your right Billies death episode was really really good, but the rest of your post is right as well.

An episode like tonight's and hopefully a rating in the high 9 million, shows that there is still plenty of life left in EastEnders, for someone who can run it better than Kirkwood has managed. It also confirmed to me that given the EP title I would kill Lola in child birth.

You see it time and again, soaps bounce back from poor ratings, and poor quality, tonight's episode kinda shows why.

On the subject of EastEnders I can't help but wonder what shape the show would be in right now if they hadn't been forced into an early and slightly awkward resolution to the baby swap plot. Presumably the show would look very different today if they'd been able to go ahead with that as a long term plot. Plus if the baby swap controversy hadn't exploded in the way it did I suspect Kirkwood would have had a bit more confidence in his vision for the show as well. And really that is what the past year or so has been missing - confidence from both the cast and crew. Its just apologetically limped along.

You cant just expect viewers to come flooding back with one episode even if its a big episode after a prolonged bad spell, it takes time. You cant just expect viewers to forget about the last two months at the drop of the hat. A 1m increase is a step in the right direction and hopefully they can keep as many of those extra viewers now and continue to build.

Comparisons with Corrie arent going to help anyone, everyone knows Corrie is far ahead at the moment and that isnt going to change for a while at least.

I think this could be the start of the swing in momentum, though, where EastEnders begins to pick up and Coronation Street starts to lose a bit of ground. As someone else said, it's very rare to have Coronation Street and EastEnders at the top of their game at the same time.

We'll see. That seems a little premature. One swallow does not make a summer. EastEnders does very well with big storylines and that has been the case even under Kirkwood - tonight's episode for example was very good indeed - but that's only one aspect of the show. Big stories have been lacking, absolutely, but there are other areas where the show needs improving. Similarly I've not seen anything just yet to suggest Coronation Street is now on a downward slope just because a major story has concluded.

But I agree there is a curious relationship between the two big soaps where neither tend to be at the top of their game at the same time, it's usually one or the other. Not sure why that is.

I think last night could have done very well ratings wise. Everyone was talking about it over twitter and facebook.

But it would also create a much greater chance of a low audience because it would just be stuck in the schedules, whereas with Panorama you at least have a brand. People generally won't watch documentaries on Syria in any case, but at least billing them under the Panorama brand people might tune in out of curiosity. And it gives you the option of being more topical, if you were to do an unbranded documentary on Syria it would need to be billed in the Radio Times or people wouldn't watch it either.

The point of me bringing up Tonight was to say that ITV have tried different formats with current affairs like the multi-topic magazine, and they haven't worked. The current affairs strand is clearly the best way to do it,

https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelRosser

Good start for Touch, should timeshift to around the 1.3m mark. It was a slow burner last night and I'm still not sure how they will get a whole series out of it but it was an interesting watch. Intrigued to see Sky put it in the 8pm slot, like they did with Terra Nova - early days yet but it seems to be a good strategy.

And on the Sky front, Jeremy Darroch is likely to announce details of the new non-satellite Sky service today, opening up Sky content to new devices and platforms.

Edit: Thats is now confirmed, rather surprisingly the service will not be Sky branded, which is a mistake I think. It's called 'Now TV'
http://www.nowtv.com/

Looks like another 1m plus show for Sky1 based on high overnights. Reaction good so should continue.

Terrible night for ITV, even by Tuesday standards.

The Falklands doc (1.8m./2m inc +1) was the lowest rating
terrestrial programme at 9pm.

Sky1 really seem to be having a terrific year don't they? Some great homegrown shows too, it's a channel I used NEVER watch and I probably watch 2 or 3 hours a week now. I still think if they amalgamated Sky 1 and sky Atlantic they would have one seriously good channel.

8.9 for EE nearly 40% share

Royal Television Society Awards last night. A good haul for Channel 4
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...evision-awards

I think Eastenders will be disappointed with that figure given it was a big episode that was hyped quite a bit. It really needs to hitting a comfortable 9 million figure soon.

Poor figure for Channel 4 and deserved given the format.

I am surprised by the Falkland flop doc actually, I thought that could have got an easy 3 million +...

In other news at the unveiling of the new Doctor Who companion today Steven Moffat has apparently confirmed that there's only going to be 6 episodes of Doctor Who this year including the Christmas special. We knew we weren't getting a full series but that's a couple less than most people expected isn't it?

Tuesday 20th March Overnights
BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.35m (20.9%)
19:30- EastEnders: 8.89m (39.9%)
20:00- Holby City: 5.18m (22.6%)
21:00- Crimewatch: 3.48m (14.8%)
22:00- BBC News at Ten: 4.75m (25.1%)

BBC Two
20:00- Hairy Bikers' Bakeation: 2.7m (11.8%) inc HD
21:00- Horizon: The Truth about Fat: 2.28m (9.7%) inc HD
22:00- Never Mind the Buzzcocks: 1.05m (5.6%)

ITV1
17:00- The Chase: 2.63m (inc +1)
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.85m (32.6%) , +1: 151k (0.7%)
19:30- Countrywise Kitchen: 2.2m (10%)
21:00- Return to the Falklands: 1.83m (7.8%) , +1: 161k (0.97%)

Channel 4
18:30- Hollyoaks: 958k (5.0%) , +1: 104k (0.5%)
21:00- Big Fat Gypsy Weddings: 4.23m (18%) , +1: 778k (4.1%)
22:00- Hit The Road Jack: 960k (5.2%) , +1: 206k (2.2%)

Channel 5
13:45- Neighbours: 680k (10.4%)
17:30- Neighbours: 987k (6.4%)
18:00- Home and Away: 749k (4.1%)
21:00- CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 1.97m (8.4%) , +1: 147k (0.87%)

Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary

Multichannel
5*
18:30- Home and Away: 466k (2.4%)

BBC Three
22:00- EastEnders: 851k (4.5%)

Dave (inc +1)
21:00- Suits: 373k

E4
18:30- The Big Bang Theory: 911k (inc +1)
19:00- Hollyoaks: 574k (2.7%) , +1: 90k
22:30- Napoleon Dynamit: 120k (0.8%) , +1: 68k (1%)

Film4 (inc +1)
19:15- Stormbreaker: 291k
21:00- Keeping Mum: 398k

More4 (inc +1)
21:00- The Restoration Man: 334k

Sky 1
20:00- Touch: 757k (3.3%)

Watch (inc +1)
21:00- Alcatraz: 512k

Yesterday (inc +1)
21:00- Pop Go The Sixties: 311k

I disagree and I think people have placed unrealistic expectations on this one storyline. It's not about hitting a comfortable 9 million straight off the bat as that was never going to be case for every episode. It's still up on the same episode last Tuesday which is at least better than a fall. The story does need to continue to be engaging though as ultimately it is word of mouth which is going to encourage people to start watching again.

Alcatraz held up well (576k last week) as it clashed with Touch which finished after 9pm (extra long 48m pilot).

Might dent Mad Men's overnights next Tuesday.

A brand people aren't watching and have no connection to.

If they want to keep the Panorama label then I think they need to focus in on what Panorama should be and make it a much more specific brand. Of course to do this they'd probably also need to introduce other documentary strands in prime time. So perhaps use Panorama as a once or twice a month investigative or undercover reporting documentary and then introduce other strands to cover sport, politics etc.

As I said before it seems to me that most people have no idea what Panorama's actually about week-to-week and that needs to change.


I think looking to ITV to lead the way on current affairs and news output is a fools game. They don't carry the same weight in that genre as the BBC does and as a result I think the BBC have more options open to them. ITV will ultimately always be forced to ape whatever the BBC is doing here.

Also lets not forget that things like Countryfile don't really work on ITV yet do brilliantly for the BBC. That a news magazine show didn't work for ITV several years ago doesn't mean it can't work for the BBC now.

word of mouth lol?? aload of my mates dont watch it anymore because its got worse, and there's quite a few people on here who have stopped watchin because its not the same anymore, useless characters, stupid storylines... it needs a revamp!!

If the show has a good story that catches people's attention and develops a buzz via social media then it's certainly a start. I've already said previously that the show needs a lot of work regardless, which is why I believe people suggesting the show should now automatically be getting 9 million + on the back of their firs major story since the new year is slightly unrealistic.

Which is what's happend....Twitter and Facebook was EastEnders mad last night and there was a lot of praise for it. Last night's EastEnders could have fit into anyone of it's 'Best' eras because it was Dark,Gritty EastEnders.
The cast involved last night was very strong and it was well written. The storyline continues throughout next week too
so i think if it can stay very consistent and keep people talking ratings could go up a little more.

Mondays episode was up on Past Mondays
Tuesdays episode was up in share (and the BBC 3 figure was higher than it has been)

One thing im annoyed with is the trailing from the BBC
it seemed to have stopped and for somereason they are not traling EastEnders this week.

Tonights episode will fall below 8 million because not everyone (in the soap forum) seems to know it's on and i think Chelsea are playing live tonight too and also the BBC are not even promoting the fact it's on tonight at 7:30

I think Tomorrows episode might possibly get the highest episode of the week

Erm, that's how most shows get big ratings, through good publicity and being talked about.

Very good for EastEnders last night, I think we'll call that at the magical 40 percent mark. Not so good for Emmerdale, but the flopzone doesn't help.

That's impressive given Yesterday have now repeated this about twenty thousand times. And also it's demented, half of it is in German!

Speaking of Yesterday what are the repeats of Lovejoy getting.