Pleased to see that Stella did reasonably well in its hastily re-arranged timeslot last night after the major mishaps on Friday night,

https://twitter.com/#!/JohnWilliams004

I must admit I find Question Time boring as I don't vote, but draw the line at The One Show beinfg dull and worthy. It's actually quite a good light magazine show that has given the BBC something decent to challenge Emmerdale with. However, I am not convinced about The Voice as viewers will see this an X Factor rip off and it will probably do a SYTYCD and stiff.

The Voice of Holland is as polished as the X factor, it's Premier League of editing. Everything from reaction shots, music used and coaches banter is edited in such a way that you root for the contestants from the get-go. You want those coaches to push the button. It might seem like a disjointed mess while filming but the end result is slick, very slick. To the poster who posted about the one that got away, Jessie J should have pushed earlier, they will surely hammer that home. I don't think they will go for a second chance round here, it was the weak part of the US version.

John de Mol has acknowledged criticisms of the live shows being too drawn out this year and says he will adapt the show for series three. The thing is that the show brings in a bucketload of advertising and sponsorshipmoney through the backstage parts they have as a part of the main show. Vodafone sponsors the "red room" in which they have the social media updates and twitter questions. This year they added the "homecoach-app" in which you can play and judge along and they have had over half a million (20%) playing along weekly. I wonder how they will incorporate this into the Beeb shows because they aren't able to use sponsorship. What I think they will do for TVOH3 is move the backstage parts to online/second screen viewing during commercial breaks to make the show less long. They already do this quite succesfully on SYTYCD Holland.


They will be backstage, getting to know the contestants before they audition. It's all part of the story arc. Not in a sob story way, more in a "aww (s)he's nice/weird/interesting, let's root for him/her" way.

DOI is such an obvious rip-off of SCD - didn't the BBC patent the original format (if not they should have done)

Exactly. Heres a clip of The Voice of Netherlands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9oAlEOrqK4

How can anyone say that's niche, dull or worthy? If the BBC version can find a talent like that and show it during the first episode, the buzz and ratings should hopefully come.

BBC bashers always drone on about the BBC being dull and worthy. I'm not convinced about The Voice, but if it works, I think Mr Cowell will be worried.

Saturday 21st January Overnights
BBC One
17:35- Winter Wipeout: 4.0m (21%)
18:35- The Magicians: 3.95m (18%)
19:50- The National Lottery: Who Dares Wins: 5.89m (25.5%)
20:40- Casualty: 5.67m (24%)
21:30- Live at the Apollo: 3.02m (13.5%)

BBC Two
20:00- Masters Snooker: 1.62m (7%)

ITV1
19:00- Take Me Out: 4.56m (20.1%) , +1: 253k (1.1%)
20:15- The Talent Show Story: 2.05m (8.7%)
21:15- The Jonathan Ross Show: 2.4m (10.7%) , +1: 281k (1.5%)

Channel 4
20:15- The Million Pound Drop: 1.49m (6.4%) , +1: ~200k
21:50- Transporter 2: 1.17m (6.1%)

Channel 5
20:15- Celebrity Big Brother: 1.59m (6.8%) , +1: ~100k
21:15- Made of Honour: 968k (4.6%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One: 21.5%
ITV1: 12.7%
BBC Two: 7.5%
Channel 4: 5.2%
Channel 5: 5.2%

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Multichannel
BBC Four
21:00- Borgen: 616k
22:00- Borgen: 474k

ITV2
20:15- Take Me Out: The Gossip: 583k (2.5%)

ITV3
21:00- Foyle's War:1.35m (6.3%)

ITV4
09:00- The Sweeney: 109k (4.1%)
15:15- Licence to Kill: 514k
17:55- Where Eagles Dare: 587k
21:00- Ali: Still The Greatest: 289k (1.3%)
* peak: 313k

Sky 1
21:00- Stella: 448k

Source: DS

Oh, how the TV companies must be missing the snow - at least on a Saturday.

ITV3 - the posh, intelligent member of the family, picking up some of the slack for ITV1.

And Nick Knowles number 1 in the Saturday night ratings.

Think another poster made a Valid point because Mr Cowell has made the joke acts so much of a feature of shows people tend to expect it.

Maybe The Voice will target the Same audience Fame Academy got on the bbc?

Another awful Saturday night for ITV1, it proves how much they rely on TXF and BGT and at other times they stiff in the ratings. 2 million for a peak time Saturday show is abysmal.
Also, why do they keep showing twenty year old clips of cats falling off walls? YBF is absolutely past its sell by date and only the most easily pleased would consider watching it now, yet ITV persist with this old trash.

And Fame Acamedy was an obvious rip-off of Pop Idol.
And Auntie's Bloomers was a rip-off was a rip-off of It'll Be Alright On The Night.
And Caught In The Act - remember that, anyone? - was a rip-off of You've Been Framed.

Successful formats regularly get (blatantly) ripped off. That's how TV - and cinema - works. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Twitter was full of peoples comments just how bad ITV was last night.Why they dont just stick a film on that Talent show thing is terrible.

Was there any word on the livefeed ratings on 5* friday? or will those figures come out tomorrow?

Why did you have to mention Caught In The Act with Shane Richie? *SHUDDERS* Yes when you think about it there are lots of blatant copies. But didn't Pop Idol copy Popstars?

The Jonathan Ross Show's ratings are dire - it even had a pretty good lineup and was in an earlier slot last night but still stuck at 2.4m. ITV have fallen into the trap of looking at his ratings post-TXF and then extending his contract for a few more series of more episodes, thinking he'd manage those kind of ratings even without an XF lead-in. Another 11 weeks of these poor ratings to go for the current run. The Talent Show Story also did even worse than usual and is at completely unacceptable levels for a Saturday night in the 8pm hour. But knowing them, they'll continue showing it in the slot right until the end, rather than pulling it or moving it elsewhere.

And You've Been Framed and Dragon's Den are rip-offs of Japanese shows although I think the BBC got permission for Dragon's Den.They also got permission to copy the Generation Game from Dutch TV. But DOI doesn'e even try to be subtle.

Any ratings news on fridays live feed on 5* yet?

Very Curious myself.
Wonder if the fact it was so short cut 30 mins and take out the Ad break.Will reflect.

With regards to SCD vs DOI, wasn't the BBC offered the chance to do an ice-skating version of Strictly, but they passed on it? (I think they did one ice special, but that was it).

I wouldn't say it's niche, dull or worthy but watching that clip, it seems little different from anything I've seen before in X Factor.

They were certainly offered the new Andrew Lloyd Webber ''Search for Jesus'' but passed on the basis it was inappropriate for Saturday night entertainment. ITV clearly have no such scruples.

The Talent Show Story only has 2 weeks left to run, then JR will get a different lead-in - perhaps series 2 of High Stakes.

Did we get any ratings for Graham Norton's Friday night show this week? Last week's Madonna edition had 4m. His success rubs salt into ITV's wound.

These times are a tremendous opportunity for some channel to grasp and get back to general entertainment that everyone can watch together.

But instead it's niche programming like'The Talent Show Story' and the Ross show. BBC are almost as bad with a soap! (>Casualty, of course it is) and 'Live At The Apollo' which should be on at 11pm frankly.

But mainly it's ITV management who are massively overpaid.

BARB has published their 'official' (*cough cough*) Top 10 programmes of 2011 on their website:

1. The Royal Wedding* - 13.59m (29 Apr, BBC One)
2. The X Factor Results - 13.46m (11 Dec, ITV1)
3. Strictly Come Dancing Final - 13.34m (17 Dec, BBC One)
4. The X Factor - 12.92m (2 Oct, ITV1)
5. Britain's Got Talent Final Result - 12.63m (4 Jun, ITV1)
6. Coronation Street 12.56m (14 Feb ITV1)
7. I'm A Celebrity... - 12.47m (13 Nov, ITV1)
8. Britain's Got Talent Final - 12.22 (4 Jun, ITV1)
9. Downton Abbey - 12.15m (11 Nov, ITV1)
10. EastEnders - 11.42m (3 Jan, BBC One)

* The Royal Wedding between the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge averaged 26.0m viewers across the ceremony from 11.00am-12.10pm across the 10 BARB reported channels that followed the events live.

Source: BARB

That BARB Top 10 chart is a bit of a joke. They've got BGT and TXF in there twice, just because the results show has a slightly different name. Doctor Who should've been in the Top 10 with its 10.77m.

Ross is just dire. Nuff said. Its stale and old fashioned, as well as being quite poor line-ups.
Norton makes a great show no matter the line-up, which is rather helpful for his ratings, Ross on the other hand needs someone interesting and I doubt ITV will allow him a long drawn out chat with anyone.

They should try Parkinson style one-on-one chats, might do quite well and we've seen with Piers Morgan, can be marketed really well.

Otherwise Ross will go back to BBC Radio for a while I suspect.

Why don't they bury YBF and all the clapped out clips they show? No one would shed any tears over this old trash. It looks to me that ITV1 is losing the Saturday night battle, along with Tuesdays, which are a dead zone.
ITV1 has some decent dramas, some good factual if they put their mind to it and they get some good film premieres, but the rest of their output is dire. A 22 year old clip show and highlights of talent shows is desperate.