I still wonder if they'd have burned off TRB before xmas in the weds 8.30 death slot, as had been expected, had The Royle Family not gone belly up. I still think that was why they held it back, probably for xmas night itself. Until DA pitched up on the BBC's Christmas Day lawn - causing panic and a move to Boxing Day. In the circumstances, maybe it should have gone opposite DA. It would have been hilarious to see if an expectant nation had tuned in in greater numbers at 9pm on the big day for a bit of David Jason, denting Downton in the process. Would have been amusing. Alas we'll never know.

Did someone mention DVD sales btw? Really?

It does amuse me that when the BBC has a genuine copper bottomed flop, as TRB clearly is, it still does better than routine ITV non soap non reality output which fills key slots, including pretty much the whole of Tuesday evenings.

When ITV clears 2.9m on a Tuesday they throw a frickin party....

I agree.Each new program is watched before its shown. I cant believe they would have scheduled it where it is if other things would have gone to plan.

I think the BBC should accidently lose the last three episodes in television center somewhere. Or put them in the bin by accident. Although the bin is probably where it belongs. You say burned off. Its a shame they don't do that literally.

Just wondering, what is the highest ever rating amongst the smaller channels (BBC2, C4, C5). I know about the 18.5m snooker match, and I know that on Channel 4 the network premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral got around 12/13 million in 1994 (correct me if I'm wrong), and one thing is that the mini-series a Woman of Substance got 13.8 million, as well as Big Brother 2002 with 10m and I'm sure a few Brookie episodes lingering around the 8-9 million mark.


Oh no! Ah well - that's a shame.

On another note, TRB is a total shambles - to get under 3m on a prime Monday night slot is unacceptable. Is there a possibility that this laughable attempt to write comedy, will be shunted to a different slot, maybe Sunday daytime, so a bit like Outcasts being shunted to 10.35pm?

Obviously the rating of the day (for all the wrong reasons) is The Royal Bodyguard. People were asking what could replace it...frankly anything would be an improvement ratings-wise, surely? But I'd probably go with Miranda - it's a new comedy and would hold up a damnsight better than The Royal Bodyguard is. Credit must go to Mrs. Brown Boy's which somehow managed to build on that dire lead in; I'll be interested to see how many were same day viewers rather than live viewers but either way, it's a good result for the Irish comedy. The soap filler performed ok (maybe they should just burn The Royal Bodyguard against Coronation Street and give the final 'The One' a chance at 9pm?) and EastEnders rated reasonably well though the BBC Three rating isn't as high as it has been.

A good night for ITV1 (which'll be followed by an atricious one tonight...the big question is whether The Exit List will be able to beat The Royal Bodyguard's figure - or, indeed, The Chase's 5pm rating!). Emmerdale performed especially well though I can't explain the drop off for Coronation Street from episode one to episode two even though it usually happens. Above Suspicion premiered well but it hardly had tough opposition and Cornwall recorded a decent figure as soap filler...will ITV1 turn this show into an hour long surveying every county in their next desperate attempt to fill the Tuesday 8pm slot?

University Challenge returned to it's usual high level after a slight drip over the past couple of weeks. The Island Parish also did a decent job for BBC Two though The Hunt For Higgs dropped viewers and...please can someone tell me why they always stick comedies/shows presented by comedians in the 10pm slot after a night of relatively high brow programming? I know they're trying to attract a different audience to the news on BBC One and ITV1 but younger viewers need to be hooked into BBC two earlier than 10pm - by then they'll be watching another channel. The early evening did reasonably well as usual but Baking Made Easy lost some of the audience from Great British Railway Journeys.

Including +1, Shameless' rating looks ok on Channel 4 but the broadcaster really needs to invest in new dramas as both Shameless and Skins do not have a long shelf life. Yet again the scheduling seems a bit strange - airing Shameless after a night of documentaries but I guess Shameless has a cult following who will actively seek it wherever it is in the schedule.The Great Train Robbery's Mastermind seems slightly wasted in that slot to me; I think it would've performed ok in a 9pm slot. They'll be pleased that Hollyoaks is remaining above the 1m mark; that and The Simpons do offer something different over the 6pm hour to the main alternatives.

Not a fantastic early evening for Channel 5 all thing considered. Best Of's usually underperform against proper episodes and The Gadget Show is seemingly no exception. The World's Toughest Trucker didn't record a brilliant figure either but I can't imagine the lead in from the news was a brilliant one. On the flip side Celebrity Big Brother has stabilised around the 2m mark and it benefited When Paddy Met Sally at 10pm which should carry through to next week.

lol I dont think you can actually do that in this day in age, even without a DVD release, im sure either the production company or (if there has been any) international sales may have a copy.

The difference is ITV1 tend to dump all their rubbish on Tuesday nights and let it rot...in recent times, they haven't placed a show they expect to be a hit there and then watch it collapse.

Good for the news at 5pm, especially considering no Neighbours following it. Suggests it has a decent audience of it's own, and doesn't just get Neighbours viewers tuning in early. Hopefully the cost cutting when ITN take over won't impact the content and quality too much, because while the bulletin is less serious than say 2008, I've got to admit the ratings are holding up pretty well from what is was getting back then. The current mix of content is working from a ratings perspective for C5.

The net impact of moving the second bulletin on the 6.30-8pm slot seems minimal. Hopefully the 6.30pm bulletin will rise a little when H&A returns.

Surely the Gadget Show best off should have been last week, or at 7pm, not at 8pm on a night when it's got one of it's best lead outs of the year?

Great for CBB and When Paddy Met Sally, which was rather enjoyable. Looking forward to part 2 next week. And I guess it should be noted it had tough Shameless competition. The CBB spin-offs had decent shares too

Oh dear! forgot about that. Maybe there could be a mysterious Computer virus. I'll find away to kill you TRB! Die! stupid show.

lets not pretend that 2.9 million is for the final episode in the series, it could still sink lower. That said if it falls any further it will be negative ratings, and attracting talk of "worst preforming show on primetime BBC One"

I think Life of Riley went under 3m on Wednesdays last year, and possibly The Impressions Show, too. Although, I suspect they were both over 4m with their narrative repeats.

I dont think talk of "worst preforming show on primetime BBC One" is going to trouble itself with narrative repeats and iPlayer.

Those 2.9 million viewers must be either royals who like any show about the royal household or die hard David Jason fans, or possibly both.

The DS Royal Bodyguard thread had coments from people who said that they were watching for the first time, that they couldn't believe that it could possibly be as dire as people were saying it was, but now they know that it is. So yes, some of last night's viewers may switch off next week.

For the sake of David Jason's reputation, BBC1 should take this programme off now and that should include the Sunday afternoon repeat.

Next Monday BBC1 should go:
8.30 Fake Britain (I believe there are 15 of these buggars to show in primetime)
9.00 The One Griff Rhys Jones
9.30 Mrs Brown's Boys

I know the Jasper Carrott and Lenny Henry shows were not too well received, but Griff's show is "Comedy Of The Week" in next week's Radio Times and even if he only matches Jasper's 3.4m, that's still better than TRB got last night and might help MBB get back above 5m in the overnights.

It's strange that mainstream comedy is eluding the BBC, they used to be so good at it.

They still do come up with the goods for more "cultish" comedy, although strangely often cancelled for not being popular enough!

However, from August they have ECL football, and are guaranteed at least 4 million viewers on Tuesdays for eight Tuesdays in the run up to Christmas. Yet could the name The Biggest Loser be apt for ITV1 on Tuesdays at the moment.

It is quite different

One being that BBC1 gets higher ratings on average than ITV1

Secondly being that it is widely discussed here that ITV1's Tuesday slots are practically cursed and anything put there automatically rates 20% lower (or whatever % it was) than they do on any other slot.

Mondays at 9pm on BBC1 is almost the opposite situation as it's a slot that rates higher than many others across the week. Imagine if The Royal Bodyguard was aired at 8:30pm on Wednesdays?

The ridiculous thing about Desperate Scousewives and their ilk is that there's now a BAFTA for Best Constructed Reality Show, which is an absolute joke as that's a genre that has existed for possibly eighteen months, and consists of The Only Way Is Essex and I think three copycat shows nobody watches. They didn't ever do anything like Best Docusoap, even though there were far more of them and people actually watched them. The actual ratings for these shows are minute.


Well, my mum was telling me yesterday that she didn't know if she watched it or not, I don't think ITV do it many favours normally stripping it because a year later everyone's forgotten about it, especially as there are no big stars in it and ITV have umpteen shows like this. This is surely the ultimate in bog-standard watch-it-if-it's-on drama.


Er, I think In Pieces ended in 2002 but then he did The Lenny Henry Show which went on until, I think, 2005? In Pieces seemed a rather stupid idea because it was made up entirely of sketches shot on film which seems to completely ignore Len's talent for working an audience and being himself, basically, although I think it won the Golden Rose. The Lenny Henry Show was back to stand-up and sketches, like The One Lenny. But even after that he went and did lennyhenry.tv, that clip show, and there's Comic Relief of course, he's always on the telly.


I know everyone's said it but it is an amazing rating, I can't remember a show tailing off so badly, I know it launched in a cushy slot but losing over half the audience in three episodes is phenomenal. Surely David Jason's fanbase alone should have guaranteed it a bit more resilience, Come Fly With Me was appalling but people stuck with it.

Bussell and Sbresni have an alright CV, The Worst Week Of My Life was a critical hit if it didn't set the BARB boxes alight (and I bailed out after series one, it got annoying). Of course they also did Barbara which had a very strange gestation, ITV did a pilot in 1995, didn't commission it and then decided to do a series four years later. Their stuff is a bit one note, mind, they did The Robinsons on BBC2 with Martin Freeman, which was very similar to Worst Week.


It's got a Wikipedia page!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davina_(talk_show)

2.2 million, it appears, but that was never going to do any good, it was in a thankless slot of Wednesdays at eight when ITV were really strong, with Corrie leading into The Bill (the equivalent now would be Tuesdays at eight on ITV, natch), and also they scheduled it really badly around a traffic jam of football on Wednesday nights so two episodes were shoved to 7pm, opposite Emmerdale and Corrie, and it missed a week as well. You couldn't have found a worse slot.

It was an awful show, though, I know Jonathan Ross said it wasn't all Davina's fault though because the whole production was flawed, and that's right, it was produced by the old Parkinson team and they only knew one way to make telly shows, the boring way - you could always tell a show made by them as it would be blatantly pre-recorded, the audience would never be in shot so there was no atmosphere and be edited with a machete.


I think A Woman Of Substance remains C4's biggest, and the snooker is BBC2's biggest but that 18.5 million is a peak, I think, because the average audience for the entire programme is down as 14.4 million. That's why, in Television's Greatest Hits, it's not included and the highest rated snooker coverage of the year is down as the Mercantile Credit Classic on ITV in January which got 16.5 million viewers.

One useful book is The Television Yearbook, published by Virgin in 1985, which attempted to review the whole year's broadcasting (it's edited by current BFI bod Dick Fiddy) and was intended as the first in an annual series but I don't think they ever did another. Anyway, it includes week-by-week top tens for September 1984 to August 1985, and BBC2 got huge ratings in that period, in the week of 28th October 1984 the sitcom Lame Ducks (in the slot opposite Panorama) got eleven million viewers, Blott on the Landscape peaked with 10.05 million viewers in March, Live Aid (which was on BBC2 until 10pm) also got 10.05 million and a repeat run of The Two Ronnies in August peaked with 11.7 million viewers.

Talking of rubbish BBC1 comedies, does anyone know if there's going to be a second series of In With The Flynns or are we to be spared?

I gather BBC1 are going to pilot new comedies on stage. I suggest they charge £50 per ticket because if the tickets are free, people will put up with and laugh at any old rubbish, but if they've had to fork out lots of their hard-earned cash, they'll tell it like it is.

I thought they were supposed to have previewed The Royal Bodyguard. Was nobody allowed to give any opinion (such as "please don't show this ever, not even at 3 o'clock in the morning")? Or did they preview it as the Twycross Zoo Chimpanzee House?

that is pretty pathetic, as your right the only one people actually watch in any number worth mentioning is The Only Way Is Essex.


I said at the time, Come Fly With Me was not that good, but it held its audience well, and it was never as dreadful as TRB is being made out to be.


can I just put this out there, if anyone reading this is in a position to make this happen, I would like to volunteer myself for this panel, there is nothing I love more than watching something, and giving my opinion on it, and im very honest in my opinions.

Also I predicted the flop of The Royal Bodyguard, way before everyone was.

In With the Flynns has indeed been recommissioned. It will air later this year.

Absolutely Fabulous has been requested for a full series with a possible BBC Films deal to finance a movie version.

Will be interesting to see how Shameless pans out this year back in it's more familiar winter slot - but now with no E4 first look episode. Although as a fan it would be sad to see it's ratings crash I hope it does do badly enough for C4 to finally axe it as last nights opener was pretty awful - Shameless is now a below par drama when previously it was head and shoulders above most things the BBC and ITV could offer.


They need to get back into the US drama market. They're doing well now with comedy but drama seems to have pretty much disappeared - indeed apart from 90210 and One Tree Hill, plus the soon to be axed Desperate Housewives have they any new imported drama due this year?

The copycat scripted reality shows need to end - and though E4 & C4 usually do these spoof reality shows like Playing it Straight rather well, that figure is pretty damn awful - though I do think it's completely the wrong slot.


Mrs Brown has an extra episode so they could move the final episode of TRB and play a double bill of Mrs Brown to finish the series - and probably air the last TRB in a random slot which may originally have been destined for the Mrs Brown finale.

P.S. Any figure for the 6.30pm C5 News bulletin?

They happened months ago. 'Citizen Khan' was commissioned


And in the works


Yes a second series is on the way along with a fifth series of Outnumbered.

As well as the rubbish slot and production team they also got her rubbish guests. IIRC Her first guests were Vernon Kay and Tess Daly plugging their beeb show'Just the Two of Us'.
I seem to remember Eamonn Holmes getting top billing one week.

I disagree with this, the last series opened to 6m against Silent Witness[also 6m] so 6.3m this year is hardly capitalising on the limited drama opposition.

Any source for this good news cos the last I heard was the BBC were reluctant to do another series because they felt the kids were losing their charm. So they were going to do a Christmas special next Christmas and then take a decision on whether to do any more.

TRB's misery may not be over yet.

Whereas last night they were up against a Horizon documentary, and no live English football, next Monday 16th is a different ball game.
It's up against Stargazing Live (with popular presenters Dara O'Briain and Brian Cox. With a free chart inside the new Radio Times too for extra publicity, I can see this programme doing well) and Sky Sports have league leaders Manchester City playing.The BBC red button service will have live Masters snooker (same for British Eurosport). Also of course, Above Suspicion, Coppers, and CBB continue.

For BBC2, the sky's the limit. For BBC1, the floor?