Pathetic rating for Titanic but worth mentioning that ITV themselves did not spend £11 million on it. That was the total budget that was split between the 3 sources of funding, meaning that ITV spend just under £3.7 million on the whole series, or just over £900,000 per episode. Obviously that's still very expensive but it's not as disastrous for ITV as some are making out (obviously they won't be happy with the ratings at all but they will have still made a profit on it).

Lacklustre night for ITV as a whole - Des O'Connor didn't do much and All Star Family Fortunes was never going to do well in such a random slot (it's been on Saturdays for the last 7 weeks!) that it was clearly thrown in at the last minute (it's back on Saturday next week!). Elsewhere solid as ever for BBC1 although Silent Witness was down quite a bit week on week. Celebrity Deal or No Deal did alright for C4 - obviously a shadow of its former self but it did better than most of the stuff C4 airs in that slot. OK for Once Upon A Time but it can't afford to fall much further from there (they'll be hoping for it to settle at 1.5m+ I reckon).

Also interesting that BGT's ITV2 repeat beat The Voice's BBC3 repeat despite airing in the afternoon compared with The Voice's 7pm slot. Between that, the ITV1 repeat, +1, timeshift etc it's clear that BGT is still the most popular of the two talent shows.

Indeed, a rare chance to see if the benefit of hindsight armchair schedulers that we have in this thread are actually right.

Channel 4 is off the radar so much I'm not sure if that rating for Celebrity DOND is actually any good or not?

agree 100%

Heres a trivia question: when was the last time a brand-new programme on Itv1 got over 5million viewers without a Coronation St. or X Factor lead in? Discounting live sports or Titanics first episode. Outside of the already established reality shows, Itv1 new shows are incapable of getting 5million without the Coro St. or XFactor lead in.

I'm still quite shocked that ITV abandoned its original plan to air Titanic over four nights from Thursday, April 12 (the day the ship set sail) to Sunday, April 15 (the day the ship sank), as that seemed like a great way to commemorate the sinking. Plus, Part 3 would have aired on Saturday, April 14 after Britain's Got Talent.

That's why I'm glad that ABC here in the US is airing Parts 1-3 on Saturday, April 14, quickly followed by Part 4 the next night.

If they had have done that, what would they have been showing over the last few weeks?

We're stacking them and will watch in a one off two and a half hour or so session.

I've avoided all spoilers.

I bet ITV will still commision Des O'Connor to do a series of shows for midweek filler, hoping that he can hold up at the 3m mark. Titanic is sunk and the remaining episode will be very much surveying the ruins. BBC One had a very steady night but the Easter weekend did hurt every broadcaster to an extent.

Interesting ITV2's afternoon repeat of Britain's Got Talent defeated BBC Three's evening repeat of The Voice. Maybe ITV1 should consider airing the original episodes at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon?

Um...good luck!

Ironic really it's their biggest commission which has flopped as otherwise ITV have had a pretty good run with drama over the last 18 months or so.

I'm still not convinced by this Mr Selfridge series either - I applaud the ambition of launching with a 10-part series rather than the usual six (or less) - but from the info so far there is nothing to suggest it'll be must see TV.

Was it not there last week? it got 200k more than YBF/Tv Burp repeat. Not exactly a big difference.

This is very true, TRB whilst a huge failure probably had quite a smallish budget... Titantic on the other hand...

The budget isn't really an issue - it has been sold in so many countries that they've made their money before it even aired. It's the "opportunity cost" to ITV1 that's the issue - Sunday at 9pm is one of the best slots of the week and something better could have been put in its place.

This! Was about to post this in reply to Score saying 'they still make a profit from it'.
I think the only big loss we've seen ITV make was probably from R/B (a very sore one I recall); but at the same time we have to remember there are day to day runnings of ITV PLC that ITV have to pay for.

Adverts for example do not pay for themselves, neither does the cost of staff who are not included in 'budgets' but very much work on shows.

Generally Titanic won't have been 'loss making' in a Budget VS Direct Profit basis, but certainly its not paid its way as another drama would have in the same slot.

Which WILL mean that ITV are paying for future investments on a lower profit than the previous year.
So Titanic overall is a dud, but ITV were very sensible to get a co-production set up considering the cost and risk. Without it this would be worse than R/B as its only 4 episodes.

We shouldn't concentrate on the 'business' of these things, ITV made losses for years so we all know its not straight forward budget VS profit. But we don't know enough about the internal costs.
[Although from press stories on the Beeb, we know their significant outgoings]


It will mean that ITV look to capitalise more on in-house productions through ITV Studios though. Which I think would work very short term, and not be good for the industry.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17201427

This shows ITV don't care as much about their home overnights and more about those international sales. Titanic will be fine for them, if disappointing (a bigger problem is trust - Sky pay a ****ing fortune for HBO for a reason - quality; Titanic is well...not a good way to make your brand respected compared to lets say Hartswood's Sherlock - thats the bigger problem)

Do we know that the cost was split equally between the three? Or is this speculation? (Don't mean this to sound accusatory Score, genuinely intrigued to know and I haven't been able to find this info)

A few sources have reported the following about how it's been funded:



Sources: Guardian, The Stage, Broadcast

Maybe ITV should read the script first before committing to a project next time.

Predictably terrible for Titanic. In many respects I think its a shame that this has turned out so badly for ITV because if nothing else the ambition of the project should be applauded. Its nice to see any broadcaster take the gamble on a big event piece of drama even if that drama turns out to be a complete dud.


In fairness to The Royal Bodyguard its first episode was likely inflated by airing as part of the Christmas schedule. Had it launched outside of the Christmas period its unlikely to say the least that it would have started that strongly.

BBC Breakfast will launch from its new Media City Salford studios on Tuesday morning.

Lorraine Kelly will return to her show following her riding accident from next week.

Cowell's so desperate to get his shows in the news his loyal ally The Sun led with a headline about Danni Minogue last week, as if anyone is that bothered. Wonder if his shows go into a BB style decline, if The Sun will do to him what it did to BB, ignore it, or let the television critic royally rubbish TXF each week.
While the Cowell talent shows have been a huge success for ITV1, their very success has turned people's stomachs now as viewers are starting to realise they are just disposable, forgettable Saturday night shows whose cancellation would barely raise a comment. I watched a 1970 Benny Hill special on ITV3 yesterday, I very much doubt we'll be watching a BGT repeat in 42 years time.

You are aware that BGT is on average up on last year?


I doubt we'll be watching a repeat of your favourite Big Brother either, or The Voice for that matter but as per usual it's only ITV's reality shows that seem to annoy you.

Fox have renewed Glee, Raising Hope and New Girl over the weekend. Some good news for Sky there. Not sure Channel 4 are going to pick-up the second season of New Girl though. Although they might want to try it as part of the E4 block instead. It was incredibly isolated on C4.

Although, to be fair, we don't watch 42 year old reruns of Opportunity Knocks.

All Simon Cowell stories in the newspapers are bad for the heart - because of the very large pinch of salt they have to be taken with.

I actually don't watch BB any more as it has gone crap and this is even more disposable than any of the Cowell shows. I bet Channel 4 has probably binned all its coverage now.
BGT might be up, but I reckon TXF is starting to tank and don't be surprised if it goes at the end of its contract next year.

I'm not sure why it matters if we'll be watching repeats of any show in 40+ years time. Especially not if huge numbers of people are watching them now.

And to be completely honest I don't think its impossible that some kind of 'Best of Britain's Got Talent' could land on repeat rotation. In theory there's a good variety show there. In fact why has Cowell never pitched something like that to ITV for their Christmas schedule? An old school variety show hosted by Ant & Dec and featuring some of the best talent from BGT over the years?

I'm sure they'll keep it for E4 - and generally speaking new shows are signed on a two year deal anyway.

E4 seems to pretty much be the only home for US comedy at the moment. Am I right in thinking that they've got the "for life" rights to Big Bang Theory so Sky can't come knocking!