Sky Atlantic have just started The Wire from the beginning and like The Sopranos only one episode per week.

Stripping across the week just doesn't work with shows that you need to watch every episode.

It's the sheer wealth and breadth of top class programming, night after night, on all the main channels, that is causing the backlog....

(If only! )

More overnights from yesterday:

Who Dares Wins: 5.8m (25%)
Winter Wipeout: 4.0m (21%)
The Magicians: 4.0m (18%)
Million Pound Drop: 1.7m (7%)
Celebrity Big Brother: 1.7m (7%)
Masters Snooker: 1.6m (7%)

includes HD and +1 where appropriate

I thought the revamp of The Magicians had worked, but the ratings suggest otherwise.

Suspect that won't be returning then. Shame, but good effort for trying a new live family entertainment format that doesn't involve a singing, dancing or talent contest....

I think BBC HD are repeating The Shadow Line. Watch that instead.

Decent for CBB considering it was static on last week and Ch5 went from showing it at 11pm one day, and 8:15pm the next day. In the normal 9pm slot, it would have got around 200k more.

MPD has now fallen normally to the 2m and under stages.

Good call - the best drama, if not the best TV full stop, of 2011.

Criminally under-watched. The nation should be ashamed of itself.

We got Great Expectations off the recordings list this week too. Very classy, but suffered a little from the "bad lighting" that seems to plague every BBC drama offering of late...

Didn't see them at all - not even sure if they were there, as I saw all the judges arriving. The interviews with the judges were done with the producers behind the cameras

Dynamo, who starred in a smash-hit magic show on Watch, was in one of the papers yesterday saying he wanted to be as well-known as Paul Daniels. That would mean signing up for a bigger channel than Watch.

Giving that Penn & Teller: Fool Us also flopped in part, it would seem, because ITV signed up two of the world's biggest magicians and then didn't let them do any magic, maybe BBC1 and ITV1 should try something radical........

.......If they want magic to be the next big thing in shiny-floor shows, maybe they should just sign up a professional machine and let them perform magic - without any celebrity or members-of-the-public gimmicks - you know? like The Paul Daniels Magic Show or The David Nixon Show from the past.

Penn & Teller did do magic tricks on every episode of their show. They also had many professional magicians appear on it, some of whom had competed in World Championships and there were no celebrities at all!

I like The Magicians too. The stunts this series have been bigger and better than last year. But I don't think people are into magic these days like twenty or thirty years ago. With the internet and loads of shows about how magic tricks are done, it's not such a big attraction these days. It can do really well on digital channels for the dedicated fans but the mass appeal for magic isn't there anymore.

Might be bold But I think The voice UK will flop.
The Voice Netherlands is a very odd mixture of interviews.(like the Xtrafactor) mixed into the main show.Theres also spin off shows of the various acts going deep into the background of them.

People are so used to the polished version of the Xfactor.Of course the format might be tweaked for a UK audience given how used to people are with the Xfactor.

Reggie was absent from his R1 show yesterday so was probably there maybe doing Ant & Dec style back stage interviews.

A technique which according to Nigel Lithgoe on The Talent Show Story last night was never intended to be part of the talent show format, until Ant & Dec did it unofficially on Pop Idol and then it became a proper part of the show, and the rest is history.

Fame Academy was covered on last night's show by the way, Patrick's feud with one of the judges which still seems to be ongoing even now.

The Shadow Line was so far ahead of everything else drama wise last year that it's ridiculous. Classy, stylish and everything The Hour wasn't. Series 1 of The Hour didn't work for me and has no right beating The Shadow Line for any awards.

I did like Great Expectations but you do have a point. BBC dramas do like grey. Look at Young James Herriot & Call The Midwife.

Its the odd ball and entertainment value that makes UK talent shows popular. Take away the Jedwards, Wagners, etc and you just have dull contests. If The Voice is dull & worthy it will still attract the regular BBC1 audience that likes the dull and worthy (the One Show, Countryfile, Question Time, Casualty type) but it wont capture the national imagination. If its dull & worthy and alienates older viewers though it will flop in the ratings, so the comments about the urban slang speak may be pertinent in this respect.

Yes, I too would have said the best drama of 2011 by a long way. Thoughtful and intelligent, with some truly chilling scenes involving Gatehouse

Yes, it was complicated, yes it was moody (aka "slow" for some), but boy was it worth it.

Dancing on Ice doesn't have odd ball people or novelty acts but is a big ratings puller. How do you explain its success? The Voice, with its 'dull' and 'worthy' format, has just recently become a hit in Ireland so why can't it become a hit here?

Very well put!! Sky did a 'worthy' talent show, 'Must Be The Music', a couple of years ago. Those who watched it, loved it, but it just didn't capture the wider audience.

of course it does - there are awful skaters every year that draw the audience in


Ireland isnt Britain perhaps - spending time in both countries, there are big differences as well as similarities in what viewers watch. Would The Late Late Show get 10m viewers in the UK or Primetime current affairs 3 nights a week at 9.30pm?

Or it could counter-balance the ITV's tendency to become a freak show at times...

Your obviously forgetting the mass appeal of The Apprentice ofc. Which would be what The Voice SHOULD and will be like imo.
It'll be a mix of chat, singing and overall light heartedness.

Should do pretty decent, 7/8 million for first series but much higher for second.
Also it should be a bigger iplayer hit than other reality shows.

Overall it won't really affect BGT (although that will be down as I can't see the new panel working too well, and I think Cowell is past it) but could affect X Factor as it looks more stale/offensive.

Okay, but how do you explain the big success of The Voice internationally? It's turned out to be a big hit on RTE in Ireland so why can't it be a hit here with the same format. Maybe people actually now want to watch a talent show that is actually looking for talent rather than Jedwards and Wagners...

With respect though DoI is very very dull, and has had it easy in terms of competition.

Hah! The Apprentice is a FREAKSHOW. You'd never see any of those muppets surviving in a real company.

That's my point though. People consider DoI to be dull but it rates high. So even if The Voice is considered dull, it might rate high. Competition's gonna be easy, who exactly will be wanting to watch that awful sounding new Keith Lemon programme on ITV1 at around the same time as the Voice? Either The Voice will smash it against Keith Lemon or at least rate decently and BBC2s gonna get big audiences for its Dads Army repeats. Keith Lemon on ITV1 primetime against the Voice, pffftttt, it has all the makings of a flop!

I don't know I think it might be worth another shot perhaps in the earlier Wipeout slot. The BBC have made it fairly clear that they want broad family appeal shows in that Saturday tea time slot and I think The Magicians fits that quite nicely. Its never going to work as the star attraction of the Saturday schedule but as an anchor for the night I think it has potential although it may need some more format tweaks to work there.


If the US version is any guide Holly and Reggie would have been backstage with the contestants during the audition stages.


This is a format that has worked in a handful of countries around the world without being niche, dull and worthy. I really do think people are overstating this 'problem'. Unless the BBC has completely screwed up the format (which I admit wouldn't be a first) then I don't see any reason why the shows downfall would be that its too niche, dull and/or worthy. The Voice is designed to be a big mass entertainment show and has so far managed to achieve that everywhere its launched. For the time being I think its probably safe to give it the benefit of the doubt that the format does in fact work and isn't going to produce a niche show that's too worthy.

It is interesting that we seem to be entering another damned if you do and damned if you don't situation here for the BBC. If the format is too much like The X Factor then what was the point of buying it because we already have The X Factor but if its not enough like The X Factor then obviously its doomed to failure and they've wasted millions on it. I'm not entirely sure what people want here (other than to just criticise the BBC for buying The Voice obviously).

Obviously success (ratings) elsewhere in the world is no indication of what the English will go for, and vice-versa. The English are noted nutters.

The Voice looks boring to me, but with world class contestants it would likely get a significant audience. Just the novelty value of top-talent on a talent show would be enough to draw a crowd.

I have heard the talent is merely average though...