Heartbeat was on way too long and the demos were bad, it was mostly watched by old people. Yet it still pulled in 5 million viewers and could have been replaced by a similar easygoing show.
I did a little research on Where The Heart Is and didn't realise it ran for 9 years. Yet it fell into the same trap as Heartbeat, ratings were reasonable, but it was deadly slow and the demos were as bad as Heartbeat's, certainly anyone under 35 avoided it like the plague.

Diary note
July 28 (first day of the Olympics proper)
DS thread

''BBC Guilty of Olympics Overkill''

Ho ho and everyone should have at least 18 channels to choose from by then. I don't watch a lot of sport, but I know there is always an alternatice. Gone are the days when the two BBC channels showed Wimbledon, ITV had athletics and Channel 4 had racing and there was no alternative.,

That or ITV will just collapse like they have on Tuesday's.


Hardly; the BBC will get strong ratings from two channels instead of the one. Bar with Panorama and Songs of Praise but they wouldn't perform much worse than some BBC Two fare.

What's even more interesting about the Super Bowl is that a further 2.1 million people watched it online via the NFL and NBC websites. So not only is the broadcast viewing growing but the online viewing is as well. DVR viewing of the Super Bowl is growing as well.

Caitlin Moran in the Times has also described it as 'Heartbeat with nuns and a socialist agenda'. I was waiting for RobbieSykes to quote that with the same immediacy he did her Wild at Heart/Emmerdale comparison...

Exactly. Indeed it's quite possible for the fortnight ITV1's ratings might actually be up on the norm.

I can see BBC1's Scottish and Welsh audience building strongly given the latest from Rome....

I just hope they don't have a re run of last summer with shows that fell below 2 million viewers as they were quite simply rubbish. It's a shame America doesn't make the blockbuster mini series any more that ITV used to schedule against the Olympics. Rich Man Poor Man, V and the like used to be quite good.
However, unlike stuff like the Euros and the 6 Nations, I do enjoy the Olympics.

She's good. I adore Caitlin.

US Ratings Friday February 10

CBS claim a narrow Friday night victory in the demo just beating out ABC's unscripted line-up whilst relatively speaking Friday night continues to be one of NBC's better nights.

On CBS A Gifted Man edged ever closer to cancellation dropping a tenth week-on-week but the rest of the scripted line-up was up a tenth with Blue Bloods tying ABC's Shark Tank for the biggest demo performer of the night and easily winning with total viewers. Speaking of Shark Tank that was up a staggering three tenths vs. last week whilst What Would You Do climbed a tenth and 20/20 dropped three tenths at 10PM probably due to stronger competition from NBC's Dateline which was up an even more staggering four tenths week-on-week.

Sticking with NBC Grimm was back up and now looks certain for a second season (which I doubt anyone predicted at the start of the season) and Who Do You Think You Are was steady with last week. On Fox both Kitchen Nightmares and Fringe were down, Fringe back to a series low tying performance. Its days continue to look numbered and a completely unscripted Friday beckons for Fox next season I'd guess.

ABC
8PM: Shark Tank – 1.8 [5.91]
9PM: Primetime: What Would You Do? - 1.5 [4.62]
10PM: 20/20 – 1.4 [5.16]

CBS
8PM: A Gifted Man – 1.2 [8.81]
9PM: CSI: New York – 1.7 [10.34]
10PM: Blue Bloods – 1.8 [11.77]

Fox
8PM: Kitchen Nightmares – 1.5 [3.56]
9PM: Fringe – 1.1 [3.03]

NBC
8PM: Who Do You Think You Are? - 1.2 [5.24]
9PM: Grimm – 1.6 [5.24]
10PM: Dateline – 1.5 [5.88]

The CW
8PM: Nikita – 0.5 [1.45]
9PM: Supernatural – 0.7 [1.86]

I'm not sure I'd be willing to put any money on that happening. Do we know what ITV are planning to air opposite the Olympics yet?


They could always try making one themselves. Or co-producing it with a US network.

CTM has been a surprise hit and badly damaged the previously invincible DOI, which seems to ailing now. What's to stop the BBC really taking on TXF, as the last series wasn't such a huge success and they know millions of viewers can't stand it? I really do admire the BBC for refusing to wave the white flag against strong opposition, I can still remember when they showed the hopeless Harry and the Hendersons against Coronation St.
However, should ITV's reality/ entertainment big guns really go into decline, the channel should have some decent replacements lined up. I'm of the opinion they should look at their rich heritage of game shows and revive some of them.

Given the Olympics is airing during the month of the year The One Show doesn't air I'm not sure I'd describe it as being "rested" Last July was taken up with "The One Show: Best of Britain" which really, really wasn't. Perhaps it would have been better described as "Here's half an hour of incredibly cheap programming as we're showing old VTs with a tenuous connection"

But also given one of the show's regular presenters will be doing commentary & presenting duty at the Olympics which was announced month's ago I kind of doubted he'd be doing double duty presenting The One Show in the evenings...

And as for "rested permanently" the only question would be why would they do that? It's actually gained viewers and share over the past few months. When it was down near the 4m mark and 17-18% audience I would have argued it could do with a rethink. Now it's getting 20%+ share, around 5m viewers (at least on Mon-Thu) and some decent publicity (the Rickshaw Challenge, and the Buckingham Palace gig). For what I suspect is a cheap show to produce they're doing pretty well

It depends what sort of Summer we have. If we have a scorching Summer then ITV won't benefit at all, however it will have dull weather through the Olympics then ITV may get more 'anti-Olympics' viewers, although of course BBC will increase to. If I was ITV, I would run this schedule for the two weeks:

17:30 - ITV Regional News
18:00 - ITV News
18:30 - Gameshow (R)
19:30 - Coronation Street
20:00 - Emmerdale
20:30 - Downton Abbey (R)*
22:00 - ITV News at Ten

Gameshow = a rotation between The Chase, All Star Family Fortunes and The Cube.

* or shows that were dropped mid-run/never likely to make the screen against proper opposition etc etc

Perhaps they could build on the recent Frank Skinner revival by airing the second series of his sitcom Shane, which has been on the shelf unseen for several years now...

TOS has been a big success for BBC One and has provided a decent alternative to Emmerdale. The show, apart from being cheap to make, is a decent magazine show, far better than what was in the slot before.

And yet, by some distance, it's the idea that has been suggested most on here since Big Brother arrived on Channel 5 and the celebrity series did the business whilst the normal series underperformed. Now it looks like it might be happening, it's going down like a lead balloon! But why wouldn't they want to expand upon the most successful part of the franchise? It's a logical progression.

Without question a full length summer series + 2xCBB's would be overkill for a show past its peak. But the days of 13 week long runs are a thing of the past with the last series of BB coming in at just 9 weeks. If they were to cut that down a bit more and do say a 6-8 week run during May/June, and then another Celeb BB in say September, that could work with sufficient enough gap between each. It's not as though Celebrity Big Brother is a big commitment for the viewer at just 3 weeks long so I think they could easily get away with two per year.


None of this has been confirmed yet so hold your horses before you get the knives out. The contract is being renegotiated, that's the story at the moment. We won't know the details until that process is complete.

One thing I can be sure of, whatever the outcome, the response on here will be extremely critical.

To be fair, the interior changed drastically for this January's series compared to the summer. And they only had about 5 weeks excluding Christmas to get it all ready.

We might see some more significant changes this summer as they'll have longer to prepare.

I think the best thing for BB is to drop the summer series if it performs as badly as last year and air two celeb versions a year. This will guarantee Channel 5 2-3 million viewers for six weeks of the year.
Actually Channel 5 have been shrewd with BB. Gone are the pointless fanzine shows like BBLB and the through the night coverage, with people asleep. Also cutting the length of the series was a good idea as the whole show was becoming an overlong and unpopular bore on Channel 4.
BB still has life in it and I reckon the celeb version should be with us for a few years yet. I'm not in its demographic but fair play to Channel 5 for landing a hit for them.
( ITV1 must be well miffed that their reality offering, The Biggest Loser, was beaten by CBB).

Friday 10th February Overnights
BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.75m (21.1%)
20:00- EastEnders: 8.27m (34.4%)

ITV1
19:00- Emmerdale: 7.75m (35.3%)
19:30- Coronation Street: 9.28m (39.9%), +1 115k
20:30- Coronation Street: 9.23m (37%) , +1: 150k

Channel 4
18:30- Hollyoaks: 827k (4%)

Channel 5
13:45- Neighbours: 746k (8.9%)
17:30- Neighbours: 1.16m (6.7%)
18:00- Home and Away: 760k (3.9%)

Multichannel
BBC Three
22:00- EastEnders: 593k (2.9%)

E4
19:00- Hollyoaks: 506k (2.3%)

DS

same day last year:
Emmerdale:7.4m
up 350k y-o-y

Corrie: 9.11m/9.33m
up 170k and down 100k y-o-y

EastEnders:8.15m
up 120k y-o-y

same day 2010:
Emmerdale:7.96m
Corrie: 10.01m/9.67m
EastEnders:9.69m

Emmerdale only 0.5 million behind Eastenders and had better share. Its got quite close between the two soaps. Emmerdale also up against much harder competition, Eastenders was only up against a rubbish documentary called safari vet school.

Some more good figures for Corrie, both eps 1m ahead of EE. Emmerdale performed decently for a Friday too. Hollyoaks is low and the H&A season finale episode for 2011 didn't do well at all - 760k is a disaster really. Also why don't DS ever report the H&A 5* rating on Friday's?

Worrying for Home and Away, it just isn't doing anything in the ratings. If it really slips badly, would Channel 5 have to pay compensation to get out of the whole life contract and cancel it.

Friday tends to be EE's lowest rating of the week as much of their younger audience goes out on Friday nights. It's always been that way.