Must confess I'm somewhat puzzled by your response. You seem to have responded by rebutting a whole series of points that I didn't actually make in the first place.

Did I say that "it alone will be responsible for sinking the BBC"? Of course not. Why would anyone think that?

Did I say that nothing else would feature in LF discussions? Of course not. Why would anyone think that?

Did I say that "the whole thing will hinge on one single BBC1 entertainment show and nothing else"? Of course not. Why would anyone think that?

I would have thought it was blindingly obvious (and therefore didn't need to be stated) that a whole host of issues will feature in LF discussions and numerous factors will be taken account of by whoever is the Sectretary of State at the time.

My point is that what has happened with The Voice - ie spending £22 million (+ production costs? - I realise there is uncertainty about that point) on a bought in format to show something extremely similar to what is already being done successfully on a commercial network puts the BBC in a weaker position and will therefore likely result in a worse LF settlement.

The reason being that the BBC is going to be going in saying that after the 6 year LF freeze (+ taking on World Service / S4C) that it has cut to the bone and there is little / no scope for further efficiencies. Anyone hearing that argument is going to be more sceptical because of The Voice. They will think "well if they can decide to spend £22m on The Voice just AFTER the last LF settlement then was that last settlement really as tough as is being claimed?"

I realise there are differing (and passionate!) views regarding the decision to spend £22m on The Voice. But what is undeniable is that many people think that that amount of money should not have been spent on that type of programme.

If you wish to criticise my post, rather than saying it is ridiculous I would have thought it would be easier to argue that it was a statement of the blindingly obvious.

To finish - one specific point needs to be answered. The new BBC Charter starts on 1 January 2017. It's always a long process so I'd expect discusions on the new Charter + LF settlement to start in 2015 - only two years after the 2nd series of The Voice. So I don't think the spending on The Voice will have been completely forgotten about. Although, obviously, other issues will also have arisen in the meantime.

Eurovision got its second best ever figures in Australia in its delayed broadcast on SBS - over 500,00 viewers for the 4 hour broadcast

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/medi...-1226369236647

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...ed-by-itv.html

Very surprised about Above Suspicion as the last series rated well, averaging over 6m on the overnights and over 7m in the officials. I wonder why they've axed it? They aren't cutting the drama budget so it won't be for financial reasons. Maybe they got fed up of only getting one three parter per year and have decided to spend the money elsewhere. What with this and Wild at Heart (which I'm still very surprised about) it seems ITV aren't afraid of axing popular dramas.

Not really surprised about Kidnap & Ransom as the numbers were pretty mediocre last time and the second series was nowhere near as good as the first.

Hopefully they'll spend the money on some non-crime drama instead (I know they've got Mr Selfridge for next year but what else?).

Also, have they announced anything about Whitechapel yet? I haven't seen anything but I hope it comes back and based on both ratings and quality it deserves to. They've managed to get it to 6 episodes too so it's a proper returning hit now that they really should keep around.

Sorry but this simply is not right.

The amount the BBC spends in each area is not set in stone. It is up to the BBC to decide how much to spend in each area.

And in fact during the DQF process the BBC chose to make certain areas priorities (ie protected from cuts) whilst they decided other areas were less important (and should therefore face larger cuts).

And the two areas being discussed here are good examples.

BBC1, and in particular prime-time entertainment, was deemed high priority.

Sport, other than the big listed events, was deemed low priority.

And it is those decisions (*), taken by the BBC, which meant that The Voice could be afforded (from within the protected Entertainment budget) and F1 could not be afforded (within the significantly cut Sports budget)

No need to take my word for it - it was all spelt out very clearly in DQF.

"In considering scope reductions we have sought to shield areas which we deem to be of exceptional public value. These areas will still be asked to look for productivity savings—in other words, opportunities to use new production technology or other improvements to deliver savings without reducing quality or originality—but their underlying budgets will be significantly protected. They include:

• BBC One, where the underlying budget will fall by only 3% over the period"

"Concentrating licence fee spend on the things which the public most expect from us (news; children’s services; original UK drama and comedy; an outstanding contribution to knowledge, learning, music and culture; the events that bring communities and the nation together) while reducing spend on other kinds of output by c30% and reducing distribution costs. This means:

o A 15% reduction in the BBC’s sports right budget (including the decision to share the rights for Formula One with BSkyB, and reductions to some smaller sports events)"

Link - quotes come from (12/57) and (11/57):

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/abouttheb...dproposals.pdf

(*) I'm not personally saying that the decisions taken by the BBC were right or wrong. It's obviously a matter of opinion what the priorities should be. The point is that the BBC had choices, it made choices and those choices led to what has transpired.

I think ITV are in a position now where they can afford to axe their dramas (and not because they can't afford them either) which are perhaps past their best. As long as ITV intend to replace any axed drama with new drama then that has to be a good thing.

I don't rate the other novels in this series and maybe Hinds and Reilly weren't available or were asking for too much so ITV cut losses?


It was awful, Eve was so so stilted.

I'd like ITV to invest in some homegrown comedy drama stuff, the likes of Stella, Cafe and Starlings from Sky sort-of-line.

As for Panaroma...sensationalist guff as usual. Is the point of this show to boost a slow news day for the Beeb?

Sky Sports News did this in a much more controlled sensible way a few weeks back.

I agree. Ironically that is the sort of stuff ITV was showing years ago but there's not really anything like that now on ITV1.

They are still separate budgets though. It was never a question of The Voice taking priority over the F1 for example.

BBC1 (and prime-time entertainment) has been given priority over Sport (except Listed events).

The BBC has said that. The document is crystal clear.

And the above decisions have led to what has happened.

I can't see how any other interpretation can possibly be put on it.

Above Suspicion was really only ever Trial and Retribution with different actors and a different name, so I don't understand why they did it in the first place.

But the BBC decided how much money each budget should be allocated. If the BBC had put more into the sport budget and less in the entertainment budget then they could've held on to all the Formula One races at the expense of purchasing The Voice.

(I'm not saying the BBC were wrong to allocate how they did.)

Seven
18:00 Seven News: 1.37m
18:30 Today Tonight: 1.29m
19:00 Home & Away: 942k
19:30 Border Security: 798k
20:00 The Force: 1.02m
20:30 Revenge: 1.47m
*holding up well against the biggest show on Australian TV right now;
*first UK numbers come tomorrow.
21:30 Body of Proof: 654k

Nine
18:00 Nine News: 1.33m
18:30 A Current Affair: 1.09m
19:00 The Block: 1.33m
19:30 The Voice: 1.98m
21:30 Tricky Business: 692k

Ten
17:00 Ten News at Five: 742k
19:00 MasterChef Australia: 1.04m

ABC1 (subject to some Ratings Thread debate today; should the BBC be more like this?)
19:00 ABC News: 1.03m
19:30 7.30 (Current Affairs): 657k
20:00 Australian Story (Documentary): 674k
20:30 Four Corners (Current Affairs): 677k
21:40 Q&A (Current Affairs): 816k

Nine wins convincingly with 28.9% to Seven's 21.8%.

True. There wasn't anything particularly original or special about it, but I was surprised to see they've axed it as the numbers were always good. They only did 3 episodes per year so it isn't much of a loss though.

I think Brekkie's right, after a very good couple of years in drama ITV are now in the position where they don't have to flog things to death as quite a few new hits have come through, and they've got quite a lot of new dramas pencilled in for the next year or so. I think as they were in such a bad position drama-wise a few years back they had to make lots of quite 'safe' commissions (ie. crime) in order to get themselves on the right track again, and now they're in a much better commission they apcan afford to go for riskier, more daring commissions (Mrs Biggs, 10 episodes of Mr Selfridge etc) which is good to see after the few years they had out in the wilderness.

I hear the Voice is now not only bringing in low ratings but is going to single-handedly drive down the licence fee!

If only the Beeb had given Don't Scare The Hare a second chance instead!

Don't Scare The Hare wouldn't have been a bad commission if it had been for CBBC. Why on earth it was dumped at the beginning of Saturday night primetime is anyone's guess.

I think the issue people have is the perception (not given by yourself, I hasten to add) that some BBC bods sat round in a room and made some direct comparison between specific shows in different genres. Of course, in reality, decisions on entertainment and sports budgets will have been made in a rather more abstract, non-specific form. The decision to (a) renegotiate the F1 deal and (b) commission The Voice, will obviously have been made by two separate teams, working in two different rooms, trying to do the best by their two different departments. I'm not going to criticise Danny Cohen for spending the money that's his to spend, or pretend that he could have saved the F1 by commissioning something else.

I think it just means that for me, I can paradoxically (a) criticise the BBC for the cuts to sport, where savings will more heavily fall on 'scope' rather than 'efficiencies' due to the nature of the spending; and (b) defend, in its pre-determined context, the decision to invest heavily in one entertainment show rather than spread the same budget over three.

In other words, I'm having my cake and eating it.

Of course, the sports team had to work within the remit it was given and the entertainments team had to work with the remit it was given. But both would've made different decisions if the deductions had been decided differently - if the BBC had decided to cut the entertainment budget by x percent instead of sport.

In sure someone must have come up with the name of the show, thought it was amusing and then worked backwards to make a show.

There's still hope for Monkey Tennis, Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank and Arm Wrestling with Chas & Dave.

The voice slightly up on last week but stabilising around the 2m mark, which in all fairness is still pretty amazing. thats the highest number I've seen for Revenge since before Easter, its been below 1.4m since then due to the Voice, but good to see it rebound back (and get even higher figures than Downton).

With regards ABC1, Monday is the only night entirely devoted to current affairs and it seems to do well for them, normally beating Ten in network shares, I guess it provides a good alterntive to the main 3 especially when they put their big hitters on a Monday. The more interesting station is SBS which is even more public service than the ABC, yet has adverts and a lot of foreign programming (I guess its like comparing BBC4 to BBC1). Talking of Ten, I'm guessing the lack of figures means everything else for the night was below 600k. Not entirely sure what was on last night, though to be fair I normally glance over 10 anyway because their output is usually poor.

Of course you are 100% correct.

How there could be any misunderstanding goodness only knows.

It seems such a simple concept that I struggle to believe anyone has really got any trouble grasping it.

But if anyone is in any doubt, the quotes from DQF in my post 2954, Fudd's post 2961 and your post 2966 surely take it to as great a level of clarity as is humanly possible.

EDIT: Now reinforced by Fudd's post 2967!!!!!

BBC1 has to appeal to a wide audience, The Voice was a gamble that paid off for several episodes (and is still outrating certain premium shows - for example F1 or MotD). They try to find a happy medium, something has to go on Saturday primetime - not sport, but light entertainment, ideally live and not £1,000,000 per hour.

I am not actually a fan of The Voice, but millions of other people are, and they have to be catered for, not just men 18-44 (myself included) who desire 24/7 live sports. We are more than likely to have a change of government in 3 years time, the next coalition will no doubt look more favorably on the BBC license fee negotiations - not that I agree it ought ever breach £200, I would be happy to see BBC3 and BBC4 behind a paywall, especially if they are HD broadcast channels.

For Season 2, start The Voice in 7 months time on 5th January 2013, fine tune the show, make live shows shorter and less waffle, replace two of the judges - have an 8pm rigid start time. A show with a premium budget, has to be in a decent timeslot for its entire run.

I think one particular poster is going to like the link below. A lot!

"Channel 5 has moved back into the black after a cost-cutting programme at the broadcaster led it to reverse a £48.4m operating loss in 2010 into a £26.2m profit last year."

Article goes on to say that C5 profit before tax has not been disclosed - ie the above is referring to operating profit. But even so the numbers obviously appear highly encouraging.

Full accounts to go to Companies House later this week.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...formation.html

I watched a bit of Revenge and it's pretty good, It'll do good for E4 but I think it would have been successful had Channel 4 aired it.

Spencer Matthews of 'Made In Chelsea' fame is to take the role of The Batchelor. He's a huge star amongst the UK teenage girl population, so I expect some very good demos for that.

Wouldnt be surprised if some MIC stars made it onto Celebrity Big Brother this year either actually...

Surely Whitechapel is coming back? The last series was brilliant. Has Law and Order UK finished too? I thought it was perfect for the Friday night slot.