Exactly - would much rather see a TV channel invest in drama than get a reality TV judge to host a few cheap documentaries.

That said the script was poor, the effects were poor and the format was just wrong in so many ways. I thought the final episode would make sense of why they decided to do it the way they did but it just got even more confusing to begin with and half of it we'd seen before. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised at all if this gets re-edited into a two hour production in chronological order. If ITV had done that to start with they'd have probably had a 7m one-off airing of it last night.


Has there been any news about the away games for the up coming World Cup qualifiers. Sky snapped up pretty much everything for the Euros, but not seen any reports at all this time.

It'll be interesting to see how UEFA split the qualifiers once they're centralised. Will they look towards guaranteeing live "first pick" exposure on FTA as they do with the Champions League, and considering the unique make up of our market will they sell packages of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland rights or just sell on a first, second pick basis.


I guess those are the officials. Any for The Voice?


I think 50% is a very high estimate for Sky Sports - I thought it was closer to 10%.

P.S. Considering ITV1's absolutely dire weekend daytime line up at the moment they could do a lot worse than follow ESPNs lead and have FA Cup build up from 9.25am through to kick-off at 5.15pm.

TBH I don't see why any show (outside the soaps) needs more than 26 episodes a year. It clogs up creativity otherwise and the shows themselves become tired quicker. Though the BBC will never severely cut Casualty and Holby City so I thnk your idea is a good one; it would stabilise Wednesday nights while giving Tuesday nights some freedom without the threat of ITV throwing the soaps in the hour to cause problems for new shows.

The world's first 360 degree promo has aired on Channel 5 for The Gadget Show: World Tour (next Monday, 8pm).

How it worked: http://instagr.am/p/JflACdBjpf/

See for yourself here: http://fwd.channel5.com/adv/360-promo

I don't think there's any way we can find the numbers who have Sky Sports sadly but 52.4% of homes have pay television (as of Q1 2011). I would of thought the majority of these homes have Sky Sports?

Digital Terrestrial only - 39.6%
Satellite - pay 36.2%
Cable 13.1%
Satellite - free 8%
Analogue 6.9%
Other pay 2%
Terrestrial - pay 1.1%

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/bin...ts_q1_2011.pdf

Very clever but The Gadget Show doesn't excite me. It feels a bit meh to me.

I know you were disappointed about the presenting changes but all shows must evolve, nothing can stay the same forever and be successful. The old format was losing viewers and it could not continue. Unless you've seen advanced tapes of the World Tour, how do you know the new show is "meh?"

The biggest shows on TV, the talent shows, they replace people all the time and viewers just accept it. The Gadget Show downsizes a bit and a small minority of fans act as though they're responsible for cancelling Christmas or something!

Good to see the promo going down well on Twitter though. I didn't think this stunt would work but it may have had an effect based on the response. It is very clever and maybe something we'll see more of.

Although a big driver for pay TV I wouldn't have thought that 95% of pay TV subscribers have Sky Sports, especially now so many have Sky and cable as part of a wider package including broadband and calls rather than just for the TV, plus others just want extra regular channels or movies. Obviously it's all guess work but I'd be surprised if more than half of pay-TV viewers have Sky Sports.

I'm sorry but what? Based on what evidence? The sports package is a significant increase in the pay tv subscription, in fact often doubling it and your assuming all those that subscribe do it for the sports?

To help with the discussion according to BARB, over an entire month of March, only 26% of the population watched sky sports (any channel) so you've got to question if people are paying for sports why aren't they watching it?

25% seems to be more in line with what I believed. I assume you're not counting Sky Sports News, which is a non-premium channel on Sky?

And in comparison to 2011

W/E April 17 (As it started later)

9.74 ITV1
1.110 ITV1 HD
0.573 ITV1+1


W/E Apr 24

9.145 ITV1
0.897 ITV1 HD
0.575 ITV1+1

Never said all, never assumed anything, and never said it was based on any evidence. I said there's no way of knowing in my first sentence! Don't have a cow man!

My thought process is simply that what is the attraction of Sky? To me it's always been sport, and to the majority of people I know it's sport, and that's why people get it. But maybe that's just me. I know for me there's no other reason I'd subscribe.

If Sky Sports reached 26% in March then just over that would have it in their homes, so the majority of pay customers, just like I said. So you've just proved me right. Bosh!

Sky Sports is far too expensive for me to have- I have Sky+, but don't want to shell out an extra £20 a month to have Sky Sports.

Errr, ok then.....well apart from the fact you said in an earlier post that 50% of people had sky sports which they clearly don't. Errrr. Bosh???

I did include SSN, without it, the monthly reach is 21%......so that is below 50% of pay tv subscribers.....do I hear another 'bosh'?

That's what I was thinking at the time! I was however wrong. My personal idea is probably highly skewed as i know a lot of sports fans. It's nice to have a rough idea now.

I suspect they're probably keeping their options open for any number of possibilities in regards to The Voice for next year. A Fall debut will be one option but I also suspect that they'll want to have the auditions ready to roll as and when they've worked out everyone's schedule. When you've got a judging panel of four musicians who are still making and releasing music and touring you have a lot of balls to juggle when it comes to managing schedules.

In regards to 'fixing' the Battle Rounds I still think the most obvious solution is to do them live. And not only could they do them live but they could try and make them an event by stripping them across the week. Maybe one coach's team each night which would give them an hour of The Voice Monday-Thursday for a week which would be a huge boost for NBC. In fact in theory NBC could do The Voice live from start to finish (including the blind auditions). That would certainly add some excitement.


My feeling is that if America's Got Talent was going to air in the regular season they would have moved it into the Fall for the up coming season. They aren't going to get a better platform to do it than after a relaunch with a new high profile judge. Especially as they''ll have the 'excuse' of Olympics coverage this year to help explain pushing it into the Fall. And actually if I were them I might try and run Talent a little later anyway so that it was airing the first week or two of the regular season to boost the Fall average a little and provide a platform for new shows. I suspect NBC's view though is that Talent is too valuable over the summer to potentially dent it by moving it to the regular season and putting it up against much tougher competition.

In general though I think NBC have enough options going forward not to need The Voice as part of the Fall line-up or America's Got Talent as part of the regular season. I also think it makes much more sense for them to have The Voice lined up ready to boost the network come midseason.


I'd rather see a TV channel invest in any kind of quality output regardless of what form that takes. I don't understand the notion that there's more inherent value in a scripted drama than a cheap documentary (regardless of who fronts it) or reality television.

The actual figure for Sky Sports is between 25% and 30%.

Sky no longer report it exactly but approx 4 to 5 years ago they officially reported just over 5m homes had Sky Sports on the Sky platform.

They have said at results announcements since then that the % taking premium channels has remained broadly unchanged. So allowing for their total subscriber growth since then the number taking Sky Sports on the Sky platform will now be approx 6m.

VM and BT have reported various numbers - together with TUTV there are approx 1m on these other platforms.

So the grand total across all platforms is now around 7m.

Latest BARB figure for TV homes is 26m.

So 7m homes out of 26m homes would be 27%. We don't know exactly but can be confident it is between 25% and 30%.

Bear in mind there would be many people in a Sky Sports home who never watch Sky Sports - eg a couple where only one person is interested in sport.

So 21% of people watching SS is consistent with (approx) 27% of homes having SS.

Figures in my above post are correct based on official announcements from Sky, VM and BT plus direct comments by Darroch at results presentations.

The Voice Australia 2.54m
Australia's Got Talent 1.19m


Beat you by a minute Paltonz

Edit: You beat me, Jake! But indeed.

Wow, The Voice Australia went up, it is huge! It THRASHED Australia's Got Talent by 2 to 1, remember folks AGT was the most watched show in Australia last year! Nine has a mammoth monster hit with The Voice, it can turn around the fortunes of the network.

This just shows what a massive format it is. If I was running a struggling #2 or #3 broadcaster in Eastern Europe or Africa right now, I would pick up the format instantly. Heck, this show could've been the one which wouldve gone someway in turning around Channel4s fortunes over here if theyd bid a lot for it. But no, it was too 'derivative' for them .

I bet New Zealand will start in the next year or the year after. The problem is finding artists who are willing to take on the coaches role, after the fiasco that was NZ Idol. TVNZ currently airs the US version of The Voice. TVNZ is also attempting to reboot NZ's Got Talent this year, after Prime's ill-fated run a few years ago.

It really is the only thing to say. Never in a million years did I think AGT would get such a beating.

The Block debuted with 1.4m, second for the night. That just shows how big The Voice was.

Revenge took a hit too, sinking to 1.1m viewers. As for breakfast shows, Sunrise (415k) beat Today (387k). Though, Today won Sydney and Melbourne. Afterwards, Seven's Morning Show (224k) overtook Nine's Mornings (143k). Nine won Sydney and Seven won Melbourne.

Talpa must be making loads of money from being the creators of The Voice format. Id never heard of them before, they mustve been a small company in Holland, but now they are supplying the biggest television format the world has seen since Idol took off in 2002. In fact, The Voice is making an even bigger impact than what Idol did internationally at such an early stage. It is just incredible how in every country, it is not only starting huge but also on the whole maintaining those ratings. Its also much more popular than X Factor Australia ever has been.