I'd imagine though C5 have a major say in determining how long the life of the soaps - especially Neighbours is. Not been paying attention to the Neighbours figures on 11 lately but I think Ten would have axed it last year if it hadn't been for C5 picking up half the tab.

Then we'll have an Emmerdale in crisis run of headlines in the papers. Fact is the so called third soap still does well in the ratings and can raise a smile in the same way the other one starting with E rarely can. Emmerdale also saves ITV1's Tuesdays in a way some of their later offerings never can, though this will change when the ECL goes back to Tuesdays.

Premiered on 5*. SyFy have picked up the second run rights.

Sons of Anarchy used to be second run so that's probably why that never turned up on C5.

Good to see ITV2 get back into homegrown drama after being away from it, they've had a hit in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, a few comedies like Katy Brand and their last drama Trinity was also supernatural based.

I'm still hoping Channel 5 commision their first homegrown drama or comedy for late 2012/early 2013, it's been a few years since their last one.

Today's Daily Mirror reports "GAGGED: Nervous ITV ban any mention of The Voice". ITV bosses have banned any mention of The Voice on their channel.

An ITV insider says "ITV are doing everything they possibly can to make sure The Voice isn;t the huge hit the BBC hopes for."

Apart from scheduling BGT directly against it. In fact they couldn't have scheduled it worse giving The Voice an hour's head start into a 20 minute clash that favours The Voice. Is the ITV scheduler related to David Cameron and Francis Maude?

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle to return, but not for another 2 years...

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2012/0...om_stewart_lee

I doubt that's just a pilot because they're only willing to commit to a pilot, more they're showing the pilot because it's Gervais. If they weren't willing to gamble on comedy they wouldn't have given full series to The Mad Bad Ad Show and Morgana.

Panorama: 4.6m
* 15-minute peak: 5.1m

Source: Kevin Bakhurst.

YES! I had a feeling most were underestimating it on the RPG and it would clear 4m. Shame I didn't have the confidence to go higher.

9pm

Honeymoon Murder - 4.6m
Love Life - 3.2m (3.4m inc +1)
White Heat - 1m
Mary's Bottom Line - 1.5m (1.8m inc +1)
Europa League Football - 1m

Bad night for C4, with the second epiosde of Get Your House In Order dropping to 900,000 (1.1m inc +1) and Death Row at 10pm getting 600,000 (700,000 inc +1).
The Portas series isn't working either.

A very interesting, well-made programme, although I hope Jeremy Vine didn't stay too long in that hotel at £300 per night.

ITV will be showing Tottenham vs Chelsea in the FA Cup Semi Finals on Sunday April 15th. It's kicking off at 6pm, which is completely unreasonable on the fans and Chelsea, who may have a Champions League semi-final the following Wednesday.

ESPN will show the Merseyside derby, which has a 12.30 kick off on the Saturday.

Can anyone explain why Breaking Bad isn't on Sky Atlantic? If Netflix are grabbing the rights it can't have been that expensive or been a particularly competitive situation.

Thursday 29th March Overnights
BBC One
13:45- Doctors: 1.13m (21.1%)
19:30- EastEnders: 7.57m (37.6%)
20:00- Watchdog: 3.87m (17.2%)
21:00- Panorama- The Honeymoon Murder: 4.62m (21%)
peak:5.1m

BBC Two:
20:00- Natural World: 1.4m (6.2%)
21:00- White Heat: 902k (1.4%)
22:00- Sarah Milican's Show- 1.33m (7%)

ITV1
19:00- Emmerdale: 6.23m (33.8%) , +1 120k
20:00- Emmerdale: 7m (32.3%) , +1: 167k
20:30- Coronation Street: 7.84m (33.6%) , +1: 225k
21:00- Love Life: 3.22m (14.6%). +1 193k

Channel 4
18:30- Hollyoaks: 822k (5.2%) +1 112k
20:00- Get Your House In Order: 949k (4.2%). +1 242k
21:00- Mary's Bottom Line: 1.51m (6.9%), +1 244k

Channel 5
13:45- Neighbours: 656k (12.1%)
17:30- Neighbours: 902k (7.1%)
18:00- Home and Away: 662k (4.4%)
20:00- Europa League Football: 937k (4.2%)

BBC One: 22.3%
ITV1: 21% (+1: 0.7%)
BBC Two: 5.3%
Channel 4: 4.6% (+1: 1%)
Channel 5: 3.4% (+1: 0.1%)


Multichannel
ITV2
22:00- Celebrity Juice: 1.56m (8.7%) +1 254k

5*
18:30- Home and Away: 416k (2.5%)

BBC Three
22:00- EastEnders: 920k (4.9%)

E4
19:00- Hollyoaks: 485k (2.6%)
20:00- The Big Bang Theory: 677k (3.1%) +1 261k

Sky One:
21:00- Glee: 313k (1.4%)

DS(1)
DS(2)

Wow lunchtime Neighbours only 6k behind the 6pm episode of H&A!

Not surprising if you have followed my reports on this thread about what has gone on on This Morning over the past week or two.

Indeed, even further back as when Holly was first revealed as joining The Voice Phil said they would 'talk about the other thing' once they could. That was ages ago and they have dodged round it ever since, presumably aware of what ITV thinking was on the matter.

The way Phil and Holly skirted around this, as did Holly and Amanda when a guest last week, calling it 'that other thing you are doing' instead of by its name until this Monday when the words 'The Voice' were finally used for the first time and Holly added she expected to be hit by a thunderbolt now - sort of revealed the rather amusing extreme of this apparent ITV attitude.

And do not forget how ITV made Loose Women put Alesha Dixon on the show after they had announced one of the Voice judges had been booked.

ITV may not be good at some things but they do paranoia very well.

More stupidity from ITV. BBC Breakfast and other BBC programmes (TOS) have given ITV shows plenty of plugs over the years.I doubt millions of people rush to watch The Voice because it's been mentioned on an ITV programme.Why don't ITV just take BGT out of the firing line by moving it to 8.30 and stop this juvenile behaviour.

The Sun today have a big feature on the axing of Total Wipeout and say that the BBC have been blitzed with protests from furious viewers.

They also quote Ally Ross as saying that 'even by the standards of the BBC this is a dumb decision.'

I suppose you could ask why didn't FX continue with it after season one?

And why did 5USA strip season two nightly at midnight?

This Morning and Loose Women often promote BBC shows as well - so maybe here ITV just have gotten a little bothered because they wanted The Voice themselves and one of their 'star presenters' (Holly) left her ITV entertainment talent show (which by coincidence or not then lost a lot of viewers) to move to the BBC to do The Voice.

They obviously want to keep Holly as the one off revival of Surprise, Surprise has been given to her and this is pretty clearly a pilot for a possible series in 2013.

So I guess it must be awkward knowing how to play this Voice v BGT battle as they likely have to back Simon Cowell all the way given how important he is to the channel's fortunes.

Both the BBC and ITV might even just be engaged in a phoney war to keep interest high in both series as the BBC clearly could have had a clear run if they had launched earlier as a spring launch was bound to engineer a clash with BGT.

But they both gain from the publicity surrounding a bitter battle for viewers (however real it actually is) because it gives the media loads of hooks to hang stories on other than how good/bad/indifferent the talent might be on either show.

I would not be surprised to see the 'war' continue as long as the media are happy to run with it.

The semi finals are at Wembley, so it is not too far. Don't forget when it was on BBC One, FA Cup games kicked off beyond 18:00 if I recall on Sundays.

And Sunday to Wednesday is the same as Saturday teatime to Tuesday. So not sure what the issue is.

They mentioned The Voice, by name, on This Morning.... errr, this morning.

So they're not that damn strict.

Apparantly they were discussing The Voice on Lorraine this morning as well!

Obviously I must have misheard as the papers are never wrong!

If ITV were that keen on Holly they should have signed her to an exclusive contract when they had the chance.

Couldn't agree more. I suspect HRH (Simon Cowell) is throwing his toys out of the pram and ITV are just following orders... ITV are no longer commercial, more comical.