Heathers murder might get a couple more viewers!

I also disagree let's not forget how the live episodes of each soap performed in 2010 for example. I think a lot of it boils down to promotion. The last episode of EE that was well promoted was that live one back in February 2010 and look how well that did. Corrie's had some disapointing ratings lately and obviously promoting the show well has turned things around. It does make me wonder if the BBC were told to scale back on promoting EE. They used to do those specially made trailers in the Santer era but now we're lucky to get a few clips bunged together. EE won't achieve its maximum potential if the BBC don't promote big storylines well enough.

Skins was the show we all watched when we were at college- It was the first era of skins and it was really good.

They then chose to change the characters for series 3+4 which if worked well would be great, as it means that you get a whole new audience, but inevitably lose some of your existing audience. I watched through seasons 3+4 and again they were good.

The same thing happens for series 5+6; you lose yet more of your original audience (including me this time), but you hope to gain a fresh audience. It didn't happen in series 5 as the general consensus was that the level of writing/storylines was not up to scratch. I did try and watch series 5 but it just wasnt good enough.

Whether the audience is still there at the end of series 6 is yet to be seen. I think if it can maintain around 500k then it will warrant another series.

Series 1 of Skins was great, funny and emotional.
Series 2 was the start of quite a strong downturn in quality, in series 3 it wasn't just the characters that were unrecognisable but the show - it wasn't almost wee injokes with some emotion, it took itself soooo seriously it became pathetic. The main boys were ***** who only 12 y/o girls would like, but the others were pretty good (it was hardly the Sid/Tony stuff, the series 3 main guys were just dreadful)

The one good thing about the series 3 intake were the side characters, but they spent so much with the main ***** it ruined the show.

So I didn't watch series 4. Series 5 trailers? They looked liked a bunch of stuck up teens.#
Miles away from things like Effy not talking, her going missing was an amazing episode of TV and the Russian episode was utterly brilliant.

It became a kids show, which thought it was very clever and very adult and counter-culture. It was twatish.


Misfits last year and in the finals this year showed that actually Skins didn't do all that well, it only did okay and could have had a much bigger audience if it were as good as the first series.

Misfits does young people so much better and truer, their ***** but the show doesn't expect us to laugh at all their jokes like their the coolest guys in school (*****) instead their 'misfits'. Brilliant, oh and unlike Skins misfits, their not ****ing snobs!


Sorry /rant - but Skins seriously annoys me as it was once really really good. Then they just ****ed it all up, series 3's first episode showed the way it was going when someone farted into a microphone at their college lecturer, I mean what the ****? Were suppose to laugh at that, when hes just a complete stuck up ****.

/endrant

Reading about the Northern Lights (the natural phenomenon and not the desperate ITV Robson & Jermome spin off... ), I can't help feeling they picked the wrong week last week for Stargazing Live....

The launch of CBB last year.....


Have you not been reading the ratings updates?????


Since when was Big Brother cheap?????

I imagine Heather's exit will get a lot of promotion - that's their biggest and most shocking storyline since the baby swap IMO. And like the baby swap, I imagine it will get complaints because it really is a very dark storyline they have planned for her exit. Which will only create publicity and push the ratings up, so I think the episode immediately after Heather's *ahem* ....departure should do very well also, not just the episode itself. It won't top last night's Corrie though.

Fab shares and figures for Corrie... >40% is always great to see.

Wonder if the trial will manage to hit these heights - it's a huge plot, all next week, which brings a number of big storylines to a head and from what I've read sends them off in new directions.


Re: DOI tanking on Sundays, I think it's really important ITV realise how perilously close to the wind they are sailing letting the BBC gain a rep of having decent Sunday nights - they must compete now to reclaim their former stronghold!

It's not enough to have Downton Abbey and The X Factor pulling the figures for 10 weeks or so a year.

At the nearest instance I'd move Friday's first Corrie to Sunday at 7.30pm, and move Emmerdale's 8pm on Thursday to become an hour episode on Fridays (whilst bumping Corrie to 8pm on Thurs, directly after EE).

Leaving a soap schedule of:

You seem to be sure about everyone. I gave up on Big Brother when it was on Channel Snore..... I gave it a chance on Channel 5 last year and I love it..... You don't speak for everyone.....


That sure was explosive!


How was the rubbish on BlatantlyBadCrass1?

The channel snobs will disagree with you, but I agree wholeheartedly.


It does tend to take over Twitter quite often


It did badly didn't it?


It sure did, and it's gaining viewers again.....

I think that was the most watched show on any +1 service last night..... Which says something for Big Brother.....

Keep soaps away from Sundays! Please let me have one day where I don't encounter the bloody things! ITV have too many episodes. Lazy scheduling when they upped the number of episodes.They didn't need soaps on Sundays with all of those drama/light entertainment hits in the nineties. Just try harder.

Well 8-10 million people would, so it makes commercial sense.

I agree. I mean, for Pat's funeral, didn't that rate at 9.1m? I would have certainly expected better for EE, but CS has pulled a brilliant rating out of the bag for Becky's departure. One thing I've noticed is that CS probably tends to keep momentum after big events better than EE does.

Not quite. 348k was the exact +1 rating (apologies for the mistake above) and SuperScrimpers and Coppers had more than that but C4+1 is more established as the oldest of the three major timeshift services. The Gypsy show which I don't get at all was doing about 1 million on there at one point last year IIRC, so that gives you an idea of just what these +1 channels are capable of.

If the remainder of CBBs run averages over 2.4m, then we will have a very healthy overnight rating of around 2.4m+, potentially 2.6m+ officially.
Probably around 2.4m tonight.

I am intrigued to see how my other TV addiction will do tomorrow night up against CBB. 2 of my fave shows up against each other... Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents. I will be watching Sun, Sex on the late night repeat. I am addicted to it. Last year they managed to get very good ratings with between 600-800k, and some even hitting 1m in the officials

With +1 included I don't think this year's series will be down very much on last year at all despite launching nearly 2m lower. And I think you have to take your hat off to the production team for that one, as well as C5 for their unwavering faith in the show and dogged promotion. It's proven that there's plenty of life in the old dog yet.

The most encouraging thing I've read today is that Radio 1 has been talking about the show for the first time in ages, and not just in a "wasn't it good back in the day" kind of way. People are engaging with the show in a way that they simply haven't for a while.

It's a shame it all has to end on Friday - it's flown by! But the format will get the rest it needs before the non-celebs descend on Borehamwood's most famous residence in the summer. And that will undoubtedly pose a bigger challenge for all involved.

Excellent ratings there for Corrie, particularly the second episode. Is that the first 10m+ rating for a soap in a while?

Good night for CBB as well and Coppers is doing well for Channel 4. 6m is still decent for 9pm but ITV might be a bit disappointed with Above Suspicion considering the lead-in it had.

Amazing that The Royal Bodyguard had 2.8m, maybe people tuning in early for MBB or just to see if it's as awful as everyone says.

I don't know why I never started watching series 5 of Skins. Perhaps I just felt that I'd seen all I wanted to after 4 seasons? The first revamp worked well but there was some crossover between the 2 casts that time.

Series 3 was great, IMO. I wasn't sure that it would be but it ended up as the only series where the show actually increased its audience throughout (from a low start). Series 4 was much like series 2 and took existing characters a bit too far and lost he plot a bit. But it started far better and held up alright so it didn't show in the ratings. Then series 5 dropped and unlike series 3, didn't rally at all. This will be the last one, I think.

Nobody forces you to watch them.

Now instead of being on Sundays they take up most of ITV's weekday pre-watershed schedule which isn't exactly ideal.

I don't think it's particularly surprising that the Sunday Politics (and also last night's Panorama) got decent promotion. It's not about ratings. The BBC want to draw attention to their PSB output, plus The Sunday Politics is a new show which they will want to establish in the schedules for 40-ish weeks a year. Bit different to a 2 part drama

Amazing rating for Corrie, I assumed people were over predicting, and some probably were, so to get over 11m is unexpected.

Also to note is the high rating for Cornwall, something that should be factored in in all these endless soap scheduling discussions.

Panorama's attempt to get good ratings with a populist topic failed.

Nothing to say about The Royal Bodyguard. It must be the biggest flop on BBC1 in years when you consider they can usually guarantee to get at least 3.5m for everything at 9pm.

Well done Corrie. Big characters should sometimes have a happy ending and others face (Tracy) their comeuppance. This is more satisfying than someone dying with a newcomer hogging the scenes (Derek)

ABC:
8pm - The Bachelor - 8.14m (2.6)
10pm - Castle - 10.06m (2.1)

FOX:
8pm - House - 8.18m (3.1)
9pm - Alcatraz - 8.95m (3.0)

NBC:
8pm - Who's Still Standing - 6.45m (1.7)
9pm - NBC News Special: Florida Debate - 7.30m (1.3)
10pm - NBC News Special: Florida Debate - 6.92m (1.6)

CW:
8pm - Gossip Girl - 1.57m (0.7)
9pm - Hart of Dixie - 1.63m (0.7)

Tvbythenumbers

CW numbers subject to greater adjustment than usual due to pre-emptions in Chicago for basketball coverage.

House was at its best since October - if it can hold that then FOX might start thinking about "one more season" to wrap it up depending on how the other new dramas do. Alcatraz was down 10% to a 3.0. That's not a bad second week but the 3.3 start didn't leave it too much room to fall anyway. It did win the 9pm hour, although Two And A Half Men had a 2.9 for a repeat

SUNDAY 22nd SUMMARY:

CBS - AFC Championship Game - 48.7m
- Highest for an afternoon AFC game in 30 years

FOX - NFC Championship Game - 57.6m
- Third most watched NFC game ever

Due to overtime in the NFC game, American Idol didn't get started until 10.57pm for the Eastern timezone (half the population of the US). It still had 19m and a 7.9 rating. That likely brought in viewers who hadn't watched last week and FOX will hope that some of those that caught the special episode come back. As a result of the late start time, they'll be airing it tonight at 8pm in place of a Glee repeat.

Next weekend NBC have the Pro Bowl (which doesn't do much). The week after is The Superbowl on NBC. The following week (the 12th) is The Grammy Awards on CBS. Then a couple of weeks later ABC have The Academy Awards which air on the 26th (to about 40m viewers).

Its not commercially clever to spread soaps out across 7 days. Namely because it gets spread too thin, even viewers want a break. Its a bit like BB - I think its entire ratings would be boosted slightly if there were no Satruday shows (and maybe even no Sundays!) as they relaunch every single week.

Eastenders and their Friday cliffhanger is a great example of this.

Plus only a few pages back we all discussed the dangers of being over soapy, and as we've seen the soap audience can so very very easily COLLAPSE once the episodes finished, they don't stick around. So soaps don't pull people to a channel for the night, just for the half hour its on.

I think ITV should move the Corrie sandwich to another day though, and put Emmerdale in between. So maybe shifting from Friday to Saturday would be a good move. But then they leave Friday open to become an hour long EE! Capping off the week, before relaunching on the monday!

Remember the soaps are tactical pawns, its a complex game with BBC One


But they can't spread it too thin, just for their own internal reasons, it weakens the soaps and can lose their more constant audience, increasing the people who watch now and then, and thus overall ratings of the shows - even if they have the same reach as before.

Sorry but that would be a terrible idea.