Well they didn't necessarilly prefer it as many didn't try any alternative.

This will always be the situation, most people aren't media savvy constantly looking to see who is providing the best coverage, reading opinions on Twitter etc, in the end they will just put on the coverage and short of it falling off air will stick with it.

At least ITV gets critical aclaim and doesn't disgrace themselves, when was the last time you saw any positive opinions about ITV when in competition with the BBC on Digital Spy for example!?

I think there is more to it than that. Many people wouldn't have even dreamed of pressing channel 3 (or 103) yesterday for fear that ITV would litter their coverage with ad breaks and sponsors credits and they would miss vital moments.

Despite last year's Royal Wedding it's very difficult to get the message across that ITV suspends commercial breaks for the duration of these events.

ITV can be satisfied that a) their coverage was widely acclaimed and b) they did narrow the ratings gap with BBC to 1:3 (for the Royal Wedding it was 1:4).

Very interesting looking at the small dips and rises through the broadcast. Obviously we'll discount those some due to Corrie.

8.45-8.50: 690k DOWN on 10 minutes previously (Annie Lennox) as soprano Renee Fleming performed.
9.10-9.15: 530k UP on 10 minutes previously (Robbie Williams) and 380k UP on 5 minutes later (Shirley Bassey) as Gary Barlow's Commonwealth Band perform 'Sing'.
9.30-9.35: 390k DOWN on 5 minutes previously (Kylie) and 470k DOWN on 5 minutes later (Elton John) as Alfie Boe and Renee Fleming perform from the balcony.
10.15-10.20: 490k UP on 5 minutes previously (Madness) as Peter Kay comes on. Paul McCartney came on at 10.21 (200k DOWN). It then didn't get back to Peter Kay levels until...
10.40-10.45: Prince Charles's Speech - 280k UP on previous 5 minutes. Then a dip of 570k for the fireworks.

So the most popular people at the concert appeared to be Peter Kay and Prince Charles!
1. 10.40-10.45: 17.09m (Prince Charles, National Anthem)
2. 10.15-10.20: 16.86m (Peter Kay)
3. 10.35-10.40: 16.81m (Finale, Royals arrive)

If the organisers of the Olympic Opening Ceremony are reading this - forget Paul McCartney. All they need is Peter Kay playing 'We are Family'. by Sister Sledge

That's based on the assumption that all those viewers sampled ITV's coverage and came to an informed decision, which is highly unlikely. BBC is, for the majority, the default option for national events like these and that's unlikely to ever change no matter how much 'criticism' they receive.

That looks a bit healthier than it did last week.

There was some advertising for C5's Kitchen Wars during C4's Come Dine with Me.


A figure that can't be verified. We don't know exactly how much it is costing them, there's been differing reports. And we don't know how much they will be paying from next year onwards.


Jeff Ford said they were looking into it earlier this year. It's part of the long term plan but nothing is lined up in the short term.

They can afford to do it absolutely, but it's about finding the right projects of the right sort of scale.

Weight of numbers, Coronation St in winter will have five times as many viewers as BB and it will include a fair percentage of under 35s. BB might do OK among its core demographic, young women, but even a lot of these have given up on it.

Oh - did that reach that point. I know Endemol sued but the first series went ahead and hadn't heard anything since. Although the central format the house and the casting was very Secret Story.


I guess regional variations back in the 90s and earlier especially complicates things. I dread to think how this forum would get it's head around a few different shows being on the ITV network at the same time, and then whether or not it's right to include the later airing on Border in the figures for the 9pm showing in the South. etc.


Ouch, though no big surprise. In hindsight they perhaps should have held on to it a fortnight - but then again most shows this summer will need to be resiliant against big rating competition turning up throughout the summer.


I guess the pace they are going ITV are quite relieved they didn't push it to ITV1. Had it been airing yesterday though I think they'd be considering switching it to ITV1 at 7.30pm.


Exactly - a shame really they don't add anything now in that regard, but then again OFCOM is at fault for letting them use their Aussie soaps as their quota of original drama when neither show adds anything to the UK television economy.


As for Big Brother - a respectable start in C5 terms, and I'm trying to be fair here and keep comparisons like for like with C5 last year. We all have default positions though here when it comes to Big Brother on C5 and interpret the same figures completely different (what some see as success for C5 I've seen as a complete flop).

But as you know per hour Big Brother is still very cheap.

Certainly a lot cheaper than any comedy or drama would ever be.

And the reason E4 can afford it is because they can fill 95% of their schedule with repeats, which Channel 5 doesn't do.

Coming Soon to ITV 1

I would have said Yes to Jewel, shows how good I am with ITV game shows.

Well, the BBC are going to get more complaints now they've dusted off their complaints totalizer, to give a running total. The left hand doesn't communicate with the right hand sometimes. Last week, they announced ways to reduce orchestrated complaints, yet this week they're encouraging them with a running total.

Hmm perhaps not the most valuable demo. According to my research, BB got a 0.1 rating in the Grannies With Parrot (-1 Leg) demo (not including +1 Prosthetic). This equated to a solitary granny, who couldn't be bothered to get up to change the channel. (I shouldn't really encourage you!)



How many hours do C5 get out of BB, though? Every night for almost three months for the civilian series, plus 3 weeks for the celebrity version (although the celeb fees are extra of course). Whereas drama/sitcom costs many hundreds of thousands per hour (except soap or other continuing drama) and could so easily bomb. If and when C5 are in a strong enough position where a new drama or comedy can almost be guaranteed 4m+, at least as a sampler, like on BBC1 or ITV1, and the numbers stack up, they will do it.


Using Dancc and rzt's figures, BB had a 5.9 TVR in the 16-34 demo (inc +1), which when compared with ITV1's average for the England v Norway friendly on Sat 26 May (TVR of 6.2 exc +1), is very good, considering the football had almost twice as many total viewers. (Skews in that demo were 34% for BB v 20% for the football)

Interesting also that the shares for BB among young adults are quite similar for men (21%) and women (24%) (closer than I would have thought), but the actual viewership is a fair bit lower for young men, as they tend to watch telly less.



The soaps are not included in rzt's demo round-ups (because the demos are quite constant and boring I suppose, and there are so many episodes) but can someone please remind us of what demo splits Emmers, Corrie and EE get?

Good point! ITV are,understandably,afraid of what their regular advertisers will think if they publicise ad free coverage but in the end of the day it was ad free so they missed a trick after the royal wedding.
These are very occasional events and ITVs reputation on the back of bigger figures would have been enhanced. Pity they didn't realise this...Narrow thinking

Big Brother only gets around the 2 million mark hardly means its must watch TV anymore does it? I don't know why anybody wants to watch bunch of nobody's who crave fame sitting in an house all day doing tasks and stabbing each other in the back.

Yes totally agree with that. The running total is completely unhelpful.

Just seen this link posted by the ITV Twitter account: http://www.itv.com/beontv/my-man-can/


I hope it's not getting the pre-X Factor slot in November time...

A three-minute reach, I expect.

Just seen this show on that link...


http://www.itv.com/beontv/top-dog-model/

Classy as ever ITV

Here's the demos for the six main soaps from Monday 28th May: http://i48.tinypic.com/2u8vsiu.jpg

So Pudsey will get himself on a judging panel after all.

P.S. Confirmation New Girl will switch to E4. No surprise at all but really hope it's not the end of imported comedy on C4 - we all know it was a victim of scheduling more than anything.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s185/...his-month.html

ITV confirm Text Santa for this year: https://twitter.com/ITVTextSanta/sta...45618164940801

ITVTextSanta
Application process for UK charities interested in applying for our 2012 appeal is now open! Criteria and T+C's at http://t.co/zic0W8ei

I didn't say it was. It's pretty obvious I think that BB isn't for everyone. In the same way that soap operas are not for everyone, gameshows are not for everyone, TV sports are not for everyone, etc etc. I don't really understand why in BB's case it needs reiterating every 5 seconds in a thread about ratings. I've tried to share as much data as I can today to give people as strong an indication as I can of the show's current popularity, that's all I can do.


It was predicted on here that a show like this would come along when a dog act won BGT, so not too surprising!

I think it could do very well for ITV2 to be honest.

It's not even a dog variety show though - it's a dog modelling show.

What was their last attempt at original scripted content? Was it their Minder remake? That was early 2009. Are you (and they) really arguing that in the 3+ years since then they haven't found a single project worthy of their time? And if only they were that selective with some of their other commissions...


Speaking of Big Brother related lawsuits CBS is in the midst of suing ABC over Glass House which has the appearance of ABC simply hiring half the Big Brother US producers and telling them to make Big Brother under a name (with a couple of superficial changes). Having said that some of the format updates are pretty interesting. Maybe Endemol should take note (I'm assuming Glass House isn't an Endemol production otherwise that would just be an absurd situation).


I'm not suggesting wall to wall original content. I'd take one drama or comedy series or a one off at this point. It just seems like an utterly ridiculous situation where Five aren't producing any original scripted content at all.


I'm not suggesting that the deal for Big Brother was hideously bad merely stating that the fact that were able to (reportedly) pull together £40 million for a years old format well past its best that no one else was bidding for suggests there's not a whole lot of truth to this argument that they can't afford original scripted content. Obviously scripted content is a bigger per hour commitment than something like Big Brother but that doesn't mean that Five shouldn't be anywhere near it. They are after all supposed to be one of our 'main' broadcasters not a little watched underfunded digital channel.

Drama doesn't need to be pulling in 4+ million viewers to be profitable either. I'd also point out that producing original scripted content doesn't necessarily mean breaking the bank. I'm not suggesting they should make something on the same scale as Doctor Who.


Sometimes it does just feel like ITV aren't even trying...

That's great, thank you.

Points of interest:

1. Neighbours is the most upmarket soap! Not by much but that's slightly surprising, given the early timeslot and the fact that Home and Away is the second-most downmarket.

2. The 51% 16-34 skew for Hollyoaks means it's safe unless it sheds a lot more viewers, I would guess. I wonder if the drop-off has been across the board, or whether it's shed mainly older viewers.

3. EE would be the winner in the American market, with 12.5 in the 18-49 demo against 9.1 for Corrie. However, Corrie is more upmarket (40% ABC1 to EE's 38% ). I wonder if that's influenced by the fact that BBC2 tend to screen upmarket stuff against EE.

4. EE the youngest of the big 3 soaps, as expected (11.4 rating in 16-34 vs 7.0 for Corrie.)