV1 programmes just drop like a stone when scheduled in that Tuesday 8pm/9pm timeslot. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire has had six celebrity specials in the last 12 months all rate at around 4.5m (+/- 0.3m) in all sorts of different slots even without Corrie lead-ins: Sat 8.25pm, Sat 9.15pm, Sun 9pm, Mon 8.30pm, Wed 8pm, Fri 9pm.

I bet you, however, Tuesday's celebrity special ends up rating more like 3.5m than 4.5m! They should definitely bring back the normal series in that slot considering how poorly other programmes such as High Stakes and Lion Country have rated there in the last 12 months.


Considering the last two Channel 4 CBB launches averaged 5.7m and 6.2m, I really don't think it'll manage 6m on Channel 5. I haven't noticed any on-air advertising of CBB on another other channels apart from C5 (unlike last time) so I think 5m is as high as it could possibly even get. I think it'll launch more like 4m however.

I'm still going for a 3 million average. Also some awful storms are due mid week and this could up the ratings. Mind you the two big soaps tend to get their highest ratings in the first week of January.
Looking ahead, my interest this year will be in how Doctor Who does. The last series wasn't up to scratch, although the Christmas special was a lot better and I hope the 2012 shows show an improvement.

Super timeshifts for the BBC One shows, all near too or above 1.00m.

Well, I've seen a trailer for it. It's got Bianca berating Janine and a shot of David Wicks returning.

3-5 million?
Sorry but the Celeb version did well sure but then the ordinary lot collapsed ratings wise (instantly - people didn't even tune in to the first ep much!)

So I think people were fine with a Celeb one, but not weeks and weeks of BB - which guess what, this is on not long after the last series! Its way to soon.

More fatigue = low ratings. I also think theres nearly no noise for it - last series has the novelty of returning and a good few stories about who was in it.

It'll probably start at around 1.8 million - BUT I do think it'll finish around the high 2 millions as it'll grow throughout its run.

Yeah, last year they were advertising on other channels a week before. We might still see some though a little nearer to launch. I remember Paul Merton's Adventures in October was advertised on Sky/UKTV channels the night before that launched.

I dont underpredict, I predict based on what I think a show should get

I think we're on the same wavelength. CBB tends to outperform BB and a decent set of housemates can attract the viewers. But please no Katie Price again, I'd like to see Abi Titmuss in this as her profile has dipped recently.

Im surprised i've not seen it despite watching BBC1 most of the xmas.
That's the trailer they have shown on the official website the past week or so too

Sorry, that doesn't seem at all likely to me.

There wasn't much buzz about it in August either in truth beyond the hype Channel 5 created - the TV mags etc just weren't interested. If anything there's been a little more interest in that regard this time after it proved itself last year and plenty of reports about who might be going in, admittedly nobody with quite the profile of Charlie Sheen however!

Against 'The Restoration Man', low rating 'Wonderland', 'Eternal Law' (panned by critics) and the final part of 'Public Enemies', it should be fine for 3-5m.

Sky Atlantic is aimed to be the home of quality television both British and American but stuff like Alan Partridge and This is Jinsy don't fit. HBO does have a reputation for quality television but ironically their biggest hit is True Blood which has nowhere near the critical acclaim as the others and it's more of a populist show.

I think 10pm would be fine for drama and comedy if Channel 5 wanted to, Channel 4 rarely puts drama at 9pm for the same reason. I still think US comedy would be good on Fridays given that Channel 4 have all but given up save for the odd show like New Girl.

Merlin isn't ending next year.
I am guilty of this, but so is everyone - we all pretend Merlin is a wee show. Its not - its ****ing huge!


Thats a massive show, thats now grown to an 8 million audience!
Whereas its 'average' of 'only' 7.17 million is against X FACTOR, I mean co'mon its a strong hitter.

Won't be ending next year if the Beeb can help it. No reason to stick to the silly '5 year plan'. Get rid of Morgana and you have a show that can become more annual baddies and less long term stories.

I agree it will benefit from weak competition, but im not willing to go as high as 3 million, yet alone anything close to 5.

It goes to show that the BBC isn't prepared to wave the white flag any more against strong opposition. 20 years ago their answer to strong ITV opposition was to put on a repeat of Harry and the Hendersons. Now they seem to realise that millions of viewers( particularly men) don't like TXF and have a valid alternative like Merlin.

Excellent rating last night for New Year Live. 10.9m is much higher than I was expecting. Pirates put in a solid performance. ITV1 fell apart as expected. HP should do OK for them tonight but BBC will win with the EE/Sherlock combo.

People need to stop underestimating CBB launch ratings.
The only reason BB launch was low rated is because it followed from CBB, no promotion etc...

CBB7 launched with 6.3m and CBB8 just a few months ago, launched with 5.1m on Channel 5 in the overnights, didn't it?

Neither the BBC or Shine will want it to end, for Shine it's their biggest it's their biggest selling drama, although TBH aside from Merlin, they haven't done a drama for a while.

That's the thing about fantasy predictions. They're a bit - well, fantastical. Your 1.8m punt is no more likely than Glenn's 6m punt.

Very unlikely for it to be in that zone (1.8-2.0m).
I predict around 4.7m, around 400k down on CBB8 launch.

having had a look at the ratings for the last CBB, maybe I do need to make another prediction I predict 3.0 - 3.5 or 3.25 if you want an exact figure.

no one else thinks, that the audience will just think the novelty has worn off, and that this years CBB will be a waste of time?

Hopefully rzt has now cleared that one up.

BGT down 5%, SCD down 2%.

Of course BGT had already dropped significantly the previous year, and dropped again in 2011. I noted in my post that SCD had fallen, but relative to TXF it closed the gap, beat it a few times, and got the media behind it proclaiming it as "the hit show".

[EDITED to avoid upsetting Roscoe]


I've only seen the New Year's Day one, not an EE-specific one like they did for Xmas Day.

I'm hoping the "Christmas jumper" NYD trail means we keep the BBC1 festive idents till bedtime tonight - for once!

Though I won't hold my breath...

The thread's suffering from a mixture of collective amnesia whilst also exaggerating the relatively short 4 month gap since the last series ended.

It's all good. Underpredictions are fine with me actually.