Excellent night for Channel 5 and excellent rating for 5*''s Celebrity Big Brother: Live From The House. Let's hope Friday gets a better rating.

Even better for Cowboy Builders considering it's a repeat!

Channel 4? How to be a good Mother with Sharon Horgan? WTF?????

They sure have!

There was tough competition all around last night and surprisingly most programmes held up very well, with the exception of Edwin Drood which dropped quite a bit. Midsomer is one of those shows which fluctuates depending on competition, but it'll always bring in a good repeat rating so no worries there.

Decent night for Ch5. The CBB eviction did pretty well. I think the extra viewers who tuned in for the eviction was cancelled out by the casual viewers who were watching some of the other 9pm offerings. Benidorm ER did better than I thought, but Kym Marsh didn't really capitalise on the CBB lead in. Good job it's a one off. The Cowboy Builders repeat performed very well in the 7pm hour. Moving the news has been an excellent move as it allows for hour long shows and repeats-all of which have improved on the 7pm news so far, although the 6.30pm bulletin is rating slightly less than OK:TV. It may improve slightly when H&A returns.

We shall find that out on Tuesday when Monday's ratings are released. Neighbours and Home And Away will also help improve Channel 5's overall share.

Yesterday's gameshow overnight ratings:

Pointless 3.1m (19%)
The Chase 2.9m (19%)
* exc +1: 2.8m (18%)
Eggheads 2.1m (11%)
DOND 1.8m (16%)
Perfection 1.8m (15%)
Countdown 874k (11%)

Ratings include HD & +1 where necessary

Source: Paul Brassey

Also some daytime ratings:

BBC1
Homes Under the Hammer 1.5m 31.1%
Saints and Scroungers 1.2m 25.4%
Britain's Empty Homes 1.2m 23.3%
Bargain Hunt 2.0m 31.7%
BBC News at One 2.7m 37.8%

ITV1
This Morning 1.1m 23.9%
This Morning 1.2m 22.3%
Loose Women 1.1m 16.4%
ITV News & Weather 1.1m 15.5%

thanks tricky, you've summed this up better than I ever could

Yikes for the 6.30pm news. Clearly C5 benefited overall with Cowboy Builders doing very decent numbers by 7pm standards, and only a day after it's original airing. But that news figure is shocking. It's not impossible to think it could rate at zero (when rounded to 1dp). I suppose it makes Cowboy Builder's rating even better as it had an almost non-existant lead in

Decent for Benidorm ER and CBB. Shame the Kym Marsh programme was below a million, generally it wasn't a bad show. But it didn't flop either, and it is only a one-off, so no great harm done. And the demographics were probably good, mitigating the disappointing overall rating

at the football. I genuinely expected Midsomer to edge out a random League Cup clash, but it was trounced!

In fact that 6.8m full programme average seems higher than the match average for ITV's massive FA Cup clash of the titans!

I wonder if the Carling Cup Final will outrate the FA Cup Final again this year?

What a shame we can't have more live football on the BBC....

Canada too (source):

Are you serious? Two big teams in a semi-final. Was always going to do well.


ITV's was on in the afternoon rather than primetime though.


If no big team gets to the FA Cup final then I say it's a possibility.


I agree. Football is the nation's game. It just is.

Broadcast has interviewed Channel 4's chief Jay Hunt. Here's just a few bits of the much longer article:

HI RZT, Can i ask where the info about Doctor Who being a half series this year came from...discussion on the number of episodes to be broadcast this year has been quite controversial so I'm interested to know if it has now been confirmed. Thanks

Quoting my post from yesterday, ITV have announced a couple more new dramas today:

Mrs Biggs (5x60'): about the life of Charmian Biggs, the ex-wife of the Great Train Robber Ronnie.
Leaving (3x60'): relationship drama about a young single man and an older married woman who fall for each other.

Mrs Biggs might not be shown until 2013 which would coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery. Neither drama strikes me as the sort to get big viewing figures. Mrs Biggs focusses on a real-life story and the sort of dramas the writer has done before are Appropriate Adult/See No Evil, neither of which rated particularly high.

Hi, I don't think it's actually been confirmed yet that there'll be just 7 or so episodes of Doctor Who this autumn. But it's just my assumption on what I've read on various websites. I could well be wrong.

Perhaps the Tuesday slot will become the regular 2 hour drama slot as the Wednesday is at the moment when the football isn't on. Vera, Endeavour, Midsommer etc...I imagine carry different demo's to Holby City?

Nov/Dec is not a problem with the I'm a Celebrity stuff stripped across the week. As for May to August, this is the summer months when commercial channels bother less - therefore programmes such as Lewis repeats will appear - and rate well. If I was in charge of ITV1 schedule, I would do the following:

Mon:
19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 Factual Programme
20:30 Corrie
21:00 New Drama

Tue:
19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 Tonight
20:00 Football or 2 hr drama

Wed:
19:00 Emmerdale
20:00 Corrie
21:00 New Drama

Thu:
19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 Factual Programme
20:30 Corrie
21:00 Travelogue/Documentaries

Fri:
19:00 Emmerdale
19:30 Factual Programme
20:30 Corrie
21:00 New Drama

Sorry for the fantasy list, but I do believe this would be the best thing for ITV1 to do as their schedule is irratic at the moment. It would mean Emmerdale is only ever starting at 7pm, and does not clash with EastEnders. The factual programming, which could be half hour or one hour shows would be genuine alternative to non-EastEnders viewers. I also think something like this would solve the Tuesday flop zone...
While I am not a strong believer of lead-in's making viewers stick with a programme, it is a good way to let viewers know when something new is coming on. So having Corrie as the lead-in/promotional tool to the big 9pm offerings could also help.
Viewers often know what they are looking for without being led to it. For example, everyone is switching off David Jason in their droves, but they are able to find Mrs Brown without a strong lead-in.

You bad man...you'd be locked up in wartime for that sort of rumour-mongering

Couple of programming announcements from Sky today,

Kiefer Sutherland’s Touch will air on Sky1 in the Spring

http://sky1.sky.com/touch/kiefer-sut...ch-on-sky-1-hd

Showtime's 'House Of Lies' will air on Sky Atlantic in the Summer

http://skyatlantic.sky.com/house-of-...-house-of-lies

Plus another new comedy commission for Sky1, 'Parents' starring Sally Phillips

http://sky1.sky.com/parents/sally-ph...rents?DCMP=SNT

It won't have helped the Kym Marsh doc that there was another parenting show on C4 at the same time. It did alright though and probably had very good demos.

Overall another good night for Channel 5 and increasing signs that things are really coming together for them this January. They have scheduled smartly around CBB unlike last year and are now reaping the rewards.

Channel 4's 2011 Ratings Performance (via Press Release):

Broadcast says ITV are rebranding this Autumn. Are they changing idents again or the schedule?

EDIT: It's the idents.

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/b...036389.article

I suggested some new Dave-style names for the ITV family of channels last year. Looks like someone at ITV was reading the thread....

:cough: George :cough:

Because it's got the word "truckers" in it.


I can count twenty on that list that run for four episodes or more, and there's a fair number that have the potential to be returnable, and that's not including Casualty and Holby either. And they probably won't appeal to you if you're not the typical BBC1 viewer. I think the Beeb's drama stable at the moment is very impressive, and I think the Original British Drama tagline is working well in emphasising it all. Given the state BBC1's drama output was in in the nineties, when they just had Dangerfield and Casualty as popular hits, it's a massive turnaround.


Well, amen to the latter, but of course it wasn't a random League Cup match, it was a semi-final between two big teams, one of whom was Liverpool in what I think is their first live game on the BBC for almost exactly five years (against Arsenal in the FA Cup third round). It was always going to get a big rating.

As for beating the FA Cup Final, it's got every chance of doing that if Liverpool is in it. The League Cup deal has been pretty good for them as it gives them two primetime matches and a final on a cold day in February, as opposed to most of the games being in the afternoon (and they're committed to loads of them, of wildly varying interest) and the final on a usually hot day in May. It's a shame this deal is coming to an end and next season the League Cup Final goes back to being on Sky only, if only for the prestige of the League Cup, on Sky it just seems like a bog-standard Premier League match.

Obviously it was going to rate better at 9pm than 2pm. I am reminded here, though, of the first season when ITV had the FA Cup rights and someone from ITV wrote to The Guardian and said it was wrong to say ratings were down because Man U vs Spurs on ITV got 500,000 more viewers than the same match at the same stage the previous year on the Beeb. And I wrote in to say that was hardly surprising, as on the Beeb it was on at 2pm and on ITV at 5.15.

I had thought Heston would do a little better ok I lost interest in cooking his lemon tart when he started putting money in the over, but it looked great.


I dont think ITV will drop the ITV in its branding, but ITV 4 certainly would benefit from a refresh possibly even to ITV Sport.

Here is a full list of returning and new drama's at ITV in 2012

Returning Long Running Drama
Primeval [series 5] (6x60'): Science fiction dinosaur drama.
Wild At Heart [series 7] (10x60'): Vetenary drama based in South Africa.
Downton Abbey [series 3] (2x90' & 6x60'): Critically acclaimed period drama.
Whitechapel [series 3] (6x60'): Classic detective series with a modern twist.
Law & Order UK [series 6] (7x60'): British adaptation of a classic US drama.
Lewis [series 6] (4x120'): Detective drama spin-off of Morse.
Poirot [series 13] (5x120'): Conclusion of the Poirot novels.
Miss Marple (3x120'): Three new murder mystery movies.
DCI Banks [series 3] (6x60'): Police procedural starring Stephen Tompkinson.
Above Suspicion [series 4] (3x60'): Fourth adaptation of Lynda La Plante’s novels.

New 2011 Drama's Recommissioned For 2012
Kidnap & Ransom [series 2] (3x60'): Hostage drama produced by and starring Trevor Eve.
Vera [series 2] (4x120'): Female detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn.
Scott & Bailey [series 2] (8x60'): Female duo detective drama series.
Monroe [series 2] (6x60'): Medical drama starring James Nesbitt.
Case Sensitive [series 2] (2x60'): Courtroom drama starring Olivia Williams.

New Drama
Eternal Law (6x60'): About angels who are lawyers in York.
Titanic (5x60'): To coincide with 100 years of the sinking.
Love Life (3x60'): Same working title as the BBC1 drama. About a rocky relationship.
The Scapegoat (1x120'): Period drama about two people who look similar.
Endeavour (1x120'): Morse prequel.

This amounts to an average of over 2 hours of new drama (excluding soaps) on ITV1 every week. And there will be some I have missed, and more commissions to follow...

Thanks for the list. There's also Midsomer Murders [series 14/15] (7x120') which will be the most shown ITV1 drama in primetime in terms of no. of hours this year (excluding soaps of course). Also, I suspect only a couple of the Poirot/Marple episodes will be shown this year.