Maybe its just me but that doesn't feel like a particularly great prize. At least not for a big slick prime time reality series SyCo style.

I can't help but feel that if he wanted to go down this route he might have been better off blending aspects of Hell's Kitchen US and The Apprentice to create some kind of competition to go into business in a new restaurant with Gordon Ramsey or something.

Amazingly this seems to be an example of Cowell not going big enough.

I think they might just be assuming Ramsey is involved because the first article (from C21 Media) pointed out that Optomen are co-producing. Although it does seem like a distinct possibility.

Seems to be a primetime version of Britain's Best Dish (or Breaking Into Tesco, although having seen neither they both seem the same as well!). A return to normal for Syco in the sense that it'll follow the usual talent show format (auditions, heats, finals - live, perhaps?). Although I figured whatever they did would be more in the vein of Top Chef or Hell's Kitchen, tbh. In terms of budgets and expectations, they've definitely taken a huge step back from Red or Black. Getting Ramsey involved would up the stakes a bit, I suppose.

I'm thinking maybe the Wednesday 8pm slot after Corrie?

Speaking of Top Chef, that does pretty good business for Bravo in the US and has worked in a few spin-offs. Has anyone ever tried it here?

I've never understood why people who apparently don't watch it feel so strongly against it (or at least feel the need to make out that that they feel so strongly against it). If you don't watch, why wish it would disappear? It doesn't affect you by being on.

Good night for ITV last night. Also shows why Corrie is good in that 19:30 slot. I wonder how BBC1 will tackle Wednesday's in the near future, if ITV have...

19:00 - Emmerdale
19:30 - Coronation Street
20:00 - Lewis/Midsomer/other 2 hour dramas/etc

Then that does not give BBC a lot of options. Waterloo Road could still go at 20:00 (instead of 19:30) but maybe they should consider that for Thursday's instead now with no Corrie at 20:30 and Emmerdale 'on its own'?

Because when I visit DigitalSpy I see their stupid, cretinous faces leering out at me from beneath one inane headline after another.

I would consider over double for the channel massive. CBB9 got an average of 2.6m, with a HL show (Pantsgate) getting 3.1m. Normally Channel 5 gets around 800k-1.3m in that slot.

It's like a ITV show on prime time getting 9m (as the average for an ITV prime time programme excl Tuesday is around 4.5m).

BB less so, but CBB was a massive success.

Well it won't go away until it does atrociously. It may not be doing well for a BB BUT it is for the channel. It's like cancelling Eastenders for getting 6-7m nowadays (still the highest rated ongoing show, but far from the 20m from 10-20 years ago). They would never cancel EE unless it dips constantly below 4m.

Cowell flogs a cooking show to ITV?

Got to hand it to him, I suppose, after the not exactly soaring success of Red or Black!

The Eggs Factor?

Britain's Got Tinfoil?

I think part of the point of Cowell's new food show is that it isn't going to be a huge scale show of the likes of Syco's other current shows. The budget will probably not be anything like some of their other shows and if anything it just shows that as an indie they're trying to break out from just producing huge scale entertainment shows, which is probably necessary for them to do as networks can only afford to take so many Red or Black style risks. They won't be looking for big ratings like Cowell's other shows (or like Red or Black aimed for) - they'll probably be perfectly happy with 4-5m for this.

The prize sounds very similar to Breaking Into Tesco's but I suspect the format, execution and tone will be quite different. Getting Ramsay involved could be a good idea, and perhaps a female 'celebrity chef' too - maybe Nigella Lawson? They'd probably want a third judge too although they could afford to go with someone less well known with 2 other 'names' on board. Cowell said a while back he wanted Dawn French to host, which would be a good signing, although Dermot would be OK too.

They're probably looking at around 7-10 hour long episodes, so not a huge commission but a potentially useful one. The Wednesday 8pm slot does seem the best option - it certainly isn't going to be a Saturday night show and a Corrie lead in would help.

I'm not sure exactly. I'd guess with all the promotion they are hoping for at least 1.5m for the premiere?

Given how badly The Restaurant Inspector was rating in the same slot I was thinking that anything above 1m would be a marked improvement, but the campaign has been more aggressive than I expected with advertising on other channels so that needs to be factored in.

I dunno if it will reach their target with strong factual competition on at least two or three of the other big 5 channels.


Well this helps ease the pain of some underwhelming overnights. A few big brands seeing the potential in the programme with the young following that it has.

I was under the impression it rated 7m-10m viewers?? It might not hit the younger demo, but it holds its own number wise. Considering the rating The Killing US gets on US cable, there is a huge ratings difference.

I would imagine C4 got The Killing US on a 2 or 3 year deal for a bargain price.

Danny Cohen said a couple weeks ago that there might be 'tweaks' in the BBC1 soap schedule in light of ITV1's change of Corrie and football days from this Autumn. I think the Thursday 7.30pm EastEnders could be moved to 8.30pm with Waterloo Road slotting in at 7.30pm on Thursdays.

My thinking is that at the moment BBC1 uses the Tuesday 9pm slot as the 'drama slot' a lot of the time. With ITV1's football moving to Tuesdays, the competition for these dramas are going to get much tougher than the c2m shows they're currently facing. Shows like Silk which get 4.7m against 1.6m opposition could be falling down to 4.0m against some decent competition. So I reckon BBC1 will want to establish a drama slot on Thursdays at 9pm where ITV1 will be very weak. To do that, they could move EastEnders to 8.30pm on that night to provide a high lead-in for the 9pm hour and then slot in Waterloo Road between 7.30-8.30pm on Thursdays so it at least has a 30-minute head-start over ITV1's 8pm Emmerdale and can pick up an audience close or around 5m. I guess it could become a game of chess, with ITV1 then reacting to that change and turning Emmerdale into a one-hour episode from 7-8pm so it dents Waterloo Road, but then they're in a bad position post 8pm with relatively tough competition from BBC1.

Kitchen Wars will be at around 1.5m tonight I reckon.

Surprisingly I don't think anyone has tried Top Chef over here yet. Its a decent enough format though and could probably work relatively well for Channel 4 or 5 or one of the bigger digital channels.


This is a fair point.


I'm not convinced that The Killing was quite as big a bargain as you. Channel 4 weren't the only ones interested in it.

On the subject of The Good Wife it didn't crack CBS' Top 20 in the demo for the season and it ranked 15th in total viewers. It ain't a hit.

I remember an era when US drama literally dominated primetime here. Times change and BBC1/ITV1 prefer homegrown shows with varying ratings success.

Just noticed EastEnders had a low share last night, Lewis trimmed it quite a bit.

If BBC1 do that then it might possibly work out for them if ITV don't react, with the EE lead-in giving dramas a big boost at 9pm. However as you've said ITV could merge the two Emmerdale episodes (which would make sense with no EE at 7:30pm), meaning that new programmes at 8pm would have a decent ED lead-in, and a half hour headstart on EE where it would only air against a weakened WR, which would be dented by ED (we saw in the Autumn that hour long Emmerdales dented WR quite a bit when it aired at 7:30pm). EE would then suffer from starting away from ITV's and other network's junctions (a bit like Corrie does now but with a significantly weaker lead-in than Corrie has). Admittedly the 9pm show would still get a big lead-in but EE could be dented. Obviously that would depend on the strength of ITV's offerings, but what would be stopping them from running 2 hour episodes of Midsomer Murders (or similar shows) in the Thursday 8pm slot with an ED lead-in, which would rate well and also dent any new dramas at 9pm. If anything, ITV could potentially benefit overall from BBC1 doing that.

BBC1 could move EE back to 8pm in response but that would mess everything up as WR would have to move and it wouldn't be giving a new 9pm drama a lead-in. I suppose what BBC1 could do keep the Thursday EE at 7:30pm and move WR back to its old Thursday 8pm slot. The second Emmerdale would dent it a bit but the EE lead-in could potentially cancel that out and they'd have a solid night overall. Although moving WR away from Wednesday could harm that night as they don't really have any other reliable performers there (other than The Apprentice but that's at 9pm and only 12 weeks per year). Normally that wouldn't be too worrying as filler like DIY SOS can rate well enough, but with Corrie moving back there, the 7:30pm show will be badly dented and ITV will be stronger at 8pm, so Wednesdays (pre-9pm at least) could be a bit of a struggle without WR doing a solid c4.5m there for 20-30 weeks per year.

This is of course working on the assumption that ITV will move Thursday's Corrie to the Wednesday 7:30pm slot. A better option for them could be to move Friday's 7:30pm Corrie to Wednesday, and move the Thursday Emmerdale to Friday at 7:30pm (forming a 1 hour episode). So then you'd have Emmerdale nightly at 7pm (1 hour on Fridays), whilst Corrie would only have one double per week, with single episodes on Wednesday (7:30pm), Thursday (8pm - or 7:30pm if BBC1 do move EE to 8:30pm) and Friday (8:30pm).

I think ITV would love to get Coronation St into the 7.30 slot on Thursdays* in the event of an EastEnders move, but I think doing that would cause them too many problems elsewhere. It's like a balding man combing his hair. Whatever style he chooses, there'll still be a bald patch somewhere.

*Weren't we thinking the eighteen months of hour-long Emmerdales were a ploy to force EastEnders out of the 7.30pm slot on Tuesdays or Thursdays, freeing it up for Coronation St when the football moved to Wednesdays a few years ago?

How very sneering and patronising especially as most anti-monarchists nigh on worship Obama who, contrary to a British monarch, wields huge power - so that blind worship is extremely sinister. You're being disparaging about approx 80% of the British population.

I can only speak for myself but personally I did switch away from the BBC to watch Tuesday's events on Sky; and going by the Telegraph quite a few others did too. However the fact remains that a fair amount of people are creatures of habit or just don't realise they can watch state occasions on another channel. I'm afraid that isn't limited to royalists either!

I agree. Great analogy by the way!

I dont think the Beeb's Tuesday dramas would struggle that much even now ITV might be slightly more competitive, because ITV will skew very male with the football and a lot of the dramas they've run in that slot are very female-friendly, as was the case when ITV had Tuesday football previously.

And I still think the Beeb would want to keep 'stEnders where it is because it's hard to sell a move to an audience unless it's really obvious, they can't just say "We're moving 'stEnders to 8.30 because we reckon it'll get loads more viewers", the audience won't understand it. They'll just wonder why 'stEnders has moved for seemingly no reason.


I assume the flop that was Iron Chef has put some channels of shows like this.

Oh I'm sure they'd love to get it there, but obviously the only way they will get it there is if EE moves - I jut suggested it as an idea of what they could do if BBC1 were to move EE to the 8:30pm slot, although the fact that ITV could shift Corrie probably means that they won't shift EE, as ultimately it could make them vulnerable.

Good point about ITV's schedule. Moving Corrie would undoubtably help but they need to find a few relatively cheap c4m shows for the 8pm hour (Cowell's cooking show is probably an attempt at that), as whilst ITV have got a decent amount of big hit shows, they don't have enough solid performing shows, meaning that their schedule lacks consistency, and tends to swing from one extreme to the other.

Channel5 has done loads of promotion for Kitchen Wars, it was plugged in almost every ad break around BB yestreday. This is a big project for Channel5, its being made by their own company. But do viewers like Marco Pierre White? He had a show in America which flopped and done a couple cooking shows for Itv but I dont think they rated good.

He should have stuck with Hell's Kitchen - the last show he did for ITV (can't remember the title) was poor - the format was awful and the whole thing was as flat as a pancake!

Didn't Marco do something for ITV1 other than Hells Kitchen which bombed? The trouble with cookery formats is TV has been so flooded with them it's quite difficult to establish something new.


C4 claim Hollyoaks was up in 2011 on 2010 and in 2012 is up 5% for 16-34s from Jan-Mar and a whopping 35% on E4 for the same period.
http://www.channel4.com/info/press/n...th-nokia-lumia

The ratings still don't look great to me though and I think any relative success now is mainly due to it being in a lull so long.


It's quite strange isn't it how pretty much since BB4 at least (probably BB3 too) the launch has been significantly higher than the second episode.

As for last years figures - for people like myself who remember the last series as getting arounf 1.2m a figure of 1.4m doesn't look too bad. For those who quote last series at 1.7m - doesn't look so great. Relatively speaking though for BB on C5 I think they'd be happy enough with that - indeed I think anything over 1m will be seen as a success for them.

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