(I think Derek is posting BARB officials.)

Just to remind you, it is a 90 minute match in a 3hrs 25m broadcast ending at 10.25pm, 45 minutes of AC waffling until 7:45pm, then 45mins of Chelsea struggling, numerous ad breaks over 15 mins, 45 more minutes of the Blues losing, then 55 mins of more post match waffle

I would be very surprised if it averages over 8m on ITV1. 7.0m will be my estimate next Saturday.

in 2011 overnights (no Man Utd this time around)


http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...g-ratings.html

I doubt it, although with BBC1 and ITV1 both going for older audiences it might mop a few more up. Pretty clear to see who C4 are aiming for tonight though - Twilight's lead in is Peter Andre on Celeb DOND. :sleep:

Can't see it getting much more than 2m though. Unlike other similar phemonenons like Harry Potter, which reaches out to a wide audience, this one has its core, vocal fans but that's it.

On another note, will the NBC schedule be released today? If so, what time will it be out roughly?

I love this comment - it sums up exactly why I avoid programmes like the Voice, all the achingly trendy styling and emoting and posturing

Celeb DOND with Z listers, Channel 4 really are scraping the barrel. Now what was this they were saying about no more derivative shows and a creative renewal

1.45pm EST, which I think is 6.45 here.

Although I only watch one thing from it, the schedule I'm most interested in seeing is The CW's, and how they going to fit 5 new shows in.

I know this is a bit radical, but maybe The Voice should just only do the blind auditions? The rationale being that its the best bit of the format, the most popular and the only bit that works.

They could have 2 series per year, 8 one hour episodes.

Obviously the major issue with this is what is the point of auditioning - for nothing? So, you would remove the word auditions and the premise of "coaches". Instead, the show becomes almost a game show (one with really talent people on it) - the idea being how many of these superstars can I get to turn around for me? It would be a great primetime platform for artists looking to make it or to get attention from record labels.

One slight alternative would be to move from the blind auditions and go straight to two semi-finals, then a final (Eurovision style).

So over the 2 and a half hours, BGT was up albeit by less than 1%. It's also only 3% lower than the equivalent final in 2010 so not bad going.

Over the series, the overnight episode average is 9.45m down from 9.95m last year, a 5.0% decline.

The hourly average was 9.79m, down 2.6% from last year and down 4.5% from 2010. This takes into account things like results only being 30 minutes and the fact that last year had 2 finale episodes rather than just one this year.

Something of a roller coaster series for BGT as well. 4 weeks in and it was doing well but I was also thinking it might just have to accept second place to The Voice for the rest of the series. A few weeks later and the ratings for BGT were worse than they had been but the publicity was better thanks to The Voice's troubles! Then the final posted some great numbers to end on a high.

All in all, perhaps slightly disappointing to end up behind last year after the auditions went so well. But also relief for ITV/Syco that they weathered what was arguably the biggest storm in all its time on air and that BGT is still massive and capable of pulling in 14.5m for its finals. For the bean counters, they squeezed an extra half hour out of BGT this year so the 2.6% decline is wiped out in terms of audience impressions/commercial impacts (whatever they call them!).

REQUEST: Does anyone who follows the soap ratings know how Corrie did for its 9pm strip compared to last year? Thanks.

Please correct my maths if it's wrong!

Drama doesn't even cover the events in the Premier League this afternoon. MOTD should do very well, although it is ending quite late.

Thanks for that. The CW schedule will be interesting to see, although I'm looking forward to seeing NBC's too as they've got so much work to do and a hell of a lot of comedy to squeeze in. Should be interesting.

Thinking about The Voice, I think next year they should have 6 blind audition shows, running for 1 hour each (the first and last could be 75 mins). I'd let the coaches pick as many contestants as they want, but with a minimum of 8 each, as that way they'd avoid the issue of later contestants being at a disadvantage. At the end of the last audition show they could then have a BGT style deliberation round where each coach would cut their team down to 8. It'd be quick and efficient and the battles would be pretty much scrapped, although if a coach was struggling to decide between two contestants they could have a battle.

Those 6 shows would air weekly, and then after that there would be quarter finals. Each show would feature one team performing, and all 8 would perform, and 2 would make it through. These would take place over 2 weeks, with 2 shows per week (Saturday and Sunday). They'd then be left with 8 contestants going through to the semifinal the following week, and then 4 of those would progress to the final the following week, although the twist would be that it would be an open vote so it. Wouldn't necessarily be one contestant per team going through to the final. I think that'd place greater emphasis on the blind auditions (the best part) and the rest of the series would feel tighter. In terms of coaches I'd keep Danny and maybe Tom and ditch the others. Not sure who could replace them - Ed Sheeran seems an obvious candidate and I think they could get him. Ultimately though they need to find a way of preventing the huge drops we've seen this year and making the later stages into more of an event and that's about the best way of doing it I can think of. Obviously tarting up the live shows and making them more fun are pretty essential too. They need to scrap the V room too and get Reggie out on stage with Holly.

Do you think the vast majority are constantly flicking between SS1 and SS2 rather than sticking with one match?

Must overheat those BARB boxes!!

And SSN as well. Plus with there being 10 matches I guess a lot of people are at them.

Its extraordinary stuff at the moment. 10 minutes of the season left and the title is still on the line.

To be fair DOND has had a relatively decent line up of celebs - Jimmy Carr, Olly Murs, Sarah Millican, Louis Walsh (burnt off last Monday), Peter Andre and next week as much as we all loathe her, Katie Price is a decent signing.

Meanwhile next week Millionaire have Eamonn Holmes on for at least the third time.


Are they offering a split screen service at all via the red button. I guess viewers of both matches are being kept updated on both though.

Corrie averaged 8.67m across Mon-Thu this week compared with 10.29m last year, so there was a drop of 15.7%. Across those 4 nights BGT's results shows were 15% down so very similar declines, and if Corrie had posted similar numbers to last year then BGT would probably have done better too. I don't think it's a great bit of crossover scheduling and I really don't think they should do it again next year. BGT's Mon-Thu performance shows were down 10%, so not quite as steep but it does look like not airing in half term had an effect considering the final was actually up 1%. I suspect Corrie was hurt slightly by a lower BGT inheritance too.

Overall though BGT did pretty well this year. As you've said they mighty be slightly disappointed to be slightly below last year after the auditors were up but the strong final shows that is entirely down to the semifinals, and I'm sure ITV will be coming up with lists of reasons as to why that happened. It's worth noting that the show has been timeshifting better than usual this year so it may well be pretty even with 2011 (and therefore 2010) once the officials are out, which considering the general decline we've seen across all the major (and even moderate hit) reality shows over the last 12 months is a pretty good place to be.

Yeah sure. The 9pm Corrie ratings for last year during BGT week were:

Mon 30th May: 10.4m
Tue 31st May: 10.2m
Wed 1st June: 9.0m
Thu 2nd June: 9.9m
Fri 3rd June: 9.4m

They also had an episode on the Sunday (29th May) which averaged 7.0m. The weekly average, not including the Sunday episode was 9.8m.

This years episodes including Friday's (in the normal slots) averaged 8.3m. A rather steep decline, but it wasn't really a big week like last year even though they tried to bill it as one.

All figures quoted do not include +1.

MOTD is going to get huge ratings tonight. A goal in injury time - Premiership title going to down final few minutes.

WOW!!!!!!

Do we know Merlin skews older than DW, or is that speculation?

Make that double wow - another goal - this is a sensational finish.

A few minutes ago they were showing the City fans in tears of sadness. Five minutes later........

Quite unbelievable.

Unbelievable, truely unbelievable. If you were to script things like that nobody would believe you. Joey Barton should give MOTD a huge figure tonight for those who missed the live game.

Gabby Logan saying MOTD tonight will cut between the two games - which makes sense, you couldn't show one after the other.

Joey Barton creating huge buzz all over social media for his behaviour.

Massive pitch invasion in Manchester.

So Merlin is repetitive? I think you will find an awful lot of drama series that could be subject to the same accusation, so that's not a particularly convincing argument to make ...

Merlin's resilience against TXF is a minor miracle and something the BBC would be mad to throw away. It also stays within its budget - something Doctor Who has failed to do - so, financially and in terms of ratings, it makes no sense to axe the show.

I would fully agree that it may not have more than two series left in it - and if I was Ben Stephenson, I'd be begging Shine to come up with a replacement show for that slot (one that isn't Demons, that is ... ) - but, in the meantime, it's an asset that shouldn't be cast aside ...

... particularly when Doctor Who has a history of not being able to balance the books, and there's nothing else on the horizon. What happened to Peter Bowker's pirate-themed series for Kudos/BBC One? I can only assume it's stalled in development.

Anyone know the highest ever ratings for Match of The Day?
I think we'll be looking at a record high peak rating tonight but maybe not for average rating.

It'll cut between Manchester City and Manchester United and then follow it up with the Stoke game then probably a cut between Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle.

Match Of the Day could get brilliant figures...I don't get why they're airing it so late.