I think there will a lot of jumpers on the Olympics bandwagon but realy I dont see why the location should make that much difference. Other countries watch regardless of where it is held but the British are only interested because its in London. Very parochial view.

Because they're ITVistas?



The Jubilee weekend, England progressing to the latter stages of Euro2012 (a big "if" granted, but it will be exclusively live on BBC1 if so), Wimbledon (could it be Murray's year?), the first Great British football team playing exclusively live on BBC1, the Opening Ceremony which should be THE event of 2012, 19 hours of live "once in a lifetime" London Olympics EVERY day for a fortnight...

ITV are going to get one almightily giant walloping!

And lo and behold, I couldn't have timed my last post better if anyone had reason to doubt what I was typing!

"jumpers on the bandwagon", George?

Is that a bit like "jumpers for goalposts"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NeRoSFZWbs

By the way, i mentioned it earlier, but interesting reading on Twitter about the BBC1 summer promo being filmed today featuring Jake Humphrey, Holly Willoughby, Fearne Cotton, Reggie Yates, Gary Lineker and presumably others.

Sounds like it could be in the style of last years Christmas promo and idents?!

Why is Holly Willoughby in the promo if she only presents one show for the BBC? Or is this a nice promotional exercise for The Voice, having Holly in this major promo will keep the show in more peoples minds over the summer.

Hope not!

I can't watch repeats of OFAH now without thinking of poor old David Jason in that jumper and the horror he unleashed on Boxing Day...

Not a good sign that a summer promo/ident has been filmed on a wet day with cameramen under brollies. Then again, if this summer is like the past five...

well you are the ultimate watch it only cause its on BBC1 bandwagon jumper. The Olympics havent been the same since they dropped town planning, poetry and sculpting. Try getting 50% share with that

It's that sort of nonsense which is why I might give this thread a miss over the Olympics.

One page discussing BBC1's high ratings, five pages discussing how Corrie is worryingly heading for the axe and other over the top stuff, is what I expect. Expect Glenn A to at least once compare the ratings of Corrie in 1970 against the rating in August 2012!

From an article on The Guardian website re the BBC's coverage:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...=ILCNETTXT3487

Note also that Huw Edwards is anchoring the Opening and Closing Ceremonies - which I think probably means there will be no Late Evening News somewhere on the BBC on Friday 27th

Although a name Seal isn't exactly an A-lister here and for all we know may be living out in Aus now, though stars from here (and next door ) are cropping up on Aussie reality TV panels with Brian McFadden, Ronan Keating and Mel B. You can definately keep Mel B!

If Seal does well on The Voice Australia though I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC tried to lure him over here. From the comments I've read though on last nights show it seems The Voice is facing exactly the same problems in Australia for the live shows as it has here and around the world.

As for Tricky Business - that's what they deserve for starting shows 15 minutes later than billed (on a nightly basis!). TV Tonight has a report today that it's not just the viewers getting sick of it - the advertisers are beginning to question the strategy now too.

And here's another one...

See, I told you.

OK, I promise then that if the Opening Ceremony gets a 21m peak or BBC1 averages 8m every night between 7-10pm for a week, then I shall avoid making any mention on here of such trivial irrelevances and focus instead on how well Corrie is holding up or whether The Chase has overtaken Cash in the Attic ...

Yes but the 8pm slot also offers something which you don't mention. It's one of the few drama free slots available all year round.
They employed the same strategy last year on Sunday with Once upon a time which aired against reality, animation and Football. Most predicted that It would flop! Its now the biggest new drama of last season.

I think the emphasis should be on launching new shows in attractive slots rather than trying to Boost 8 year old shows like Greys Anatomy and Desperate Housewives by a few demo points.

In an Ideal world I'm sure they would love to have a big new Female drama for the slot but they don't.



I can't think of any of ABC new shows that would fit there or benefit from that slot. Nashville and Revenge would just drive Castle's significant male audience to Hawaii on CBS and Revolution on NBC. Anyway the DWTS lead in isn't exactly what it used to be.


Surely this is because of a lack of decent pilots.
It makes far more sense to give both those ABC studios produced shows more episodes rather than spend millions on marketing and producing a new weak show which they know will flop like they did with 'my generation'.
From a financial perspective it makes perfect sense.

German football play-off game finally finished half-an-hour late, pitch invasion (ESPN).

Andy23 I actually think ITV could benefit over the games - least in comparison to last summer

Superstar is going to be much funnier to talk about however I suspect
And we get some pre-Olympic fun with ITV's bonkers Sport talent show idea!

Generally I really don't care either way. How high BBC is or how low ITV is. Its all a bit dull and uninteresting.
Like people discussing BGT Semi's and EE - it matters little. Even more so with the Olympics as its not exactly coming back next year and any low ratings will be criticism of the government. BBC are basically doing rolling news on the Olympics!

Me - I'll be watching some Doctor Who and checking what other channels are showing. Sorted.
Mind you if Corrie is you know...'that low'...I might just post a ''


PS: 21m Robbie? I think it could go higher, surely a bit higher is on the cards for the peak?

It's already been said they are benefitting financially, as all the big Olympic sponsors will want to buy lots of advertising, and that of course has to be on ITV1 rather than BBC1.

I expect ITV will get about 2.5-3m at 9pm most nights, depending on what they are showing, I expect factual & drama repeats, maybe a new drama that has been on the shelf a while. The soaps will be about 1m down on what they usually get in August. Despite what many will say, these ratings will not be a worrying and will not be a sign of any future trend.

BBC2's schedule will also be interesting, will it only be EE moving there, or will Holby & other BBC1 staples be shown as well.

I don't know how many will watch the opening ceremony, In my office people tend to only watch Channel 4 Shock-docs and would think nothing of scheduling a run of the mill night out on the same night, so I've no idea.

Haters will watch the opening ceremony more than anything else though so they can complain how rubbish it is/what a joke Boris Johnson was/How much money was wasted etc etc

This is a lovely theory but allow me to highlight a couple of problems with it.

1 – Charlie's Angels and Missing have both aired in this Thursday 8PM slot and both of them bombed out of the gate despite the complete lack of drama competition. Both of them were also supposed to be able to attract a relatively strong male audience to the slot and didn't. The only time ABC has had anything close to success in this slot for years is when they've aired unscripted there or when they aired a female skewing hour long comedy there. Why on earth they suddenly think a male baiting drama is going to work there despite every male baiting drama they've put in the slot (FlashForward being another one to add to the list) dying is beyond me.

2 – Terra Nova, Alcatraz, House and Bones all air on Monday for Fox and Monday night is another one of those no drama competition slots. Of those four shows only one is returning and it just finished its season with a 1.9 in the demo.


The priority should be on creating the strongest possible overall line-up which includes supporting your 8 year old dramas because they in turn support and provide a boost to the new shows you desperately need to launch.


They have two female skewing dramas on the bench. One of which (Mistresses) they're determined to hold back until Summer 2013 for reasons passing any and all understanding. And coincidently they have another male skewing drama on the bench as well. Why, I wonder, did they not think of perhaps pairing their two male skewing shows together on the schedule (perhaps with a comedy hour at 8PM). Or maybe with Castle.


Weakened it might be but Dancing is still one of the best lead-ins ABC have. The idea that they don't think Nashville, Red Widow, Mistresses, Last Resort, Zero Hour or 666 will benefit from it is kind of amazing to me.


They've picked up 6 drama pilots (more than any other network) and 4 comedy pilots (second only to NBC) and you're telling me they had a weak batch of pilots to contend with. Beyond that from all reports Private Practice has gotten a 13 episode anyway and is unlikely to get any more so its not like holding it off until midseason was going to damage them. Meanwhile they aren't in a strong enough overall position to 'pull a CBS' and renewed a poorly rated show they own in the hope they can cash in on syndication a year or three down the line.

I wonder if these were peaks, or averages for mini-slots covering just the races. They certainly weren't 'progamme' averages. Nothing in the BARB officials got 10m; the top 6 ratings on BBC1 were:

1. OLYMPICS GRANDSTAND (SAT 28/8 1734) 9.04
2. OLYMPIC OPENING C'Y (FRI 13/8 1836) 8.68
3. OLYMPIC GRANDSTAND (FRI 27/8 1900) 8.38
4. OLYMPIC GRANDSTAND (SUN 22/8 1550) 7.69
5. OLYMPIC GRANDSTAND (SUN 22/8 1851) 7.21
6. OLYMPIC CLOSING C'Y (SUN 29/8 1900) 6.97

Best for BBC2 was 5.07m on the final Tuesday.

Well it looks like everything apart from the main news bulletins will transfer to BBC2; Holby was on in late July last year so that could show up on BBC2.

You could have interesting combos like Countryfile leading into Top Gear, but these might be in repeat mode in the summer.

Managing expectations...


The Guardian piece did say "6 events"

Hmm, well the 800m only takes a few minutes anyway doesn't it? So a peak would cover it. Except if I'm running it!

The biggest threat to BBC1's ratings will actually come from BBC3 IMO.

When BBC3 are showing a Team GB football match eg. on the first Wednesday (7.45) BBC1 will mainly be showing Swimming (7.30-9.10) (i presume). On an evening such as that the BBC1 figure would be suppressed, but BBC3 could have it's biggest ever audience.

Seal's looking pretty ropey these days isn't he?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(musician)

He is 49, mind.

I guess the Beeb could look at the overnights from the first football fixtures and see how the ratings are panning out. If a big audience tuned in, perhaps buoyed by English success at Euro 2012, then they might keep the football on BBC1, with the swimming on BBC1?

That's assuming they don't intend to show all the Team GB football on BBC1 anyway?

Couple of snippets:
- On the day of the opening ceremony, the ten o'clock news will be on BBC Two, at 10 as normal, but presumably without the regional bit.

- At midnight each day there will be a 15 minute late news update, just before Olympic Sportsday on BBC One

https://twitter.com/#!/rogermosey