you've read my submission then? I'd scrap BBC3 & 4, sell off radio 1,2,6 and local radio. then I'd invest in proper material for BBC1 & 2 and I'd be able to do it for under £70 licence fee.

Didn't see anything for it yet but according to someone on Twitter Sky's other new entertinment show the hugely promoted 'Don’t Stop Me Now' flopped with under 200k on Sky1.

Luck, the HBO Dustin Hoffman drama on Sky Atlantic that has just been cancelled after production of season two has started, is breaking records the other way!!

1. 462k

2. 243k

3. 162k

4. less than 45k

At least it was part of a 'job lot' and not an individual purchase.

Interesting to note that in Australia yesterday's F1 season opener performed fantastically well for for free-to-air networks Ten and One, attracting a combined average of 1.399 million, more than watched it live here. It was the most watched Australian Grand Prix in the host country since at least 2005. And the second most watched programme of the day after My Kitchen Rules (1.71m).

http://www.mediaspy.org/report/2012/...hequered-flag/

US imports that few people know anything about is not much of a draw.

Sky used to get this right by letting a terrestrial channel have the FTA rights, Sky would air the latest episodes and BBC/CH4 would be two years behind.

Match of the Day is important to Sky for the same reason.

I disagree.

Sky has more than enough traction and market presence to be able to launch shows (imports or otherwise) without FTA runs and truth be told the FTA runs don't really help them. Arguably they help shows like The Walking Dead where the turnaround between the pay wall run and FTA run is a matter of months rather than years but 4 year old Simpsons repeats aren't drawing people to the first run episodes on Sky and a 2-3 year old NCIS: LA repeat on Five wouldn't be drawing people to new episodes on Sky either I don't think. And even if it does that's a 2-3 year span where no one's actually watching anyway.

And I'm not convinced Match of the Day helps Sky at all. In fact I'd make the exact opposite argument – it hurts them.

The real problem Sky have is that for a couple of years now the quality of the US imports has been incredibly poor. That the shows aren't very good is a problem that everyone on both sides of the Atlantic is having in fact. You can only apply so much polish to a turd. Ultimately the fact that HBO has been firing blanks for a good couple of years now is what's been the undoing of Sky Atlantic. The new content just isn't there to draw people to the channel. It'll be interesting to see what Game Change does when that lands on Atlantic in April because that's the closest thing HBO has produced to a big exciting project in years. Plus they've got VEEP and Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom on the horizon which should start to spark a bit more interest as well.

My main point though is that its the quality of the shows rather than them being stuck behind a pay wall that's the problem.

Grauniad on F1 ratings etc http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...ian-grand-prix

I wouldn't call Game of Thrones poor, and it did very well for Sky Atlantic.

Underperformance may be the right word for UD but you cant say BBC1 is near collapse when its 250,000 away from 5m. BBC1 is near collapse when its struggling hit 3m let alone near 5m.

UD is facing strong competition, there arent many shows that can get near 5m itself when ITV1 is averaging 5.5m and BBC2 and C4 are having strong numbers too. There's no doubt that most people expected UD to be getting higher numbers but those numbers aren'tdreadful and could easily get a recommision.


Same could be said for ITV's pale imitation of SCD............ on ice.


We always get a period of poor ratings around March. Most of the big shows that launched in January have finished by now and we get a quiet period until for a few weeks until the next batch of biggish shows get put out.


I think that sounds exactly like Fudd's proposal too.

They need to kill off 'upstairs', making sure Claire Foy is 'downstairs' at the time and then move some new characters in 'upstairs' who are actually likeable.

Sorry, I just cant help with some of your posts.



(I would vote for you as DG, would be just fascinating to watch)

In its first 3 days of actual broadcast from Fri 9th to Sun 11th March (comprising the opening F1 Show + Legends + Season reviews etc but no live action) SSF1 had a higher weekly reach and a higher overall viewing share than Sky Sports 4 had for the whole week.

SSF1 had average weekly viewing of 2 minutes out of 28 minutes in total for the 5 premium Sky Sports channels. That's approx 7% of the total Sky Sports audience for a channel costing approx 4% of the total Sky Sports budget (costs obviously for the whole year) in a week when it only broadcast for 3 days with no live action at all.

I would. Its production values and not much else.

However regardless of subjective views on Game of Thrones quality its a long way from HBO at its best and commercially its nowhere near as successful as HBO (and others) suggest or expected. And even if it were an example of HBO at its best its one show in a sea of (at best) mediocrity. For every middling Game of Thrones or Broadwalk Empire there's a Luck or Enlightened. It has become increasingly obvious that HBO need to go back to the drawing board with their development process because the current system is not working and hasn't been for a couple of years.

Of course the irony of all this is that the one commercially viable show HBO has (True Blood) is the one show Sky don't have the rights to. And by the time they actually get their hands on it I suspect it will have died.

I think the most telling thing about HBO's predicament is that despite making a huge deal for exclusive rights to their content Sky still felt the need to go out and spend vast sums of money on buying Mad Man.

Now compare and contrast the promotional budget for Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports 4.

Its a new much hyped channel. Its going to take a while before we can get a proper handle on it and its non-race content although its obviously a strong start.

Sure. We'll obviously have to see how things go but based on what we've heard so far I think indications suggest it's highly likely that it will attract substantially more than 4% of the total Sky Sports audience across the year.

Of course ratings do not equal revenue - Sky is overwhelming interested in subscriptions. But if any sport "outrates its cost share" then it's at least a strong indicator that it is holding its own across the portfolio.

My F1 'analysis', for those that TLDR, skip to the bottom.

Right, time to attempt a potentially invalid comparison, let's see how far we get!

Australian Grand Prix - Ratings Roundup
2008
Qualifying - 2.08 million (0.38m + 1.70m)
Race - 4.56 million (0.81m + 3.75m)

2009
Qualifying - 3.33 million (0.80m + 2.53m)
Race - 4.98 million (2.13m + 2.85m)

2010
Qualifying - 2.74 million (0.81m + 1.93m)
Race - 4.51 million (1.95m + 2.56m)

2011
Qualifying - 3.04 million (1.08m + 1.96m)
Race - 4.15m (2.13m + 2.02m)

2012
Qualifying
Sky Live - ???
BBC Highlights - 1.48m (13.4%) inc HD
* peak: 1.71m at 13:45
- combined lowest Australian Grand Prix Qualifying highlights figure since 2004
Total = ??? million

Race
Sky Live - 617k [weighted average based on the below between 05:00 to 08:00, comparable with above figures as 60 minutes pre-show; 30 minutes post-show]
* entire programme average - 526k (16.68%)
* 04:30 to 06:00 - 267k (25.39%)
* 06:00 to 07:40 - 874k (30.91%)
* 07:40 to 09:00 - 384k
* one of the above percentages is wrong, but not sure which - there's no way the average can be 16.68%
* peak: 1.02m (22.15%) at 07:35

BBC Highlights - 2.73m (22.9%)
* peak: 3.28m (26.15%) at 15:20
Total = 3.35 million
* combined peak: 4.30m
- lowest Australian Grand Prix figure since 2004 and possibly the second lowest since 1995

Note: Sky Sports F1 figures for Qualifying have not been reported.

Sky and Jake can spin it all they want, but in reality, the figures are abysmal.

US Ratings Sunday March 18

Powered by an NCAA overrun CBS claim a narrow Sunday night victory but it won't last their schedule will see considerable adjustments in the final figures. As such take any and all CBS numbers below with a large grain of salt for now. 60 Minutes and The Good Wife for example will almost certainly be adjusted down.

Elsewhere Once Upon A Time was up a tenth vs. last weeks over nights (although it was adjusted up a tenth in finals last week). Desperate Housewives was down a tenth and after some surprise uplift last week GCB fell three tenths at 10PM. Its down but not quite out. Fox had a good night relatively speaking. The Cleveland Show dropped a tenth but The Simpsons and Bob's Burgers were both up a tenth and Family Guy and American Dad were steady vs. last week.

Predictably NBC had a bad night although not so bad that they were beaten by Univsion. Harry's Law continued on the road to cancellation with another series low tying 1.1 whilst Celebrity Apprentice dropped two tenths for a two-hour average of 1.8. That marks a season and series low for the celebrity version of the show which got absolutely hammered in the 9PM hour in particular.

ABC
7PM: America's Funniest Home Videos – 1.3 [6.12]
8PM: Once Upon A Time – 2.9 [8.57]
9PM: Desperate Housewives – 2.5 [8.99]
10PM: GCB – 2.0 [6.28]

CBS
Subject to considerable change because of NCAA overrun
7PM: 60 Minutes – 2.5 [10.00]
8PM: The Amazing Race – 2.6 [10.58]
9PM: The Good Wife – 2.2 [9.20]
10PM: CSI: Miami – 1.8 [9.09]

Fox
7PM: The Simpsons [r] – 1.0 [2.53]
7:30PM: The Cleveland Show – 1.5 [3.27]
8PM: The Simpsons – 2.4 [5.24]
8:30PM: Bob's Burgers – 2.1 [4.39]
9PM: Family Guy – 2.8 [5.67]
9:30PM: American Dad – 2.2 [4.61]

NBC
7PM: Dateline – 1.1 [6.18]
8PM: Harry's Law – 1.1 [7.92]
9PM: Celebrity Apprentice – 1.6 [5.21]
10PM: Celebrity Apprentice – 2.0 [6.37]

...........and yet a most positive outcome for the British competitors in the race. Presumably then the SKY involvement thus far is putting people off?

Most Watched Shows of 2012 [Top 20 - Officials]
01 - 12.20m - CORONATION STREET (23/01/12) - ITV1/HD
02 - 11.41m - CALL THE MIDWIFE (19/02/12) - BBC1/HD
03 - 10.98m - EASTENDERS (02/01/12) - BBC1/HD
04 - 10.66m - SHERLOCK (01/01/12) - BBC1/HD
05 - 9.29m - DANCING ON ICE (08/01/12) - ITV1/HD

06 - 9.11m - EMMERDALE (05/01/12) - ITV1/HD
07 - 8.31m - MRS BROWN'S BOYS (04/02/12) - BBC1/HD
08 - 8.00m - WILD AT HEART (08/01/12) - ITV1/HD
09 - 7.97m - ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS (01/01/12) - BBC1/HD
10 - 7.87m - UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (19/02/12) - BBC1/HD

11 - 7.86m - ENDEAVOUR (02/01/12) - ITV1/HD
12 - 7.59m - COUNTRYFILE (05/02/12) - BBC1/HD
13 - 7.32m - ABOVE SUSPICION (09/01/12) - ITV1/HD
14 - 7.23m - BENIDORM (24/02/12) - ITV1/HD
15 - 7.12m - THE DIAMOND QUEEN (06/02/12) - BBC1/HD

16 - 7.01m - ANTIQUES ROADSHOW (19/01/12) - BBC1/HD
17 - 7.01m - BIRDSONG (22/01/12) - BBC1/HD
18 - 6.99m - CASUALTY (07/01/12) - BBC1/HD
19 - 6.91m - MIDSOMER MURDERS (01/02/11) - ITV1/HD
20 - 6.93m - WHITECHAPEL (30/01/12) - ITV1/HD

Most Watched Multichannel Shows of 2011 [Top 20 - Officials]
01 - 2.85m - LIVE FORD SUPER SUNDAY (05/02/12) - Sky Sports 1
02 - 2.74m - CELEBRITY JUICE (09/02/12) - ITV2
03 - 2.16m - TREASURE ISLAND (01/01/12) - Sky1
04 - 1.96m - LIVE FORD FOOTBALL SPECIAL (11/02/12) - Sky Sports 1
05 - 1.68m - LIVE CARLING CUP FOOTBALL (25/01/12) - Sky Sports 1

06 - 1.68m - MAD DOGS (19/01/12) - Sky1
07 - 1.67m - LIVE FORD MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL (06/02/12) - Sky Sorts 1
08 - 1.53m - THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX (29/02/12) - ITV2
09 - 1.47m - FOYLE'S WAR (21/01/12) - ITV3
10 - 1.42m - STELLA (06/01/12) - Sky1

11 - 1.42m - SUN, SEX AND SUSPICIOUS PARENTS (22/02/12) - BBC3
12 - 1.42m - EASTENDERS (16/02/12) - BBC3
13 - 1.34m - DOC MARTIN (21/01/12) - ITV3
14 - 1.30m - HAWAII FIVE-0 (22/01/12) - Sky1
15 - 1.27m - JUNIOR DOCTORS: YOUR LIFE IN THEIR HANDS (07/02/12) - BBC3

16 - 1.26m - GOT TO DANCE (29/01/12) - Sky1
17 - 1.25m - THE BIG BANG THEORY (05/01/12) - E4
18 - 1.24m - DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (11/03/12) - E4
19 - 1.23m - BEING HUMAN (05/02/12) - BBC3/HD
20 - 1.21m - SPARTACUS VENGEANCE (31/01/12) - Sky1

Source: BARB. Excludes +1, Includes HD for Terrestrial Chart. Only 1 programme per 'show', i.e. only one Ford Super Sunday game.

Note: Spartacus Vengeance was at 1.24m, however it is now labelled as 1.21m, so presumably it has been amended slightly in the six week cycle...

It seems that way although we may get a better indication when the BBC isn't just airing highlights.

I suppose there's also an argument to be made that the repeats of the race etc. on Sky Sports F1 might account for some of the drop. I don't need to record or watch an early morning race if Sky are going to repeat it in full later in the day when I would have been watching the recording anyway kind of thinking.

No doubt they could be spun in numerous ways.

All I would say is this:

If a programme is shown once on a minority channel (SSF1) and once on BBC1 (the number 1 channel in the UK) then surely it is blindingly obvious that it will get a much lower total audience than if it is shown twice on BBC1.

How could anyone expect anything else?

The questions are:

1) Is the Sky audience a good audience for Sky? (Given the number of homes which have it etc)

2) Is the BBC highlights audience a good audience for what it is?

Neither of the above questions can be answered by just adding together the two figures and saying they are the lowest for umpteen years.

My own view is that Sky and BBC WILL both be very pleased with their figures. But any interpretation may be accused of spin so I'll leave it at that for now(!)

So first a tabloid reported that TV Burp was ending, this was never confirmed by Harry, Avalon or ITV.

Then a tabloid said he was moving to Channel 4, which was also not confirmed by anyone and I expect was made up (the tabloids love a good channel defection story)

Now a tabloid says TV Burp isn't finishing at all, and so far hasn't been confirmed either!

I wonder which is actually correct.

There's only one way to find out.....

Presumably, losing the remaining horse racing rights will save the BBC a decent sum of money, because as well as the rights themselves, there's the high cost of covering the meetings, too. Covering the spring meeting at Aintree is a monumental effort.

This is a big gamble for horse racing's administrators, though, because history shows that, football aside, the BBC rarely returns to lost rights, so I rather suspect they might be stuck with however much money C4 puts on the table next time around, which might not be very much if C4 fail to turn a profit, the way they did with cricket.

Cheltenham in March, aside, it seems all C4's horse racing rights are free at the moment, and, for all I know, the broadcast costs might be subsidised, too.

Fear not - ITV already have plans to take it on, import some celebs and 'modernise' it as 'Snogs of Praise'.

Not sure if Aled Jones would stay on board.