i wonder how its doing year on year?

How did the Europa League Final rate, I'm interested as this is the last final Channel 5 are covering and would vindicate if they were right to lose the contract?
Also well done to Lord Sugar, it's clear The Apprentice has picked up a large anti audience to BGT.

The talent versus the talentless perhaps?

1.35m (5.7%) across three hours from 7pm, with a further 36k on +1. 5 minute peak was 1.85m (7.2%).

Very good ratings if you ask me. Up on last year, and they comfortably beat Channel 4 in primetime.

Not down by as much as BGT, I suspect...

Very good for Channel 5, but I can see why Channel 5 were keen to ditch the contract as English teams rarely make the final and it is a huge commitment for them. Also I doubt this final would have done much better on ITV1.

The Apprentice does seem to have a core, loyal audience who will watch it no matter what. Personally I think this series has been quite tedious but it has held up very well.

BGT 2 hour average down 4% from last year. Far healthier number last night. Results down 7%. Main show down 3%. The Apprentice down 6% and a relatively small loss from last week (whereas the BGT clash episode last year dropped over 1m week on week).

BBC One will be relieved and the station as a whole has held up well against BGT and the soaps. However, ITV1 will be heading into their summer dead zone after this weekend and let's hope they have something better to offer than last summer's season of flops.

%wise probably more. after all it never had as much to lose.

ITV will be glad BGT recovered last night. 9.2m (inc. +1) for the main show is very similar to how most of last years semi finals rated (excluding the Monday one). And the results last year had 7.9m including +1 so is down 0.5m. So not a disaster by any means. Just a shame that Tuesdays episodes were hit so badly. As long as tonight it can post similar numbers to last night I think it won't be as bad as everyone was expecting after the low Tuesday numbers.

The only Crisis is The sun/Mail has run out of News....Maybe they should result to Phone Hacking?

I wonder what the headlines will be Saturday Morning?

EASTENDERS IN 2 MILLION RATINGS SURGE

Everyone know The Sun is a Cowell fanboy and relies on " exclusives" about him for their front page. It maybe deflects from Leveson for them.

The absence of Top Gear from the summer schedule may be due to limited availibility of the Dunsfold Park test track and studio. Dunsfold will be used as an airfield for flights coming and going for the olympics.. This I imagine would limit when they could film. To film after the Olympics would be to push the show back too close to Christmas & the next series. Rather and jam everything too tight I guess they decided on just one series this year. however there will be a Christmas special. And I believe 2 series next year - so back to normal.

BTW. Does anyone have the breakdown for Planet Earth Live last night? Was that viewing figure just for BBC1 or was HD included?

The Apprentice was down 0.2m from last week's episode, where as last year's episode that clashed with BGT was down 1.15m from the episode before. Held up a lot better this year.

But you have to admit for a former BBC Two show it is doing extraordinarily well. If I were BBC One this week I would be pleased with the performance so far. Do you think ITV will beat them audience share wise this year? they did last year on BGT Semi final week.

It was:-

BBC One 17.9%

ITV1 20.3%(inc HD)

Ken

Just another BBC1 bought in format. Zero creative development expended by the BBC in return for their unique status.

so its consistently dropping?

Quite easy to not take a hit this week, when it seems that the entire series has taken a hit. No year on year comparisons here from you I see?


That's utter rubbish as it was the same (actually slightly lower) as last week. More likely that The Apprentice has picked up the people who like watching The Apprentice!

The Apprentice & Corrie probably doesn't have that much overlap (based on the usual stereotypes that get discussed here), although I am one of them.

Yes but I reckon ITV1 wished they could have crucified The Apprentice last night and removed another obstacle on His Cowellness plan to dominate the schedules when his shows are on. Actually Andy, I know someone who watches the two shows you've mentioned here, so it's not that unusual.

We won't mention ITV's rip-off version, Tycoon, which bombed so badly that it was cut to 30 mins after episode 2 and managed only 1.3m for it's finale.

At least the Beeb bought in a good format and made it work, ITV just shamelessly copied a BBC success and it failed miserably.

On Saturdays maybe, but the rest of the schedule will perform as it has been doing before this week, there is still a lot of stuff coming up before we hit any sort of Summer lull.

Good way to dismiss high ratings by saying they will be lower next week. I'll remember that for Christmas Day.

The rights to two England matches should prove to be massive hitters, plus the Champions League final, and no doubt there will be some Jubilee shows that will attract healthy ratings. However, ITV1 does have a slow period between the Cowellathons and I am hoping anything can be better than last year's high summer where Popstar to Operastar was considered one of their best performing shows with 2.8 million viewers( gather this has been axed).

But weren't you saying the exact same thing yesterday......


Is it only allowed to work the way you want it to?

Vera returns on Sunday for the rest of the series, landmark documentary 56 UP on Monday, Brand new series of Lewis starts on Wednesday, Long Lost Family returns Thursday which has been doing well, Piers Morgan returns Friday. Seems like quite a solid schedule for the next 3 or 4 weeks.

You talk about ITV flops & Popstar to Operastar so much you've blown it out of all proportion in your mind, and now seem to think nothing will get over 3m between now and September.