I think the Apprentice has just become too safe and samey, and thus it's no longer the talking point it once was. Whilst the prize itself has changed, the rest of the show hasn't changed along with it. The biggest indicator of how complacent the franchise has become was last night's You're Fired, which relied very heavily on clips of contestants with comedy music and sound effects, and gratuitous celebrity guests (step forward, Denise Van Outen)

The new format is staying because they've already been advertising for new candidates. Although I agree it just isn't working at all.

Sherlock won't be airing first quarter next year. The new series won't start shooting until January/February next year because of the various commitments of all involved. Let's Dance can be pushed later in the year or just dropped for the year altogether. My guess is we get a Doctor Who/Voice combination on Saturday nights and then a Call the Midwife led Sunday night (maybe with a new drama airing at 9PM). That should give the BBC a strong weekend.

Shooting the pre-live stages of The Voice isn't a huge issue either. The blind auditions can be shot in a day. The battle rounds can be shot over two (one day for the actual battles and another for the rehearsal footage). And they've already put out the call for people who want to audition for series two. If they can't turn that around by January then they may just want to give up.

Having not watched The Apprentice for the last couple of years just a quick question - what is the new format? From the little I've seen of the last two series it looks to be exactly the same as it ever was.

Well this is very true


I'm surprised You're hired even managed 5.2m tbh, those contestants were :yawn:

You start a business with Sugar rather than become his employee.
I don't think that is the problem tbh, the show follows pretty much the same format as before. With just a slight tweak in the last episode.
I think casting and the launch slot were the main problems.

Based on Hodges' "3.5x" comment, I get a share for ITV1 around ~9.5%. Not quite an all-time low.

Some bizarre comments this morning. Maybe I need to put in big red writing, please look at 2002's ratings before saying 2012's ratings are poor here.

If anything, the rating yesterday was absolutely exceptional for a 4 and a half hour marathon. Yes, it was helped but the rain, but those shares are phenomenal. I predicted a 10 million peak before downgrading it to 7 million, so for it to get over 10 million average is fantastic. The peak does not look too much higher than the average suggesting it stayed constantly high throughout, maybe averaging over 11 million for a while? Bad news for the doom-mongers though (not myself). It's pretty obvious that the Royal Wedding has brought a 'new wave' of people to big Royal events, and ratings such as yesterday's show. The Olympics effect may have helped as well.

Can the concert smash the 15.1m (67%) 15-minute peak from 10 years ago. I don't know. I think it's going to be extremely close. I think it may just fall short, but I definitely think mid 13m/14m is possible. Saying that, however the 11.98m peak was recorded when only 19.6 million people were watching TV. Assuming ~25m people are watching tonight with the weather not fantastic, a 15.1 million peak would be a 60.4% share. I have no idea to be honest, could easily be 13 million as it could be 16 million for the peak. I'm sure rzt will unravel the Breaking News banner in this thread at 09:35 tomorrow nevertheless.....

French Open did dire. If anyone wanted to get away from the Royal action and watched the tennis, yesterday afternoon there was Djokovic and Federer on court, so the ratings are abysmal. It probably may have got 1m had the Pagent not been on. Not worth giving up though, next year it may do better with no Euros, Jubilees etc.

The Apprentice did poor. Laughable suggestions though that it's being axed. Look through all reality shows and you see peaks and troughs, I'm a Celebrity (2006/07), Strictly (2009) to give two examples. They won't change anything - there's no need to. Last year's final had 9.83m (35.8%) - I didn't see anyone complaining then. These shows go through peaks and troughs, it happens. It probably was affected by the Jubilee weekend as well. No chance of it being axed though, an absurd suggestion. Although I thought the candidates were final, obviously the casuals disagreed. Just need a better bunch next year - it happens, some years have a good set, some have a bad set. As long as it's pulling in good ratings for BBC and Lord Sugar is happy, then it will continue. After all, not much gets constant 6 million overnights, week in, week out.

ITV held up fine in primetime, Vera did well I thought considering how we've seen Marple and Poirot collapse from 9pm to 11pm in the past.

Incredible numbers for the River Pageant. As per usual, Britons embrace a national event at the last minute, and in huge numbers. I suppose the weather helped the TV viewing. I never expected anything close to 10m for an average - as a peak, perhaps at a stretch, but over 5 hours?! Amazing stuff.

That probably bumps up expectations on tonights concert a little. Now the Jubilee has a bit of momentum, it's looking more likely that it can meet the standards of the Golden Jubilee event 10 years ago.

Poor final for The Apprentice - but then it's been a very poor series, and there's no 'national conversation' about it that would compel non-viewers to tune in for the final. Of course, it's one of the biggest shows on time shift and iPlayer - and it's young audience makes it unlikely to see the boot just yet - but they'll have to give the reasons for the fall a big mull over.


Quite. There's a change in prize, where the winner gets a business investment, rather than a job. And I don't really think it makes any difference whatsoever - for 11 weeks, the show remains the same anyway, then the winner actually receives a far more useful reward. Far more relevant, I think, is the overkill of the format (why-oh-why is Young Apprentice back?) and the fact it couldn't wrest it's way into the papers this year. Essentially, though, it's just an ageing format that has barely changed since it began. It's surely only got a few years left, so they need to find it a nice gentle landing.

Apparently there is a wedding in Coronation Street tonight so that might help ITV's ratings a bit. I think ITV know they are going to take a hammering, it's a question of how big the defeat will be.

9.8% inc. +1 according to Channel 4 Sales. They could only muster 5.3% in the 16-34 demo, beaten easily by Channel 4 and only 1 share point ahead of Channel 5.

Of course it won't be axed, and yes there are peaks and troughs with shows like this, but I don't recall either Strictly or I'm A Celebrity posting 32% declines year-on-year (nor did X Factor or Dancing on Ice for their most recent series). If they get it right next year then yes it should improve, but hitting nearly 10m for the final again could be a bit of a stretch. It just kind of feels like after 8 years the show is getting a bit tired and running Young Apprentice alongside it every year is the biggest problem really.

You make a fair point about not many shows getting those kind of audiences every week etc but I don't recall people making those sorts of comments about DOI for instance earlier in the year. It might settle at those levels next year, it might even improve, but it might decline even further. The point is we don't know yet so for now we can only discuss this year's numbers, which seem to show quite a bit of erosion.

Dancing on Ice, if I remember, dropped throughout before picking back up, of course it was against Call the Midwife.

Whereas The Apprentice has been stable at 6.0m or 6.1m literally every week (apart from one where it was under 6m - but that was weather related). The iPlayer statistics, and timeshift, will be interesting because that's one advantage it has over Dancing on Ice.

DOI dropped for its first couple of weeks before stabilising in the low-mid 7s for the performances and c6m for the Skate Off if I remember. The Apprentice has seen a small drop since the start of the series (episode 4 got a 7m overnight) but yes it has been broadly flat. Good point about iPlayer etc, but it'll need it as the y-o-y decline has been a bit bigger than DOI's I think, and of course remember that they had good timeshift and iPlayer last year too...

Absolutely incredible numbers for the River Pageant. An average of 10.3m is just stunning really! And peak of 12m! Yet the DS article headline is about TA Final. How odd! Speaking of TA. That's a terrible rating for it really in context to previous years. No uplift at all. Corrie did poorly. I thought it would have done better than that, but the Gary Barlow show did better than I expected, by quite a big margin. Corrie is going to be hit badly tonight by the Concert especially the second episode. 5m? Possibly lower.

The French Open figures are rather embarrassing.
Must be a bit of a sore point for ITV, should have kept it to ITV4.

Mind you I'm not sure why they don't put all their sport on digital and go for the alternative audience on ITV1. Seems a better way to profit from it imo.

Yep it's a wedding/disaster/Kidnap/Jubilee special.
With one of the shows longest serving Characters


Last week I didn't think it could come even near but yesterday and the general Jubilee buzz (bigger than 2002 imo) have definately increased my expectations.

Corrie will have been hit by BBC1 overrunning by 10-15 minutes last night, Someone did say the rating picked up half way through.

See what the French Open does next year before writing it off, this year there is so much going on, it's hard for anything like that to get noticed.

It'll be interesting to see how the Euros and Wimbledon do compared to previously with the Jubilee and the Olympics fighting for column inches.

So The Voice managed to beat The Apprentice in the end then, but not the Queen. Fantastic figures for that - I bet ITV are wishing they'd bothered with it now.


Always a shame when any broadcaster does something so well that it's not reflected in the ratings, especially as ITV had two great matches on ITV1 and ITV4 yesterday afternoon. Any ratings for ITV4 - I've seen some comments here asking why ITV4 aren't showing the big matches such as Murray and Djokovic over the weekend, seemingly not aware ITV1 were carrying them.

Also worth noting that ITV1's weekend daytime share is usually dire anyway thanks to their usually dire schedule.


It'll be interesting to see if ITV benefit from the crtiicism the BBC got yesterday - but frankly in ratings terms it's always a one horse race.

Timing aren't great for ITV1 next week as it's unlikey the French Open final will be concluded in time for the football, so moves over to ITV4. Obviously with the Euros they are generally obliged to show the game on ITV1, and there is no chance the biggest group game of the championships would be moved even if they were allowed too, but I suspect if it was any other game (unless it involved England) they'd be looking for permission to put the first half on ITV4 should Murray reach the final.

Indeed quite surprised UEFA put Spain v Italy at 5pm/6pm CET and didn't switch it with ROI v Croatia to give it the prime evening slot.


Really highlights how strong those ratings are - even an England World Cup game a decade ago only just beat it in the ratings. I would expect ITV to close the gap somewhat for Tuesdays events and at least double what the 1.5m they got in 2002.


I guess the Bank Holiday helps, and though completely gut feeling might Vera trend a little younger than Parple an Poirot.

I feel a bit sorry for ITV with the French Open coverage, really. It was an interesting move to take it on and they've really raised the bar with some very extensive coverage. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's really the audience for anything aside from Murray matches (plus the finals) on ITV1. They can persevere with the ITV4 coverage though - keep plugging away year-on-year and see if it'll grow like the Tour de France has done for them.

I think the new format has more of an impact than people think because a) I have a feeling it limits the casting potential as instead of opening it up to all businesspeople it's now just anyone who has a business plan, I can imagine a lot of people don't bother applying as a result (it wasn't as much of an issue last year as the format was changed after applications had opened and it showed in the piss poor business plans) and b) it really throws up a question in the viewers minds about what the point of the tasks are if the winner is ultimately decided on the business plans? It, for me, kind of undermines the entire process.

I am no expert on how programmes timeshift etc, but most people I know who watch The Apprentice, were either going to record it, or like me, watch it on iplayer, (I like others had things to go to last night) so I fully expect the final to rate higher in the officials.

As for everyone decrying the beebs coverage of the river pageant, I watched both BBC news and Sky news coverage, and found the beebs better.

Agree with you.

I wasnt enthused by the premise of the pageant and for me, the lack of sunlight made it cruelly drab and tedious. I dont know what anyone could have done to have made the show more interesting -keeping the cameras trained on the boats and the royals for the entire 5 hours would have been boringly samey. So the Beeb have had a bit unfair criticism imo-especially given all the technical difficulties.
The figures are unbelievable considering everything.
Tennis, it does seem that, beyond the hype of big finals and the Wimbledon tradition there is not much to say for blanket coverage away from minor channels.
I watched all of The Apprentice, the contestants largely in the last few years are all very agreeable decent grounded people who have been taking the show BBC2 type seriously rather than BBC1 talent/reality(and who have learnt to keep their mouths shut when necessary). Thus there arent many standout moments and maybe the winner was telegraphed early on by the way the business plans came across. However Your Fired made pleasant viewing and given they were asking for new candidates at the end of the show, and the recent BAFTA for Young Apprentice, both Lord Sugar and the concept dont appear to be going away soon.

Handy, those overnight demos which C4 Sales post. BBC1 had a 45.9% all-day share among ABC1 Women, 40% for ABC1 Men!

And even with the 16-34s, less interested in Jubimania you would think, BBC1 had a 22.8% share, compared with C4's 8.7% (inc +1), and 5.3% for ITV1 (inc +1), as posted by Dancc above.

I thought it would've done much better than that; but then again there was utterly no point airing the French Open on ITV and that's where the decent demos should've lied. I wonder if ITV regret being brave enough to put it on ITV1 now? I can understand their thinking - come tomorrow they're only going to be thrashed by the BBC's coverage anyway - but it definitely did not pay off. The primetime schedile, while holding up well, obviously skewed old. Everything was about where I expected it to be, Coronation Street maybe a touch higher. The idiocy of not promoting All the Queen's Horses (plus the rather ridiculous name of it instead of mentioning it was a Jubilee pageant) backfired rather spectacularly with a poor rating where they could have got, in my opinion, a decent one.

The Diamond Jubilee's rating is excellent and the peak isn't much higher which suggests it remained stable throughout the show - unless 11m+ watched early on it appears to debunk the theory that people were switching over to Sky News on mass so saying ITV would've benefited if they had showed the pageant is probably incorrect. The Apprentice struggled relatively speaking - if we can call The X Factor 2011 and The Voice 2012's final figures 'poor' then we can certainly do the same thing for The Apprentice. It's taken a hit from the rest of the series being down and while I can understand people blaming the cast, what is the point of the previous weeks if the decision is going to be based purely on the business plan? Saying that, along with Gary barlow's documentary, it rounded off an excellent day for the channel.

Channel 4 struggled in primetime until 9pm where the film seemingly picked up floating viewers. Channel 5 didn't have a bad time of it though Ultimate Police Interceptors was dented by Coronation Street. I'm not sure if The Apprentice had much of an effect as Ninth Gate regained lost viewers at 9pm. BBC Two had a reasonable evening, albeit slightly down on usual figures due to the increased opposition.

To a point I agree with you as their sitcoms were mostly terrible and the examples you give were of good shows that went bad with poor hosts, but a lot of the Lew Grade variety shows were made to a very high standard and specials featuring singers like Tom Jones were as good as anything from America.