I guess the Titanic ratings show that poring money into something can't polish a turd. Maybe they should have put effort into the script and people wouldn't be turning off.

ITV certainly made a mistake showing Titanic across three weeks. Episode 2 was a slight improvement on the plodding episode 1 but the format of repeating the same story from a different perspective each week with overlapping and repeated scenes is a sure way to lose viewers if they have a week to decide whether to bother watching again.

Stripped it would have still lost viewers but I suspect not as many and likely maintained a healthy 5 million average.

Ryder Cup stays on Sky exclusively until 2018,

http://www1.skysports.com/golf/news/...re-golf-on-Sky

BBC have retained exclusive radio rights through to 2018 as well.

The latter a wrecking tactic for The Diamond Jubilee Concert, although I suppose they would have 2 eps on the Monday anyway. Wonder if they will run them into one, given that EE won't air at 8pm?

I wonder if Sue Johnston's involvement is another Royle Family wrecking tactic after ITV's tremendous success there last Christmas?

hahaha. All the usual cliches have been trotted out here already. Scheduling wrong, blaming Fellowes, script not right, would it be better if the boat didnt sink, etc.

I'd reserve judgement to see where it finishes up when all episodes and time shifts are in, but there may be a bit of Titanic overload with loads of cheapo documentaries and news reports on the same theme at the moment also.

However given that Fellowes has delivered in the past and will do again, you wouldnt hold this against him. If you go around blaming your team, pretty soon no one will want to work with you. Thats the reality of life the keyboard warriors dont appreciate.

...and BBC have lost two tournaments, the PGA and the Scottish Open.

That now leaves them with just The Open, The British Women's and two days of The Masters.

Titanic is a stinker and getting the ratings it deserves. You can whine all you like but the fact is its not a good show and the drop in ratings is fully deserved. The line about reserving judgement to see the figures after timeshifts made me chuckle, oh the irony!

If it were on BBC you would be doing exactly the same as Robbie, you cant have your cake and eat it.

Wasn't ITV originally going to schedule as an "event" across the four nights from Thursday, April 12 (the 100th anniversary of the day the voyage began) to Sunday, April 15 (the 100th anniversary of the day the ship sank)? Was any reason given for the change to four Sundays from March 25 to April 15?

Here in the US, ABC is airing Parts 1-3 from 8-11pm on Saturday, April 14, followed by Part 4 from 9-10pm on Sunday, April 15.

BBC will still have highlights of the PGA and Scottish Open.

This basically takes the BBC down from 10 days live men's golf per year to 6 days per year. (Plus the 4 days of the women's open is unchanged).

European tour announcement:

http://www.europeantour.com/european...nts+uk+ireland

Note the Barbara Slater comment at the bottom of the link:

"Barbara Slater, Director of Sport for the BBC, commented: "Golf is an integral part of the BBC's sports' rights portfolio and with this new deal we're very pleased to have retained extended highlights and live radio rights to The Ryder Cup until 2018.

“This has proved to be an extremely popular format with viewers and listeners. We look forward to continuing our relationship with The European Tour and bringing a wide range of tournaments to our audience, including The Open Championship and the Masters.”"

I wonder if the next move is going to be BBC highlights only for the US Masters when the current deal ends? (2013 I think though never formally announced).

Sunday 2nd April 2012
BBC One
19:00 - Countryfile: 6.45m (29.7%)
20:00 - Antiques Roadshow: 6.82m (28.0%)
21:00 - Silent Witness: 6.7m (26.6%)
22:25- Room 101- Extra Storage: 2.12m

BBC Two:
21:00- The Falklands Legacy with Max Hastings: 1m (4%)
22:00- Match of the Day: 2: 2.78m (15.9%)
23:00- Twenty Twelve: 810k (8%)

ITV1
18:10 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: 3.7m (15.7%)
21:00 - Titanic: 4.38m (17.4%)
* +1: 283k (1.6%)

Channel 4
21:00 - Homeland: 1.93m (7.8%)
* +1: 376k (2.3%)

Channel 5
06:00- Milkshake!: 150k (3.8%)
13:00- Cowboy Builders: 342k (4.2%)
14:00- Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo: 392k (4.2%)
15:15- High School Musical 3: 454k (4.0%)
17:30- Mrs. Doubtfire: 1.3m (7%)
* +1 144k (0.6%)
20:00 - Once Upon A Time: 2.01m (8.3%)
* +1 228k
21:00 - Rush Hour 2: 1.27m (5.6%)
22:40- In Hell: 566k (6.7%) inc+1

BBC One: 26%
ITV1: 14.7% (+1: 1.6%)
Channel 5: 6.4% (+1: 0.7%)
BBC Two: (6.3%)
Channel 4: 5.8% (+1: 0.9%).

ITV2
20:00- Britain's Got More Talent: 766k (3.1%)
21:00- Benidorm: 777k (3.1%)

Source: DS, Screenwatch & Dancc

DS
Screenwatch

As I note above this was mooted and I think it would have worked better for them that way - as people have an incentive to stick around when it is stripped and give it another chance inside 24 hours. 7 days is too long to think - ooh, that was not great, what else is on.

To work as a weekly series over a month episode 1 needed to be much more engaging than it was. Episode 2 was an improvement but by then it will have lost a chunk of the audience for good.

Allowing it to bump up against Silent Witness (a long running BBC success story) was about as clever as not realising that an iceberg was looming,

I think ITV likely saw it was a bit slow and repetitive and just wanted shut of it and also suspected a glut of Titanic programming might have made people fed up by the actual day so tried to start it early.

The BBC had the same idea with Len Goodman's documentary series - and that is actually interesting.

Tiger Woods' win last week pulled in good figures for Sky Sports 3 last Sunday.

197k over a five hour slot is very good and bodes well for this week's Masters, with Tiger the favourite and the other 'hot' British players McIlroy, Donald and Rose who were all winners in March.

McIlroy's win in March averaged 199k, Luke Donald's 97k and Justin Rose's 251k (bigger tournament on the higher reaching SS2).

I suppose so. I was a little disappointed with how it rated myself, I felt it deserved more. And given the amount of promo I think C5 were expecting more of a headline figure than they actually got. Harry Potter probably appealed to similar viewers and dented its average a little bit. I think 2.5m would have been a good result, 2.2m is only okay considering all the promotion. However with catchup viewing and the 5* repeats hopefully even more viewers will discover the show and we'll see a slight rise on Easter Sunday.

OUAT will be fairly happy as it will likely gain as many viewers by word of mouth from the positive feedback as it will lose from the viewers who got confused and switch off.

It cleverly uses its Lost legacy (little clues in there that Losties will love seeking out) without making it obvious and so intruding if you had never seen that show.

It probably needed a feature length opener though to convince all viewers that this is a concept that can last 22 episodes let alone multiple series. But then it would have sunk against Titanic, Silent Witness and Homeland at 9 pm.

But I suspect it will stay around 2 million from now on and that is likely to be considered OK.

^ Pretty much every comment I've read since last night's premiere has been positive, so that's good.

Looking at the breakdown, about 200,000 viewers abandoned it after the first part, but then it was largely stable after that:

'Once Upon a Time' Audience Breakdown
20:00 2,375,800 10.30%
20:05 2,452,200 10.46%
20:10 2,415,300 10.16%
20:15 2,010,300 8.43% commercials
20:20 2,293,300 9.44%
20:25 2,182,500 8.99%
20:30 2,100,100 8.56% commercials
20:35 2,290,800 9.25%
20:40 1,926,200 7.80% commercials
20:45 2,243,800 8.87%
20:50 2,292,700 8.98%

I notice from BARB that C5's reach is down to 48.1%. Does it often drop below 50% of the population tuning in for three minutes in a week?

So what do we expect for next week? 1.8-2.2 million, fairly stable??

And where do you find these breakdowns you speak of??

I've edited my post to include the full 5 minute breakdown.

I think around 2.1-2.2m next week, hopefully higher.

As I noted above I think this will be a show with a loyal 2 million audience from now on. Those who watched like it. Any drop off will be evened out by newcomers persuaded by word of mouth.

The fact that it looks sure to get a series 2 in the US and its pretty even viewing figures there suggest it is that kind of show.

9 million in the US v 2 million for Five in the UK seems about right.

And Five need a long term hit because it seems likely one of the CSIs will go this year.

So looks like a good acquisition unless Sky are looking on with envious eyes....

Thank you... do they include +1?? Either way, very good...

They are very stable, hopefully with another push this week and word of mouth, it can go higher, I know its coped rather well in America...

Will the Walking Dead be back before this ends? As a pair, Channel5 could have very decent Sunday nights...

I was asked for my opinion so I gave it. If you dont like it well never mind. On the internet everyone thinks they have all the answers! Fact is, if you want to work with writers and performers you have got to accept that not every show will be a mega ratings smash. Best way not to keep talent (and Fellowes certainly is a talent) is to go off bad mouthing people. Would you work for a company that turned on you the first time things went wrong?

Yep, all the figures posted by me on here concerning C5 include +1.


The Walking Dead is back next month. But I have a feeling it will move to a different night as they will probably keep the 9pm movies on a Sunday for now, with movie premieres including Angels and Demons coming up. If they schedule TWD on Sundays then that would mean having an awkward hour-long slot to fill between the two shows.

If they decide to run Dallas close to US transmission maybe that will join OUAT on Sundays at 9pm from June/July?

Unusual to see such a low ITV Sunday share. Pretty dire.
Though am sure there were worse last Summer.

They've poorly strategised HP in the long term imo with over showing the others in the series (the likes of Prisoner, great as its a good film and can be watched brilliantly outside the rest of the series - the others arn't good enough or linear enough imo)

Half-Blood Prince wasn't a good book.
No doubt the series will get big big figures for the final 2 films.

Ah forgive me but I thought TWD was a 9pm show... Yes that hour could be awkward, but come the end of the month 9pm Sundays will be quieter, so theoretically they could show something there, that wouldnt fall too badly, and what night should TWD move too, midweek??