Yeah, I think they'll both be satisfied enough too. Though foolishly, I might attempt some analysis...

I suppose you could say that of the move to Sky "displaced" roughly 1.4m (or two-thirds) of last years live viewers. The BBC's highlights coverage snapped up half of them (700k) in addition to last years delayed 2m viewership, while the other 700k went missing altogether. I think the BBC can probably be relatively pleased with that. For non-live races, they can never hope to draw a viewer away if that viewer is able to watch on Sky and willing to get up at the time needed to do it. They just have to target those that aren't. And this time round you might say they catered for 2.7m of the 3.4m that fell into that category. Thats not bad. Though for future afternoon races the time-difference factor (that enhances the size of that "can't/won't" pool) won't play into their hands so well.

The above is obviously full of assumptions and generalisations, but it was interesting in my head....

Regarding SSF1 - do we have a rough figure for how many homes it's actually available in? As you say, it's almost impossible to judge because as far as I know, no other major channel has that peculiar "Sport plus HD" availability that Sky have given it. (Surely, in time, it's just going to be absorbed into the Sport pack? Without ads, it's the only way they can make money once HD is standard...)

As EastEnders was a big episode tonight I assume anything less than being number 1 programme tonight will be seen as poor.

Coronation Street had a big double bill as well.

It doesn't (or shouldn't).

The first batch of live shows alternate between teams so week 1 'Team Jessie' and 'Team Tom' will perform and then week two 'Team Danny' and 'Team will.i.am' perform. That's also how the show can get by without a results show for the opening live shows. The eliminations are folded into the following weeks show. That format also means the live shows don't have to be so long.


As I said before Game of Thrones is production values and not much else. That people are desperately clinging to this notion that Thrones is some kind of modern masterpiece is yet another example of how poor HBO's output has been in recent times and how poor US television in general has been as of late. True Blood had the exact same issue. For the first couple of years everyone was desperately trying to convince themselves it was a great piece of television but however you slice it, it just isn't. And that's fine not everything has to be that.

To deal with some of your other points

Game of Thrones averaged 8.3 million over multiple airings and on demand viewing. That sounds impressive but both True Blood and Boardwalk Empire are averaging more than 10 million by the same metric and the utterly terrible Entourage was pulling similar figures to Thrones (although it was down to 7-8 million for its final season).

I don't care about its first week DVD sales. They aren't particularly illuminating beyond telling us that Game of Thrones fans are a bit obsessive and I already knew that. More important are how the weeks to come do.

A monkey defecating can do well at the Golden Globes if the monkey is (a) famous enough or (b) the studio behind it pay enough. And to be honest I think you're overstating how well it did at the Globes. It didn't sweep the board or anything.


They didn't massively overbid for the stuff from NBC, CBS or Showtime.

The truth is Sky had to go and buy Mad Men because if they hadn't it would have been a glaring omission from the Sky Atlantic line-up (especially with the branding they were originally aiming for) and that's the point. That HBO hasn't produced anything in that league for years now so that even after Sky sign a huge deal for exclusive rights to HBO's content they have to go out and buy another show because it casts such a long shadow nothing HBO is doing can get out from under it. Or even come close.

Sky Sports News is Entertainment Extra and/or Sky Sports 1 & 2.

Don't know how BARB work out the weightings for the different subscription options and how often they're updated.

shouldn't #dodgystuntfight also be trending, fair enough it was an alright episode but Ben not hitting Heather with the photoframe was laughable.

Ah yes but it wasn't the second most popular Twitter trending topic in the UK.

These things ARE relevant you know.

It was the first half decent episode of EastEnders in months so naturally the soaps forum goes mad and proclaims it the best episode of EastEnders ever. Until the next one...

I don't see how.It was the Spur of the moment thing and she hit her head on the way down.
Tomorrow's episode carries on where this one left off and in fact the 'Aftermath' carries on into Next Mondays episode too.

Looking at clips there's some powerfull scenes coming this week

If you noticed with the trailer the BBC was showing it's the 'Aftermath' that they hyped up. Phil's return and what will happen next

Yes to a Big whodunnit

Back to last night...Dancing On Ice is gliding on thin, er, ice towards it's conclusion. 7m is decent but low all thing considered. It's not as though it's up against overly tough competition. Upstairs, Downstairs is also limping and it'll be interesting to see how it does against Titanic next week. Homeland is performing very well at the moment - it could be an interesting battle at 9pm.

And on another issue, how typical TV Burp is back. I'm pleased but I'm surprised ITV didn't hold the news back until the last episode of the series aired.

Though to be fair practically everyone guessed it was her before tonight. They may as well have had a big red arrow pointing at her from Friday's double bill onwards at least.

Was it his mother then? I watched the 7:30pm episode but not the 8:30

Thing is wasn't it only her and Sally at the factory so it had to be one or the other

is that confirmed?

I thought it was earlier. Was it just a rumour which wasn't confirmed?

Yes! Harry has done a U Turn

To be fair the "fact" TV Burp was meant to be ending was never actually confirmed in the first place...

No, obviously or there wouldn't have been all the suspects!

I hope he takes the mick out of himself on Saturday. "Don't you hate shows which are supposedly on the 'final' series and then produce another set?"

It should end. It's become very stail now
I don't even laugh at anything in it anymore because you just know what's going to happen.

I think either Bin it (which is clearly what they are not doing) or give it a revamp

I mean confirmed beyond the tabloid tittle tattle we saw this morning

Although nobody within the show or on ITV ever referred to it as the final series anyway!

Good news, I know on DS there is only ever extreme views and a weak episode translates to 'the worst ever, it should be axed', but in reality a series with a few good moments is better than nothing at all.

Industry bible Broadcast says talks are at an early stage between Harry and ITV.

Sounds like EastEnders!