Yes we could be back to frosts at night even in parts so a big changearound likely. I think tomorrow is the last hot day for many of us so ratings should start to return to typical values.

Sad for Engelbert, but the BBC can say this year's Eurovision did well. I'm not surprised about the football rating fairly low, I had to endure half an hour of this in the pub and it was like watching paint dry.

I think The Voice did ok last night all things considered - I know I have ocassionally been critical of it. Its still fatally brown bread though. Elsewhere the football was just about respectable and the Eurovision would do better if they just started it at 10pm

Incidentally, as I predicted last week, Heat are all over this series, even putting "As seen on The Exclusives" on the cover, running features and giving it five stars, and clearly the whole idea of this series was so it could get a load of press coverage. But if the ratings stay as bad as this, that's just going to make the magazines look stupid.


Yeah, LWT decided not to renew his contract in 1988, the same as they did with Cannon and Ball, because they went off the idea of mainstream comedy completely, seemingly it wasn't cost-effective enough. Cannon and Ball did continue on ITV, mind, they signed for Yorkshire and I remember reading one of their autobiographies saying they were also offered a deal by the Beeb but went with YTV for they money, and in hindsight they should have joined the Beeb, but I have no idea why the Beeb would have wanted them when they already had Little and Large and they were trying to get rid of them anyway,

Tarby's dating show was Old Flames and had a pilot on August Bank Holiday 1991, and in Will Wyatt's book it says it never got a series partly because they thought it might get high ratings but was too ITV at a time when everyone was sniffing around the Beeb and saying it was getting too commercial, presumably the same reason why Caught In The Act never came back despite its massive ratings. Full Swing was bloody awful, though, the most desperate attempt to rehash a winning format imaginable, ta complete carbon copy of Big Break.

The problem with Tarby is that he never reinvented himself like Monkhouse or Brucie, even when he went on the likes of HIGNFY or Room 101 he was still very mainstream and old-school. One of the other shows he did for BBC1 was Life's A Pitch in 2000, a sports comedy show that mixed topical sketches with the likes of Jon Culshaw with a bizarre show-within-a-show "plot", which got as far as a pilot flung out at 11pm on a Sunday (I remember it being billed at 9pm on a Saturday in the Sunday papers but it got rescheduled at the last minute, presumably for being crap). And one of the big problems with it was Tarby, I remember there was a joke about Kenny Dalglish and after it Tarby said "Only joking, Kenny!" because he was his mate.


Those contractually obliged football highlights looked really odd in the schedules but it was quite useful to have that fun-sized 25 minute show as I could watch it after Eurovision and still be in bed by midnight. If Eurovision had finished on time (and it seems odd it overran for the second year running, before that it used to dart off and keep a really tight ship), it could have got a decent audience on +1.


And that seems bizarre to me, I know it's taking two days off the Beeb but I don't see what other value it has for Sky. It'll be like them not showing the Champions League Final. And yet the ECB seem to think if Sky don't get the lot they won't show any cricket.

Yes, The Voice has gone from being must see and having several million more viewers than BGT on the clashes, to being rather throwaway against anything. All things considered, I dont think last nights rating was as bad as it might have been and if it can see some sort of rise next week at least it will be on an up so to speak. Then it must be disassembled and revamped.
Good result for Eurovision, again not everything was in its favour, Engelbert on first and then forgotten by almost everyone in Europe, a runaway winner and weather making yesterday difficult for tv in general.
I dont think any football championships has been as little anticipated as this one. England are a transition team and significantly behind Spain, if they do well it will be like Chelsea did well. There is no talisman figure like Gascoigne or Beckham to add some buzz and the feel around last nights game was just drab. Remains to be seen whether the impact of the real games is a great as before.

Next weekend will be dry but the temperatures will be 14 to 18 degrees.

Always poetic.

Good. I feel quite bad about posting on the Ratings Thread in a state of partial undress.


Yes, I wonder what plans the BBC had for Cannon and Ball. I'm still amazed at Little and Large hitting 12m in 1990, but falling to under 7m in 1991 and getting axed. Yet, some of the 1990 shows were repeated in summer 1991, whereas I hadn't previously seen any Little and Large repeats for years, if ever.

I remember a Ceefax appeal for jokes for Taking the Pitch.

..........apparently it started at midnight in the host country.

I say that, I only remember it from reading it in Waterstones bored about ten years ago. I'm sure I've said this before but I remember reading in Fast Forward that Little and Large had been reprieved because the 1990 series was supposed to have been the last one (I suppose they would have axed it at the same time they axed Blankety Blank and Opportunity Knocks which both also ended in 1990, and which I also remember reading in Fast Forward) but then they changed their mind. But even though I was a stupid kid who watched any old rubbish, I could tell the 1991 series had had a massive budget cut, I remember the set was tiny and it didn't have any opening titles. Same as I could tell Russ Abbot wasn't coming back as he'd been relegated to Fridays.

But as you say, remarkably they repeated the 1990 series on Friday nights in the summer of 1991, back to back with Paul Daniels repeats (including his Christmas show!). People say telly is rubbish these days but you forget how many repeats - and rubbish repeats at that - you used to get every summer, especially on the Beeb, whereas these days we get loads of new stuff all year round.

I'll be fascinated to see how Call The Midwife does repeats-wise, though I fear it may not be very much, as it was only on six months ago and I can't remember the last time a continuing serial got a repeat run, I don't think that really works, I can't imagine many people being tempted to watch it who didn't see it first time, or want to watch it again.

I know nobody else is interested but they did occasionally repeat Little and Large before 1991, I've got a run of Radio Times from 1987 when after their series ended they filled an awkward gap with a few repeated from the previous year.

Indeed. It was well after 3am when the show ended. The atmosphere was quite flat in the arena at the end. Maybe they were all asleep.

Yeah, the 1991 series of Little and Large had a different feel, and the writing seemed weaker than before. I've a feeling it started a few weeks later than normal, too, in lighter evenings, which probably helped finish it off. I'm still haunted by the memory of Syd in a yellow bikini that year. And a memorable joint trail for those Little and Large and Paul Daniels repeats, with Eddie Large dressed as Tina Turner, interspersed with clips of Paul Daniels shouting "wallop" as he hit coconuts with a large mallet.

Ahh, yes, the old days of widespead summer repeats on BBC1, when you could guarantee almost every non-topical programme from the previous autumn would be re-shown.

I can't envisage Call the Midwife repeats rating well, and I'm surprised it's being repeated on BBC One at all. Lark Rise to Candleford didn't get BBC One repeats, and Midwife is something I'd look upon as being along similar lines.

Much longer runs, I expect.

STV and UTV must have been delighted when the network sent them that.

far be it for me to have an opinion on football, but that BBC one looks awesome, all those creatures, coming alive like that. Only problem is that it isnt very representative of what will actually be on TV.

Someone let me know when Euro 2012 becomes about, lions, large birds and dragons kicking the ball around.

As for ITV, that is dreadful, 1 it suggests that England is capable of winning, and even I know better than that, and 2 its like the person who made it was giving ITV Sport a blow job.

Little and Large were one of the more enduring BBC comedy acts, appearing on Mike Yarwood in 1977 and then getting their own series the following year which ran for 13 years. The problem with their material was it was quite basic, I found them hilarious when I was 10 but by the time I was 18 I couldn't stand them.

Weren't they an ITV act before defecting to the BBC? I'm sure they did some shows for Thames.

Never saw the appeal myself.

I suspect a lot of broadcasters will be piling on a lot of pressure to fix the live shows. You have to remember that this is a show that's pulled huge numbers in its early stages so they're not going to want to just let that sail off into the sunset without trying to fix it. As I've said before though I think the live shows are by far and away the easiest thing on these kind of shows to fix. There's an audition and pre-live format that audiences like and have responded to and that's more than half of the battle won I think.


I really like the idea of the ITV one but not so much the execution.

As has become typical I have no idea what's going on with the BBC ad. Having said that I cannot wait to see the Olympics ad. God knows what random animated nonsense they'll pull out of their hats for that one.

Little And Large found fame on Opportunity Knocks and were championed at Thames by Op Knocks producer Royston Mayoh.

Little And Large moved to the BBC around the time that Morecambe And Wise moved to Thames but L&L's first BBC1 show was screened on 27th December 1977, two days after M&W's last ever BBC1 show so the two events are probably unrelated.

Unless Thames poached M&W to get revenge for BBC1 poaching L&L.

You don't understand sport do you, of course the coverage is based around them winning. I don't think I've ever tuned into a sports fixture where the presenter hasn't thought the team or player was going to win.

I can imagine Sue Barker asking John McEnroe at Day 1 at Wimbledon "So John is this Andy's year", "Well Sue, I doubt it"

The ITV advert has been really well received by the way, it's quite tongue in cheek. I like all the retro logos.

I can only really remember them on the BBC. At the time the BBC had lost Morecambe and Wise and were looking for replacements. Lenny Bennett and Gerry Stevens were touted as the new Morecambe and Wise, but never quite made it and they went their seperate ways. Little and Large were more successful for the Corporation and they had 13 years out of them, their shows attracting 12 million viewers in the early 80s.

Danny Cohen says he isn't interested in competing with BGT or making comparisons with Cowell shows.

He should have a word with the BBC press office then as that was pretty much what all the pre & first few weeks publicity was all about!

The F1 was a great race, mostly for the track and skill of the drivers rather than any change of lead.
Not sure how the ratings will hold up in this weather, but should be 2.5m+ on BBC1.

TV Results will have a strong lead in (wrong demo of course) BATA tonight ought rate well, though Soccer Aid will provide equal competition, of course ITV1 require 2 hrs of build up, which ought benefit TV Results (hypothetically of course.)

A singing contest with a judging panel, now where have we seen that before.

what gave me away?

it looks like a massive ego stroking attempt by ITV, nothing more nothing less.

As for England chances, well im too much of a realist for an advert to tell me other wise, the advert also reminded me of the time ITV didnt show the winning goal, I guess on a deeper level the advert seeks to ignore that both the England team and ITV sport are no where near as good as they used to be.

England wining the World Cup in 66, and now arnt likely to win, and ITVs long track record of (apparently) excellent football coverage, but more recently better known for missing goals.

Maybe ive been thinking about this to much.

I dont get why we all pretend that the unlikely will happen, as ive mentioned before the best sporting moment for me was the Red Soxs coming back from being 0-3 in the championship series against the Yankees, and everybody pretty much writing them off, then the miracle happened. IT would have been less of a special moment if the pundits had been saying "yeah the Red Sox are 0-3 down on the series, but I still fully expected the Red Sox to win this. series, when anyone could tell you it is the most unlikely thing that could happen.

Meanwhile when it comes to British talent, why do we kid ourselves? you just have to look at Eurovision to see the hype did not match the song.

Is a BATA a BAFTA with the F words taken out?

The 2 hour build up is for charity isn't it?