Both Duets and The Choice are terrible, terrible shows. And worse for The Choice is that it was commissioned in a frenzy of spite by Fox who were still sore about the success of The Voice. And worse yet its going to completely undermine their version of Take Me Out.


Excluding all the big ratings it got against Britain's Got Talent obviously...

Well, maybe, but after they've just watched the football and there's another match on the same channel in half an hour, surely people will just keep it on and sit through the news or go and make the tea, not idly flick around, especially as by the time we've had the post-match analysis it'll have already started. And the kind of people who sit through the post-match analysis are exactly the kind of people who would watch a sports comedy show. And repeating the Football Ads show opposite the football is ridiculous.


But that wasn't really because of them losing MOTD, because they were supposed to have won both MOTD and the England matches, but because the latter was announced first ITV offered a ridiculous amount of money for the Premier League. And the previous Six Nations deal was so unpopular, with England almost being kicked out of the tournament, that it was obvious it was going to go to one broadcaster exclusively for the next rights deal, and the BBC were the obvious choice. Both of those would prpbably have happened even if they still had MOTD.

And MOTD is vitaly important because it's a popular show runing forty weeks a year and also provides constant work for the football production team, otherwise you'd have to let a load of them go, and it's not like there are any other decent rights deals coming up, and certainly not any that would give them as much exposure and guaranteed audiences. If the BBC had lost MOTD, it would have been the biggest disaster in the history of BBC Sport, because football is the national sport and it's vital the Beeb show a decent amount of it.


That might be one of the problems of this series, stripping it a couple of nights a week because there doesn't seem to be any logic to it, there's no rhythm and people don't get into the habit. But stripping on BBC1 is always going to be a problem because of all the immovable objects in the schedule.


Well, that's no problem, people are used to that in football tournaments. I know in general the broadcasters always try and share out the matches so there isn't a day when one broadcaster shows both, but seemingly they couldn't avoid it.

The Canadian Grand Prix qualifying was always the one ITV never used to show live on ITV1 because it was in primetime, they'd always do late night highlights, but later they'd show it live on ITV2 and ITV4, and I remember in their last year, 2008, they showed it live on ITV1 opposite a Euro 2008 match on the Beeb, which seemed ridiculous, putting sport opposite sport.


It is a BBC1 show but they've only done about three episodes so I don't think many people would even remember what it is, not helped by the fact they seem to do loads of shows like this.


This is a problem, I was watching 60 Seconds on BBC3 on Sunday and seeing on the ticker that four people have been eliminated from The Voice makes it obvious that there are issues with the format, because getting rid of four people in one go is just too many. But the other alternative is to run the series for twice as long which, for a first series, is surely fraught with his own dangers if it doesn't catch on and you're committed to it. I assume next year the series will be longer so there won't be this mass exodus.

I don't want to turn this into a Voice thread but I also thought it was a bit crap how viewers could vote to save one and the judges picked from the other three, it doesn't make the viewer vote seem very fair, they should have eliminated the one with the lowest vote and let the judges just choose from the middle two. That's it.

Speaking from this perspective just starting to cool down here, much cooler than last night when it was light past 10pm.

re - The Voice. If they choose to ignore the massive fall the excuses of football, heatwaves, BGT and the Jubilee (I imagine they'll use that) will probably be enough to bring it back.

It's licks aren't very dope

Good point. So there should be no excuses then - The Voice can clearly compete against tough competition.

At this point I think its basically been universally agreed that audiences absolutely connected with and liked the pre-live stages of the show (blind auditions and battle rounds) but haven't, for whatever reason, connected with the live shows. Obviously that's something that needs to be fixed and there's a near endless stream of suggestions on how to do that for the BBC to wade through – plus they'll have the advantage of seeing what changes NBC make in the US and what changes de Mol makes for the Dutch version before series two over here.

Basically what I'm saying here is that we have to deal with the reality of the situation. Yes for the blinds and battle rounds it was getting huge numbers but clearly that's no longer the case. Expectations have to be adapted and changed.

Personally I think the BBC (and The Voice in general) is in a much better position than people suggest going forward. The live stages are incredibly easy to overhaul and change but fixing audition stages and the process of auditions to live stages is incredibly difficult and almost impossible - as we see every year with The X Factor where boot camp and judges houses are just a jumble.

I wouldn't say an England friendly against Norway is a big match as has been quoted earlier. However, it is a test for the new manager and to see how the team do, so expect 5 million committed fans to tune in. I will, of course, be watching the Eurovision and I think the Engelbert factor could boost ratings.

Exactly - it's excuse after excuse after excuse regarding The Voice. We're all knowledgeable enough around here to know things like the weather are a factor, but even to say breaking 4m would be respectable is really playing it down. They should be worrying about the 5m mark, not 4m. I would predict though about 4.6-4.8m - and that is being very generous about the effect of the hot weather.


Oh no - yet another prisoners dillemma type quiz. They're rarely as great as the producers think - though to be fair the first one on The Bank Job was pretty good TV, but the second was so damn predictable.

Bwing On Euwovison! Come on Engelbewt!!!!!

Ken

Barbara Slaters blog at the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sportedit...ards.html#more

....does seem to be a feeling of "my job is done" about it(ie no surprise acquisitions).

(does confirm the Masters golf is a 3 year deal if that wasnt known already)

Good riddance to her. Undid all the good work Roger Mosey did quite frankly.

In all seriousness I don't think she has done to badly. 10 live F1 races ,Horse racing and the Live European tour golf are terrible losses though. But then again the horse racing is still FTA they are providing Golf highlights and the BBC didn't entirely give up on F1. So they still have a commitment just a smaller one.

They still are going to look very thin on the ground in 2013 though. No Football, No horse racing. I wonder if the BBC will ever fight back wining a big contract again like the FA Cup. At the moment with the way its is and horrible Conservative government. I don't think so.

At the end off the day. who is still the biggest FTA sports broadcaster?

Ken

But she had no choice D.M.N. I think you are a little harsh. On face value she was terrible but delving deeper she has secured sport on the BBC for the next few years.

Blame the budget not her. If she had the money she would have kept F1 and everything else without a doubt.

Roger Mosey Really didn't do much to be honest. He won F1 but lost the FA contract. I'd say Peter Salmon and Greg Dyke where the ones who rejuvenated BBC Sport in the last decade.

If you want more sport on the BBC you need a Director General who is really passionate about it.

Slater has been with BBC Sport for years and she was always going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nobody else could have done better so you can't beat up on her. Think again before you slate Slater.

Ken

The job isn't done until the Olympic contract is renewed IMO, although the BBC axing all but one red button stream after London 2012 means it'll be a reduced service on all platforms even compared to 2004/2008, never mind 2012.

And that's her first blog in three years. The Sport Editors blog used to be a great insight into BBC Sport, but now it's only used really in relation to web content. I don't think she has shouted loud enough to defend BBC Sport as part of DQF - and she was absolutely silent on the F1 issue, an issue which made visiting any other sport related blog practically impossible for the six months following the announcement.


Anyway, going way off topic...

The BBC's coverage of the Olympic coverage this year will surely secure the contract. It's a protected event.

Ken

The quality isn't in question - it's now a question of quantity, and despite BBC viewers now expecting a decent multi-screen service for events such as the Olympics and Wimbledon the BBC Trust are answering complaints about the Freeview service being slashed to one stream by also slashing the Sky and Cable service to one stream.

Offering streams on broadband is not the same IMO, and I wouldn't be surprised at all considering Sky's involvement this year that if the IOC have gone back to the BBC and tell told them they'll need to pay more that the BBC basically continue being the free to air broadcaster with the limited interactive service we have now but that Sky step in, as they have in other countries, to offer the multiscreen service. The listing wouldn't prevent that as long as the BBC (or another FTA broadcaster) continue to broadcast the event live.

Well the revived Blockbusters (for the 3rd time) must be a turkey as well- like the Voice with Talpa, it has FremantleMedia behind it and had just as much hype and publicity on as much as the Voice so expectations were big for that too.

Yet it's getting hammered by the likes of Holby, Home and Away (!), Peter Andre and Eurovision, yet I don't see 'Blockbusters In Crisis' or 'Holness revival loses to Andre' or 'Mayo mayoed by Holby' or Singing grandma demolishes Mayo' or 'Mayo and Away as sexy Oz soap popular than R2 host' headlines from the Mail or Sun.

Have C5 pulled the Restaurant Inspector - and I guess therefore Cowboy Builders was a repeat?


Justifies BBC3 late move of Eastenders to make way for Good News, but why didn't they plan that originally? TV Choice had EE down for 10pm last night, with no Good News apart from a late night repeat.

Not the first time recently BBC3 have made late schedule changes that really could have been planned in advance ...

It's been moved to Mondays starting from June 11th, I guess the competition was hurting it. There was only three episodes left.

Quick question - anyone aware of what is happening on BBC1 on 22 July?

Looks as though, despite qualifying being at 5.30pm on BBC1 the day before, the German GP highlights will be moved to BBC2.

EDIT: Ok, worked it out. It's The Open Championship.

Did it ****! That must be one of the most ridiculous comments ever.

Sam Hodges ‏@Sam_Hodges
Have I Got News For You was the highest rating show at 9pm (even inc +1 channels) with 4.4m #BBC1 #HIGNFY

But not at 9.30pm perhaps?

Its not on after 9.30 is it.

Piers Morgan ‏@piersmorgan
Jimmy Tarbuck got 4.3m viewers last night

Probably includes ITV1+1.

Didn't seem to be dented by the weather as much as HIGNFY was (although I suppose Tarbuck might have been a bigger draw in worse weather). HIGNFY took a bigger dent from the hot weather, but I'm sure the dip was only because if that.

Overall, this series of Life Stories has averaged 4.4m, making it the best rating series since Autumn 2010 and its second highest rating series ever. It'll definitely be back on Fridays in the Autumn where it seems to work well.