Would be interested in finding out tomorrow how many are watching Homeland on Channel 4 +1 like me (great start so far), for people who were watching UD or DOI instead.
Homeland is the number 1 trend on UK Twitter.

Homeland certainly deserves a big audience. It is one of the best dramas the US have produced in a long time and it only gets better as it goes along. Does anyone know if they've scheduled a mid-week repeat for it? Certainly wouldn't be a bad idea to do that or set up a marathon of episodes later in the run on More4. Give casual viewers an easy chance to catch-up and get into it.


The Killing wasn't especially good though.

Actually that's not fair it wasn't bad it just took a long time to find its feet and get out from under the shadow of the original version. And given how well that rated on BBC4 I'd imagine that was a very real issue for the US version to overcome here. I don't imagine series two is going to do particularly good business for Channel 4 assuming they've picked it up.

Talking of ITV2 read in the paper today they're heading back into drama and have commissioned Switch, based on 4 witches living in Camden.


The slot is working against it though so could easily be sub-1m, though might start out healthier tonight. And really neither Pillars of the Earth, Camelot or Any Human Heart worked in weekend 9pm slots for C4, so don't really understand why the persist with this strategy - especially when 10pm is so bare.

And back to Dancing on Ice they had a twist which actually worked tonight - though I doubt it'll have worked ratings wise.

The Killing is a pointless remake. I dunno why C4 wasted money on it, especially as the original version was a hit here anyway. I know there's some who refuse to watch anything with subtitles, but I wouldn't say that was a market big enough to be particularly worth chasing.

Homeland meanwhile is something completely fresh and compelling. It's being compared to 24 but to be honest I'm not really seeing it except a few themes that are shared. It's just a great show.

The ratings probably won't hold after the premiere, but I don't see any reason why this couldn't be a solid 1.2-1.6m rater for them on the biggest viewing night of the week. At this point I can't see it falling below a million like The Killing.


And during the football on ITV1 earlier in the week.

Sounds a bit like their version of Being Human. Which coincidently I've found surprisingly enjoyable so far this year despite the major cast departures.

To be honest ITV2 might be better off taking a page out of BBC3's book when it comes to drama and doing a pilot season. Although they may not have the money for that.


I can see their logic on scheduling Homeland here. I'm not convinced its going to have much crossover audience with Upstaris Downstairs or Dancing on Ice but at the same time Sunday night is a very crowded market right now and their 10PM line-up across the week is rather empty and struggling. I wonder if they're just reluctant to put a big US drama during the week at 10PM when they have so very little scripted British content currently on the channel?

In fact what UK scripted content does Channel 4 have right now in prime time? Shameless is the only thing I can think of but surely there must be more than that...

Maybe my memory is failing me but I seem to remember Pillars of the Earth didn't do too badly? Unexpectedly it pulled through despite the poor slot. And nearly always these shows get a decent sampling for the first episode- even The Killing USA launched well.

I wouldn't have put it on Sundays myself, but tonight it turned out to be a welcome alternative. It's a fiercely competitive night for sure but the big hitters on BBC One skew old and ITV1's dancing has hit the skids so there's got to be room for Homeland.

Good, I think ITV2 could do quite well with edgy young skewing drama. This could become a good channel as they have ditched some of their real rubbish like the Katie Price and Kerry Katona shows and I wish them well with Switch.

Homeland is based on (a very successful) Israeli drama though (on a related note Israel has been turning out some excellent formats recently). The difference being that no one here as seen that. Although in fairness I think Homeland crafts more of an original identity for itself than the US version of The Killing did. If the BBC hadn't aired the original Killing then I suspect the US version would have performed better for Channel 4 but as they did you do have to wonder what motivated Channel 4 to buy especially given the rather lukewarm reaction it got in the US.

Channel 4 could do with a new US drama in the weekdays, Revenge has been mentioned and I reckon it would do decently. As for UK drama, one-off wise, they've produced a few good ones but series wise, they've yet to find something that could replace Shameless, they had Sirens and Fresh Meat last year but neither set the ratings alight.

Looking at upcoming US series, Magic City looks good but Starz has a mixed track record with only Spartacus rating well although they did renew Boss.

Seven
18:00 Seven News: 1.20m
18:30 Sunday Night: 1.08m
19:30 Border Security: 1.02m
20:00 The Force: 1.07m
20:30 Bones: 989k
21:30 Castle: 831k
22:30 Castle (R): 534k

Nine
14:00 One Day Series Cricket: Australia v India: 928k
18:00 Nine News Sunday: 1.40m
18:30 One Day Series Cricket: Australia v India: 1.27m

Ten
18:30 Young Talent Time: 716k
19:30 Modern Family: 1.04m
20:00 New Girl: 953k
20:30 Homeland: 876k
21:30 Terror at Sea: The Sinking of the Concordia: 480k

Shares
Nine: 24.1%
Seven: 22.1%
Ten: 14.9%

Homeland was good, but its never going to attract decent numbers, more likely a "broadsheet" audience figure of around a million.

Another decent, if leftie dominated (4 paid up Labour supporters including the presenter), episode of TSNS. I noticed Chiles had a pop at The One Show - which seemed a bit rich given that everything has turned to shit for him since he defected, including a high profile sacking.

I'm somewhat curious as to how many people who bring up Revenge have seen it and how many people are just going based on the US ratings. To be completely honest I'm not especially surprised that Channel 4 haven't picked it up. I'm a little more surprised that none of the digital channels have shown interest but not entirely blown away either. The whole thing is rather soulless and joyless particularly for a prime time US soap (and that's what it is no matter how much some may want to pretend its not). As things stand I suspect Channel 4 might be waiting to see how Good Christian Bitches/Belles (which I don't think anyone has picked up yet) does on ABC because that seems like the much more obvious Desperate Housewives replacement and the pilot at least is fun.

Personally if I were Channel 4 I think GCB and Awake would be on my to buy list assuming they don't bomb right out of the gate in the US.

Out of interest have they given Shameless US an outing on Channel 4? That might be an interesting experiment. Stick it in the Shameless UK slot when that ends its series and see what happens.

Shameless started well on More4 but then fell to 100,000-200,000. TBH I think More4 was the wrong channel for them to air it, E4 would have been better.

I haven't seen anybody pretend it's not a primetime soap, most people who enjoy it, enjoy it because it is. Soapy, trashy, brilliant nonsense, and I certainly don't find soulless or joyless. I agree with those that think it will do well on Channel 4, but G.C.B (the title has been changed again) could do well as well, depending on how well it's achieved.

Does anyone know what Whitney Houstons funeral got on BBC news, Sky News or E! entertainment?

Going from my rather poor memory here myself but I do think Pillars started out well enough (2m+ IIRC), but dropped quite quickly to around 1.5m.


It has had a C4 outing in the dead of night - around 2am or something stupid. Again a waste of half decent content as I'm sure even at around midnight it would have held it's own.

It's getting a repeat run now on More4 so I assume it'll remain there, though I think I'd have rerun the first series on E4 and moved it there myself.

Isn't Channel 4 showing the sequel, World Without End, Pillars did alright as did Camelot. Think if Channel 4 wanted to do a big budget drama in the future, they should team up with Starz who have been trying to increase their scripted portfolio, teaming up with BBC Worldwide and Electus for upcoming dramas like DaVinci's Demons and Marco Polo. I imagine they'll expand to two hours on Fridays to accomodate more shows.

The More4 scheduling never made a whole lot of sense to me especially given the transformation that More4 has undergone in recent times. More4 depresses me somewhat though because it started off as a channel with so much potential but then just fell apart because Channel 4 had no idea what they were doing with it and couldn't really afford the content for it. Its a shame.


There's a rather hardcore contingent of Revenge fans who are very adamant that its not a soap but a serialised drama. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is myself but they take great offence when the word soap is used to describe it. I've said this a lot already but I honestly don't know what anyone sees in the show. I found the whole thing to just be soulless, lacking in any sense of identity and completely devoid of humour. It's just a complete lacklustre hour of television which completely ruins what it rather brilliant source material and quite an excellent idea. Its just not fun and its not good enough to not be fun.

Amazing: the Daily Express (owned by Richard Desmond who owns C5) today praises the BBC for producing CTM

Shows like CTM rate huge and to some extent damage C5's #1 commercial rival ITV1. Maybe there is a trend where C5 % commercial share rises when ITV1 has tough opposition. That being said Express circulation has sunk recently, featuring shows like CTM could boost circulation on a Monday to middle Englanders who deserted them years ago.

If I was the boss of BBC One I would be ordering a Christmas episode of Call The Midwife as soon as possible. It would completely own Christmas Day's ratings. They would be crazy to not even consider it.

The Express and Sunday Express have been doing quite a lot recently on CTM and in the past week have begun featuring Upstairs Downstairs although continue to devote several pages in their weekend magazines to C5. Surprisingly most of their ''recommended'' programmes during the week are on C5

CTM 9.23m
UD 6.5m

https://twitter.com/jake_kanter/stat...28036263526400

And that is why BBC1 moved Call The Midwife.

Shame about Upstairs Downstairs, the move, while helping CTM, probably dented it. Certain people will be unbearable about that one. I loved it, but then I like the historical aspect of it. CTM should definitely break 11m now, it deserves to.