The Ratings Thread (Part 33)

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Fudd

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by AlexiR:
“Sports Relief is an inherently flawed concept. At least it is as a big entertainment driven telethon. It just comes across as a poor man's Comic Relief and given how poor Comic Relief has been in recent times that's really saying something.

I can't help but feel that the BBC might do better with this if they were to ditch the telethon and instead recreate the whole thing as 'Sports Relief season'. That would give them the chance to have various Sports Relief challenges and events across the BBC over say a two-week period without having to create these tenuous sports themed specials of shows for a telethon that doesn't really work. Doing that might also give them more scope to incorporate the actual use of sport within Sports Relief. If ITV hadn't already beaten them to the punch for example the big centrepiece for the Sports Relief season could have been something like the Soccer Aid match rather than the telethon.

And I suppose if they really wanted to they could then devote an hour or 90 minutes on a Friday night to recap all the Sports Relief events/challenges that have taken place over the two-week period and push people to donate during that.

On the subject of the Benidorm/Britain's Got Talent sketch. That does just seem like ITV have brought an ad for Benidorm and Britain's Got Talent on BBC1...”

The night before Britain's Got Talent goes up against the BBC's big new hope in the light entertainment department. Nice move...

AlexiR

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Fudd:
“I like the format; I love the American version - but I'm sick of the British version already. Obviously I have my own personal issues with it but I'm getting annoyed with all the sniping. Surely the way The Voice should be getting headlines is by promoting the potential talent; not by taking shots at a show which isn't even on air at the moment?

There hasn't been one show and it's already all about the judges and The X Factor.”

Its almost impossible to promote the talent before hand though unless you do what the Britain's Got Talent team now do and just feed an endless list of 'people to watch out for' stories to the press which inevitably takes away from the dynamic of the show. The Voice, much like Talent, works much better when the audience isn't entirely sure what's coming. If Susan Boyle were on Britain's Got Talent this year she wouldn't make anywhere near the splash she did originally because ITV would have already fed stories about her audition to the press and it wouldn't have been such a big surprising moment for everyone.

The trick for the BBC when it comes to The Voice is getting people to tune in for episode one and then hitting them with the talent. Essentially that's the road map set up by NBC in the US. They threw everything into creating hype for the first episode and getting as many eyes as they could on that knowing that they had the talent in episode one that would set the show apart. The real concern for The Voice UK will be if the talent isn't there to set it apart from The X Factor etc. if that's the case then they've set themselves up for disaster with this promotional blitz.

Having said that it probably wouldn't hurt them to release some audition footage over the next week. Maybe play into the blind audition shtick by releasing some trailers that is just a preview of the vocals from a couple of auditions.

Originally Posted by SamuelW:
“Social media will be important in all of this and I have been looking closely at this over the last few days, The Voice UK are implementing social media very well so far with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.”

That's because the social media stuff is in the 'how to make The Voice' handbook.

Fudd

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by SamuelW:
“Its difficult to promote the talent before the show has actually started because they dont want to give spoilers away like that. So the next best thing to promote before the season starts is the coaches themselves and what they have to say. After the series begins, the talent will be promoted much more and will make the headlines. Social media will be important in all of this and I have been looking closely at this over the last few days, The Voice UK are implementing social media very well so far with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Okay its sometimes not nice that The Voice judges are saying a few negative things about their rivals but all their trying to do is make sure their show is making headlines and more people know about it. Then the talent will drive the show forward when the series begins, I have read the talent on day one of The Voice was better than any X Factor or Got Talent finale ever. So it should hopefully be good. I say, give it a chance, yes its not nice hearing the coaches say bad things about XF but the show itself and its contestants will do the talking from next week onwards.”

I think they should've let the show have a quiet start and let it speak for itself. There's no reason why it needs to hit the road running - The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent didn't (BGT launched at 5.2m; X Factor averaged 6.9m for series one). Instead of taking a fresh approach to reality TV they're falling into the Syco trap of promotion via arrogance. At least The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent have the ratings to back it up...The Voice hasn't - yet.

Score

18-03-2012

DS taking a whole to put the ratings up today.

Looking at what we got earlier - decent enough for the Let's Dance final, but this series has been way off previous years (down -20% on last year). It'll probably return next year but I'm not sure how much longer it'll last.

Fudd

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Score:
“DS taking a whole to put the ratings up today.

Looking at what we got earlier - decent enough for the Let's Dance final, but this series has been way off previous years (down -20% on last year). It'll probably return next year but I'm not sure how much longer it'll last.”

They should link it to Comic Relief and do it every other year only. There's only so many times you can see somebody make an idiot of themselves via dance before it gets old.

Charnham

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Fudd:
“The night before Britain's Got Talent goes up against the BBC's big new hope in the light entertainment department. Nice move... ”

I did question that when I first posted in this thread a week or so back, but yeah cant say the BBC isnt putting self interest ahead of Sainsburys big night.

Personally I think I will pass on this years sport

pause for comic value

relief, and just watch the Mock The Week section when its uploaded to YouTube, The Mentalist will be on Channel 5, so I will enjoy that.

Glenn A

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Charnham:
“The Voice should have set itself above X-Factor, and this kind of media sniping, the X-Factor is all about publicity, where as The Voice is about The Voice, let the quality of the singers do the talking. as the format suggests/”

I agree, Cowell has been badly rattled in the last year with Red or Black being a flop( it is coming back and I reckon it will do a 71 Degrees North and die second time round), the TXFUSA not being such a huge success and our XF shedding viewers.

AlexiR

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Fudd:
“I think they should've let the show have a quiet start and let it speak for itself. There's no reason why it needs to hit the road running...”

Completely disagree there's a increasingly long list of reasons why The Voice needs to hit the ground running. People keep repeating the fact that The X Factor and Talent both launched relatively small but forget that the situation isn't really the same. We're in a different age and The Voice is launching under a completely different set of circumstances. If it doesn't hit the ground running next week the press backlash is potentially huge – the BBC spent £200 billion on this format and ditched F1 and absolutely everything else whilst it was supposed to be cutting budgets and its flopped, what a complete waste of our money.

SamuelW

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by AlexiR:
“The trick for the BBC when it comes to The Voice is getting people to tune in for episode one and then hitting them with the talent. Essentially that's the road map set up by NBC in the US. They threw everything into creating hype for the first episode and getting as many eyes as they could on that knowing that they had the talent in episode one that would set the show apart.”

It's a great trick. Worked for NBC throwing everything at the Voice before it launched, hopefully works for BBC.

Quote:
“The real concern for The Voice UK will be if the talent isn't there to set it apart from The X Factor etc. if that's the case then they've set themselves up for disaster with this promotional blitz.”

Danny O'Donoghue says the talent on day one of The Voice UK was better than any other talent show final. So good signs there. Without seeing either the BGT or Voice launch, I already think Voice will come off very favourably in comparison to BGT. TV has 80 minutes to showcase their talent while BGT has 55 minutes excluding the adverts. The Voice will be all about talent but BGT will be half bad acts and half good acts. So in one episode of TV, there will be about 2 to 3 times more talent shown than BGT, this will be very noticeable for viewers of both shows. And the next day or Monday when people discuss which show was better, well, the show with 2 to 3 times more talent will hopefully be the one most people say.

Quote:
“Having said that it probably wouldn't hurt them to release some audition footage over the next week. Maybe play into the blind audition shtick by releasing some trailers that is just a preview of the vocals from a couple of auditions.”

Already happening, this advert started being shown yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBSOH...e_gdata_player

This blind audition teaser launched today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap2Gy1McWEQ

Fudd

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by AlexiR:
“Completely disagree there's a increasingly long list of reasons why The Voice needs to hit the ground running. People keep repeating the fact that The X Factor and Talent both launched relatively small but forget that the situation isn't really the same. We're in a different age and The Voice is launching under a completely different set of circumstances. If it doesn't hit the ground running next week the press backlash is potentially huge – the BBC spent £200 billion on this format and ditched F1 and absolutely everything else whilst it was supposed to be cutting budgets and its flopped, what a complete waste of our money.”

And if the only way they can promote it is by criticisng another format then it's a waste of money already.

How did they promote The Voice USA - was it launched against constant criticism of American Idol?

Charnham

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Glenn A:
“I agree, Cowell has been badly rattled in the last year with Red or Black being a flop( it is coming back and I reckon it will do a 71 Degrees North and die second time round), the TXFUSA not being such a huge success and our XF shedding viewers.”

lets face it the promo for this years BGT looks like Simon Cowell is riding in on his white plane to save the show, because the last one failed, it even helpfully served to remind viewers of this with the line "we wont let you down", as for the mock The Queen, personally if I was the The Queen (after first stepping down) I would be calling ITV to end my apparent association with the show.

Really does Cowell think that viewers will see him on his personal plan, and want the show to do well for him? does anybody have any sympathy for people who can afford private jets?

That said a promo with him pleading poverty, would not hit the right note either.

Score

18-03-2012

The problem is now that they've got themselves into this 'scheduling clash' with BGT, if BGT beats it on Saturday (which I think it will - it should certainly have a higher overall average and peak) then there may well be a load of 'The Voice trounced' headlines in Monday's press, which isn't a great situation for a new show to be in. They really do need it to hit the ground running.

People say that the BBC have outsmarted ITV in the PR battle so far but I'm not so sure, as by moving BGT to launch on the same night as The Voice and at least appearing to go for a clash (even if they did pretty much pull away in the end) they set up a 'ratings war' that BGT stands more of chance of winning on opening night than TV does, which could get The Voice a load of bad press which won't be a great start for it. Whereas if ITV hadn't brought BGT forwards or even if they'd scheduled it away from it from the start this 'battle' wouldn't have got anywhere near as much attention and a 7-8m launch for TV would have looked much better than it will do now in a ratings war with BGT. Worth remembering that no-one on The Voice has mentioned this battle with BGT (they're just slagging off X Factor) which suggests it may not be what they wanted.

Score

18-03-2012

Ratings finally in: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...een-by-6m.html

Decent nights for both BBC1 and ITV1 there. Interesting that TMO was back above 5m (inc +1) despite a longer clash with LD (and it being the LD final). At least TV Burp is still on 5m so it isn't going out which too much of a whimper. YBF continues to do very well for what it is at 7pm. In It To Win It seems to be doing a bit better than Who Dares Wins was but the later slot dented Casualty a little.

Glenn A

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Charnham:
“lets face it the promo for this years BGT looks like Simon Cowell is riding in on his white plane to save the show, because the last one failed, it even helpfully served to remind viewers of this with the line "we wont let you down", as for the mock The Queen, personally if I was the The Queen (after first stepping down) I would be calling ITV to end my apparent association with the show.

Really does Cowell think that viewers will see him on his personal plan, and want the show to do well for him? does anybody have any sympathy for people who can afford private jets?

That said a promo with him pleading poverty, would not hit the right note either.”

BGT is probably the healthiest of his shows and last year the ratings drop was tiny. I'd be more concerned if TXF continued to shed viewers and its allies in the redtops developed Schadenfreude and started rubbishing it in the same way The Sun delighted in BB's death on Channnel 4 after praising it for years.

AlexiR

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Fudd:
“How did they promote The Voice USA - was it launched against constant criticism of American Idol?”

There was a fair bit of criticism of American Idol (and more than a few elbows thrown in the direction of The X Factor as well). Perhaps there wasn't as much overt criticism as we've seen over here though but I think a lot of that's to do with the tabloid press here really wanting The Voice vs. The X Factor and as a result blowing some fairly mundane comments out of all proportion.

Originally Posted by Score:
“The problem is now that they've got themselves into this 'scheduling clash' with BGT, if BGT beats it on Saturday (which I think it will - it should certainly have a higher overall average and peak) then there may well be a load of 'The Voice trounced' headlines in Monday's press, which isn't a great situation for a new show to be in. They really do need it to hit the ground running...”

I suspect Britain's Got Talent will probably beat The Voice average wise or at least looking at the bigger picture it probably should. In and of itself though I'm not sure that's entirely important. My guess is that what will be more important is where Talent is year-on-year (if its down then I suspect we'll see some areas spinning a 'win' for The Voice) and which show wins the 20 minute head-to-head and I think The Voice probably can edge out a victory there.

If The Voice launches strongly, beats Talent head-to-head and Talent is noticeably down year-on-year then I suspect that Talent actually beat The Voice across the entire episode will be a footnote. That's a lot of if's though.

At this stage I think The Voice has to launch 7+ million (preferably higher) to stand a chance of not being hit by a landslide of 'flop' stories.

AlexiR

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Glenn A:
“BGT is probably the healthiest of his shows and last year the ratings drop was tiny. I'd be more concerned if TXF continued to shed viewers and its allies in the redtops developed Schadenfreude and started rubbishing it in the same way The Sun delighted in BB's death on Channnel 4 after praising it for years.”

This I would imagine is why ITV and SyCo have been fairly proactive in trying to dampen The Voice's debut. If it hits then it dramatically increases the chances of The X Factor taking a beating from the tabloids this year. At this stage as long as there isn't an obvious replacement for The X Factor then I'm not sure the tabloids will take much delight in killing it off (because God knows they need it).

Rooftopcowboy

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by AlexiR:
“Sports Relief is an inherently flawed concept. At least it is as a big entertainment driven telethon. It just comes across as a poor man's Comic Relief and given how poor Comic Relief has been in recent times that's really saying something.

I can't help but feel that the BBC might do better with this if they were to ditch the telethon and instead recreate the whole thing as 'Sports Relief season'. That would give them the chance to have various Sports Relief challenges and events across the BBC over say a two-week period without having to create these tenuous sports themed specials of shows for a telethon that doesn't really work. Doing that might also give them more scope to incorporate the actual use of sport within Sports Relief. If ITV hadn't already beaten them to the punch for example the big centrepiece for the Sports Relief season could have been something like the Soccer Aid match rather than the telethon.

And I suppose if they really wanted to they could then devote an hour or 90 minutes on a Friday night to recap all the Sports Relief events/challenges that have taken place over the two-week period and push people to donate during that.

On the subject of the Benidorm/Britain's Got Talent sketch. That does just seem like ITV have brought an ad for Benidorm and Britain's Got Talent on BBC1...”

Completely agree about Sport Relief, according to the TV guide, the only 'sport' presenter on Friday's show is Gary Lineker with the rest all being comics/entertainers that you'd see on Comic Relief anyway, which makes the whole sport link pointless.

they should be organizing/televising big charity sports events (like Soccer Aid) or getting sports stars to do TV challenges, rather than just giving the same tired entertainers more airtime.

D.M.N.

18-03-2012

Saturday 17th March 2012
BBC One
14:20 - Six Nations Rugby: 4.3m
16:50 - Six Nations Rugby: 5.7m
19:15 - Let's Dance for Sport Relief: 5.70m (25.8%)
* peak: 6.2m
20:50 - Lottery: In It To Win It: 5.64m (25.0%)
21:40 - Casualty: 5.03m (24.1%)
22:50 - Match of the Day: 4.2m peak

ITV1
19:00 - You've Been Framed!: 4.64m (22.2%)
* +1: 255k (1.1%)
19:30 - Harry Hill's TV Burp: 4.70m (22.6%)
* +1: 251k (1.1%)
20:00 - Take Me Out: 4.79m (20.1%)
* +1: 331k (1.5%)
21:15 - The Jonathan Ross Show: 2.81m (12.9%)
* +1: 257k (1.5%)

Channel 5
21:00 - CSI: NY: 1.46m (6.6%)
22:00 - Law & Order: SVU: 1.00m (5.2%)

ITV2
21:15 -Take Me Out: The Gossip: 666k (3.0%)
* +1: 113k (0.6%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One - 25.2%
ITV1 - 17.4% (+1: 1.2%)
Channel 5 - 5.2% (+1: 0.2%)
BBC Two - 5.2%
Channel 4 - 4.1% (+1: 0.8%).

Sources: DS, Sam Hodges, John Williams. Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary.

Salv*

18-03-2012

Nice strong 5m+ rating for TMO after a dip last week.
Jonathan Ross ends on a low figure. I expected around 3.6m including +1.

Score

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by Salv*:
“Nice strong 5m+ rating for TMO after a dip last week.
Jonathan Ross ends on a low figure. I expected around 3.6m including +1.”

He didn't 'end', the last in the series is next week.

grahamzxy

18-03-2012

Quote:
“Tabloid controversy boosted Take Me Out to over 5m, with 4.79m (21%) and 331k (1.5%) on ITV1 +1, overall growing an impressive 560k week-on-week, despite clashing with the last 50 minutes of Let's Dance.”

I mentioned here that the 'scandal' would give the show a much needed boost.

SamuelW

18-03-2012

FA Cup Semi Final ties over the weekend 14th/15th April:

Tottenham or Bolton v Chelsea
Liverpool v Sunderland or Everton

ITV will want Everton to win their replay so they can show Liverpool v Everton on Saturday 14th April at 5.15pm or even Tottenham winning their replay to show the London Derby. They will have to have contingency plans for whatever game they show in case it goes into extra time.

Dancc

18-03-2012

A Liverpool v Chelsea final a possibility then, ITV will be licking their lips no doubt.

As for last night, decent for Channel 5 to finish in third but they could be doing even better on Saturdays if the NCIS episode at 8pm wasn't a rapid repeat from Wednesday. This was a very bad scheduling decision that is hurting their share. CSI: NY coped fine with Casualty though.

D.M.N.

18-03-2012

Can someone explain to me why ITV1 are showing Planet's Funniest Animals?

TV Burp has been dropped and Dancing on Ice brought forward 15 minutes?!

Edit - DigiGuide and Radio Times both have Planet's Funniest Animals in the schedule, surely this wasn't originally scheduled and it slipped through the radar?

Cent

18-03-2012

Originally Posted by D.M.N.:
“Can someone explain to me why ITV1 are showing Planet's Funniest Animals? TV Burp has been dropped and Dancing on Ice brought forward 15 minutes?! ”

Em... no. That is an odd one.

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