Suppose CTM never happened and DOI was still doing as well as last year, would ITV1 have chanced putting on a Europa League football match? ITV1 have been badly rattled by a quality drama beating what is an inferior show, albeit one of their biggest, so had to move their biggest soap opposite CTM. Now I wonder how ITV1 are to react if the football attracts only 4 million viewers and Coronation St fares even worse than DOI than CTM.
This now begs the question ITV1 is now as dependent on a threadbare set of shows than they were in the mid noughties and seem completely stuk against better opposition.

You can only be one poster. Welcome back!

Football fans like to hate on Channel 5, it's their thing. Weak playground style banter typical of Twitter but meaningless in real terms. I guarantee with the boxing on Saturday there will be no such comments coming through, it's just a weird quirk that affects football fans.

There was nothing wrong with the commentary. Dave Woods did a fine job. And give me Rosenthal over Chiles any day of the week. The lack of HD was more concerning (also true of ITV tonight) and the poor camera work in the buildup, both will hopefully be resolved next week. But ultimately that's a discussion for another thread.

All that matters is the ratings on the night and it's unlikely to be affected by viewers unimpressed with the quality of the coverage. Next season it could be Thursday nights on ITV4 and SD quality to rival YouTube, maybe then they won't think so badly of Channel 5.

Cue Derek500 "you can get ITV4 HD exclusively from Sky if you subscribe to the HD pack."

Hahaha! Quoted for truth.

Quality is all subjective. I have to confess that having now watched a couple of episodes of Call the Midwife on iPlayer I'm not massively impressed with it but then one of the other drama phenomenon of recent times (Downton Abbey) has completely passed me by as well. Thankfully I did enjoy Sherlock so I'm not completely out of step with the nation.

However for what its worth I'm not convinced that it is Call the Midwife that is damaging Dancing On Ice which was down year-on-year before Call the Midwife arrived and will be down year-on-year after its left as well. I'm also not entirely convinced that Coronation Street is being used as a spoiler for Call the Midwife. It seems like a fairly ridiculous plan of attack (even within television) to try and dent a big new drama during its final episode of the series. If Coronation Street is being used as a spoiler for anything this week its the return of Upstairs Downstairs which I suspect for various reasons ITV views as a bigger threat to them.

In terms of ITV's overall condition I'm not sure its as bad as people want to make out

Coronation Street
Emmerdale
Britain's Got Talent
The X Factor
Downton Abbey
I'm A Celebrity
Doc Martin

That's hardly a terrible list of a big hitters. Plus they have the likes of Take Me Out, Whitechapel etc. all rolling along nicely.

In fact when you stop and think about its not different from the BBC1 list (although admittedly there's more drama in the BBC list)

EastEnders
Strictly Come Dancing
Sherlock
New Tricks
The Apprentice

And I suppose we should now add Call the Midwife and Mrs Brown's Boys to that list. Does Doctor Who still warrant a place on the list given its overnight wobbles? Or does that belong on the solid rolling along nicely list now?

Generally speaking it seems unfair to think that ITV1 or any other network should be expected to have more than a handful of true big hitters. I'd agree that its perhaps a little concerning how old the list of ITV1 big hitters are and how, unlike the BBC, they've struggled to find new shows to fold into that category to their credit they are at least trying.

Being a media student, I was interested to see why Channel 5 was trending worldwide and then commented back on the thread. I've seen Twitter mentioned a few times so didn't realise it was an issue?

Just looking through again and it seems you are in the minority with your opinion. That's all, I've already stated in my first post on here that I find having support for certain channels/ hate for another channel really, really embarrassing and sad for adults so am unlikely to have an vendetta.

Channel 5 schedule change next Tuesday:

In fairness I suspect it probably has less to do with the commentary on Five being bad and more to do with it being different. If ITV were to randomly replace Clive Tyldesly with someone else then for the first few months it would be followed with a steady stream of complaints about how bad the new guy was until they got used to the replacement. Its just the way football (and sports commentary in general) is.

It's not an issue, I just don't see how it matters to ratings. I think Twitter opinion can be relevant if it's scripted content or an entertainment show, as that does affect whether or not viewers come back the following night or week. With football I'm not so sure. People will always want to keep tabs on the team they support, and Manchester United are always an attractive side for casual viewers whatever channel they happen to be on.

ITV could probably do with another big new returning drama to add to that list. I know they're upping their investment in drama for 2013 so one can only hope something good comes out of it.

I suppose they've got stuff like Lewis and Wild at Heart on 6-7m overnights and Scott and Bailey may be capable of it in a nice slot so they're getting there. Benidorm (a sitcom admittedly) could also qualify with overnights of 6-7m (and officials of c8m), but yeah they could do with a big new hit drama. After the really positive word of mouth of the pilot and in an 8-10pm slot rather than 9-11pm, I wonder if Endeavour could be capable of 7m+ overnights and 8m+ officials (the pilot wasn't far off).

As two people said on the last page, the rating for the football isn't the whole story, it is the demographic which is hard to target increasing ITV1's reach in the process. Why do you think they bother with all-foreign World Cup games kicking off in daytime or FA Cup 1st round matches?

As has been pointed out many times, the Champions League has less UK teams in it than usual, hence the promotion of the Man City Europa league match to ITV1

I'm sure you don't read other people's posts and just post the same dozen posts every day which always leads to the same generic posts as seen between yours and mine

Agreed although again to their credit they have been actively trying to find one albeit with limited positive results which is more than can be said for Channel 4 who have just been floundering for what seems like years at this point. For all the stick ITV get there is at least a sense that they want to find and launch hits however misguided their attempts might ultimately prove to be.

Looking at the discussion earlier about NBC, I wonder if it might be worth them doing a bit of reshuffling with comedies on Tuesdays (where there is currently the least amount of comedy competition) and Biggest Loser on Wednesdays? Something like this:

MONDAY: 8pm: New unscripted show, 9pm: Fear Factor, 10pm: New drama
TUESDAY: 8pm: New comedy, 8:30pm: New comedy, 9pm: New drama, 10pm: Law & Order: SVU
WEDNESDAY: 8pm: New drama, 9pm: The Biggest Loser
THURSDAY: 8pm: SNL Weekend Update, 8:30pm: 30 Rock/Community, 9pm: The Office, 9:30pm Parks & Recreation, 10pm: Awake

With The Voice and (maybe) Smash in midseason they'll need something disposable in the Fall and Fear Factor is just that. I'd keep it to 1 hour though with something else at 8pm. America's Got Talent could work over the 2 hours (leading into Fear Factor at 10pm) but it's probably unlikely. A new drama would take the 10pm slot as a trial - if it showed potential it could be left there to air after The Voice. Tuesday's are risky but NBC need to be bold, and new comedies in that relatively safe 8pm hour leading into a drama at 9pm could work (the comedies and drama would have to be aiming for a fairly similar audience). SVU would probably be better on Tuesdays with less crime competition.

Currently there are no dramas in the Wednesday 8pm slot so there's an opportunity to grab an audience there, and TBL should lock in an audience in a difficult slot (and would do well in the 10pm hour). The SNL shows could be revived for the run up to the election, whilst keeping to tried and tested stuff afterwards would mean stability at least.

Some of those moves are a bit risky but they couldn't do much worse than they're doing just now anyway, and one or two of the new shows could take off. Also, the success of the revived Fear Factor has got me thinking about whether NBC could bring Deal or No Deal back to primetime. It was a huge hit for them initially before they overexposed it, but it's been a while now, and they could use AGT to promote it with the Howie Mandel connection. It could be a useful way to fill that Monday 8pm hour in the Fall.

The lower overnights from S6 were cancelled out by much higher timeshifts. Doctor Who got an impressive 10.8m at Christmas and the 2011 series average was in line with the previous 5 years.

Huge timeshifts, huge HD, huge iPlayer, huge international success, Toys/DVD sales..

Yes, it should be on the BBC list.

The obvious problem with Biggest Loser on Wednesday is that it throws it right back into the path of Idol (and now The X Factor in the Fall) and its no longer strong enough to hold up against those. It barely keeps its head above water opposite the Dancing Results show. For better or worse NBC will likely stick with it on Tuesday night.

In the grand scheme of things though I think NBC might just have to ignore what the other networks are doing. Its basically now going to be impossible for them to avoid clashing with much stronger shows on other networks so they just have to throw everything they've got into a select group of shows/slots and hope for the best. Your comment that Tuesday 10PM will likely produce less crime opposition for SVU next season for example probably isn't true. CBS will almost certainly have a procedural there so its basically going to be similar competition to the Wednesday slot crime wise possibly worse depending on what ABC puts there.

At this stage I think NBC needs to throw everything (and I do mean everything) they have behind Thursday 9PM for Fall 2012 and more than that they need to make it known that's what they're going to do. That's basically the only play they have open to them to try and stop CBS putting Big Bang Theory there (and that would be the one piece of scheduling they wouldn't be able to ignore) and if they get a hit Thursday 9PM it'll power the rest of the night in the exact same way Modern Family has powered ABC's Wednesday nights. Actually thinking about it NBC might have played a master stroke with The Voice on Monday night – suddenly the CBS comedy block isn't looking quite as unstoppable as it was a few weeks ago (which might give CBS pause for thought on expanding the Thursday block), Fox has completely collapsed there now and it may very well put another nail in the coffin of Dancing with the Stars.

Of course if NBC wanted to be really adventurous next season they'd scrap the Fall run of Biggest Loser completely and basically go for an aggressive run of basically all-new shows across the week only bringing back The Office (but at 8PM on Thursday), Grimm and maybe Awake depending on how it does. Plus Rock Center and Dateline for Friday. And I suppose they could mix the likes of Who's Still Standing and Fear Factor into that schedule as well to limit the risk a little but that would certainly grab people's attention:

Monday: Who's Still Standing / New Drama / New Drama
Tuesday: Fear Factor / New Drama
Wednesday: New Drama / Grimm / New Drama
Thursday: The Office / New Comedy / New Comedy / New Comedy / Awake or New Drama
Friday: Unscripted / Rock Center / Dateline
Saturday: Repeats
Sunday: Football

You could even cut Fear Factor to 90 minutes and stick a fourth new comedy in the 9:30 slot.

Also on the subject of SNL Weekend Update. If memory serves they tried that in primetime during the last election and it didn't really work. I don't think they'll do it again.

Endeavour would be good although it's a little derivative for my tastes - but again there was definitely an audience there.

They hit gold with Downton and whilst I know hits like that don't come along very often the BBC have proved with CTM and Sherlock that it's possible. I just think they need something a little fresh but not so left-field that we end up with half a dozen Eternal Laws on our hands.

While we might bemoan the plight of ITV, at least they have scored some large and decent drama hits like DA, WAH, Whitechapel and DM in the last few years. Channel 4 seems completely stuck, the end of BB has robbed them of a focal point for 4 months of the year and they seem unable to come up with a single new hit to replace BB. Instead they flog the same shows into the ground and people are getting tired of the same CDWM episodes on a loop or Noel Edmonds turning his dull game show into a pantomime to get viewers interested.
ITV might not be too well at the mo, but Channel 4 is drifting into a coma.

Seven
18:00 Seven News: 1.10m
18:30 Today Tonight: 992k
19:00 Home & Away: 1.02m
19:30 My Kitchen Rules: 1.80m
20:30 Grey's Anatomy: 776k
21:30 Desperate Housewives: 559k

Nine
18:00 Nine News: 1.03m
18:30 A Current Affair: 880k
19:00 The Big Bang Theory (R): 714k
19:30 New Series: Earthflight: 599k
20:30 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 643k
21:30 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 705k

Ten
17:00 Ten News at Five: 590k
19:00 The Biggest Loser: Singles: 710k
20:00 Modern Family (R): 480k
20:30 Law & Order: S.V.U.: ~480k
21:30 Law & Order: S.V.U.: ~480k

Shares
Seven: 25.8%
Nine: 17.7%
Ten: 11.9%

I don't really agree that they need to just completely ignore what the other networks are doing. Obviously there has to be an element of that but just throwing caution to the wind and slotting things in almost at random would not help them at all.

That's an interesting schedule you've done there though. I like the Thursday idea as The Office just isn't strong enough to support the whole block anymore. Obviously it should come back but 8pm is probably right, and even if they only get one new hit (at say, 9pm), it'd be an improvement at least. That Thursday 9pm slot is crucial. Not sure I agree about getting rid of The Biggest Loser altogether in the Fall but they could look at scaling it back to one hour. Alternatively they could put it in the Monday 8pm slot in the Fall (and not bother with a midseason cycle) as Who's Still Standing isn't really strong enough for that slot (it was only getting high 1s first time around). I'd definitely bring Fear Factor onto the Fall schedule but it should really stay at 1 hour (or 90 mins max) whilst Grimm isn't strong enough to leave Fridays.

As for SNL Weekend Update, it actually rated well during the last election in primetime, but they brought it back the following year for no particular reason and it didn't really work then as there was obviously no election going on. It could be something for them to consider, although as they're trying to rebuild the network, giving a slot to something that'll only work for a couple of months once every 4 years is probably not too wise. So maybe they could go with something like:

Monday: The Biggest Loser / New Drama
Tuesday: Fear Factor / New Comedy / New Drama
Wednesday: New Drama / New Drama / New Drama
Thursday: The Office / New Comedy / New Comedy / New Comedy / Awake or New Drama
Friday: WDYTYA? / Grimm / Dateline

With Law & Order: SVU, Community, Parks & Recreation and 30 Rock (final season of 13 episodes) on the bench and The Voice and Smash for midseason. 3 new dramas back to back on Wednesday could potentially be a disaster (and I'd be tempted to stick SVU at 10pm) but they've go to be bold and take risks to get out of the mess they're in.


I've just checked and the Endeavour pilot got an official rating of 8.21m (inc +1) so there's clearly an audience for it, and it really was excellent so it ought to return. Agree that they need to go for something different, but not completely left-field. That's a difficult compromise though and hits are notoriously hard to find. You can see why they'd probably rather just churn out some more new crime dramas but they should really try for something different (quite possibly in the Wednesday 8pm slot after Corrie).

poor night for TV last night, shown by the sub standard ratings in the 8.30pm slot for all 3 networks, showing rather tired american dramas. ABC1 showed The Straits at 8.30, but it was very hard to follow and more of a drama for awards than anything else.

Would have thought Earthflight would have done a lot better considering how well Frozen planet did, but obviously the lack of Attenborough wouldn't have helped.

Still mystified by how many MKR pulls in every night, far too much of the same night after night after night.

On the plus side for NINE, they still have the cricket on Fridays and Sundays for the next few weeks, but they really need to start improving soon

For the industrious amongst you the truly phenomenal pilot for NBC's Awake is now available online. I cannot recommend it highly enough it is by far the best pilot of this season and easily one of the best pilots of recent memory. Whether that will sustain to the rest of the series remains to be seen but its brilliant, clever and original piece of television and deserves at least a decent sampling.


I'm not suggesting they throw things onto the schedule completely at random but with a couple of exceptions I think they just have to completely ignore what the opposition is doing. They cannot afford to start trying to second guess where ABC, CBS and Fox are going to schedule all but their biggest hits (Modern Family, American Idol/X Factor, Big Bang Theory). At this stage NBC has to accept they aren't going to get great or even good ratings for the majority of their slots and rather than trying to fix everything at once they need to focus their resources on a couple of slots and then hope for the best everywhere else and hope that some distinctive and quality shows will just find an audience basically on their own. As I said if I were them my sole focus for Fall 2012 would be on Thursday 9PM. I'd have a new comedy in that slot and I would throw all the promotional weight behind it I can muster (and NBC can still muster a lot of that). If they get that 9PM slot right then the rest of Thursday should receive a halo effect and rise as well which will solve a night for them.


I think Biggest Loser is overexposed at this point and desperately needs to be reduced to one cycle a year. I'd go for midseason next year rather than Fall just because it provides a longer gap for audiences to actually miss it. Plus it gives them a solid(ish) banker on the shelf for midseason when sections of the Fall schedule inevitably collapse again.


Who's Still Standing doesn't need to be strong. It needs to be cheap and keep its head above a 1 and I think it can manage both of those. Fear Factor meanwhile has done relatively well in a couple of 2 hour blocks since its return so I imagine they'll look at keeping it that way. Although I think 90 minutes is probably better.

Grimm is a tricky one. I somewhat agree that it should stay on Friday but at the same time its hard to justify keeping it there when they're going to need something familiar to anchor the schedule around. I think with a decent promotional push it can probably survive away from Friday next year if it needs to.


With the possible exception of Parks I'd get rid of them all.

I watched it, and like Smash, I wasn't impressed. Overly complicated and too clever for its own good. I recall many critics saying Smash had one of the best pilots of the season but it lost lots of viewers for its second episode. I predict similar erosion for Awake and dont even think it will get big sampling in the first place.

Sharon Waxman at The Wrap saying that the deals have been signed to air the next series of The Voice this Autumn.



http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/vo...xclusive-35472

So itll be The Voice against X Factor in US this Fall? I think Voice will win.

But with another season of The Voice so soon and being shown around same time of XFUSA, viewers will get bored of these singing shows even quicker.