I saw some of it, but I don't think CS had an omnibus back then. Remember it was still a two episodes a week show.

Here's the Christmas TV schedule for ITV in 1987

https://sites.google.com/site/ukchristmastv/itv1987

Note the hour-long Corrrie repeat on Sunday 27th at 5.15pm. IIRC this repeat was a one-off for Christmas. This will be ITV hoping to match the success of Eastenders Christmas Day 1986 (when Den Watts gave Angie her divorce papers as a Christmas present - greatest, cleverest Christmas Day soap storyline ever, but on the down side, this is responsible for all the contrived Christmas Day soap storylines that have followed ever since). because EE's 30m audience included 10m watching the Sunday afternoon omnibus.

CS had been badly dented by the success of EE in its early days. I can remember as a teen EE and Brookside being the in soaps to watch, while CS was classed as a show for old people. Yet fair play to them for winning Christmas Day for ITV in 1987 after years of ITV being soundly beaten in the Christmas ratings by BBC1.

Brookie was massive in the 80s and early 90s. But, I remember Brookie just being massively sensational with its storylines towards the mid-late 90s and it got to a point where all it was was explosions and murders, the 2002 siege being an example of this. But I applaud the way it wasn't scared of tackling controversial topics and was gritty, no wonder it was so popular with the youth.

Hmm, I was wondering how that was going to do, because as has been mentioned I don't think people are particularly enthused about Olympic football (and rightly so, it shouldn't be in the Olympics) and certainly not for a warm-up match. But it didn't do so badly.

I really fear for Angelos given its weak ratings for show one and the fact that show two was very similar, so given it's opposite the Opening Ceremony next week I wonder if it might be looking at a zero rating. Which would be a shame because it looks to be by the far the most interesting as Gazza's on it.

TV's Biggest Blockbusters was a fairly bog-standard show, notably they didn't licence any clips of Millionaire (which is bizarre given it's a current ITV show) and The Sweeney while the Torvill and Dean clip clearly came off YouTube with American commentary. But nice to see Mike Yarwood finally getting the credit he deserves.

Jake Humphrey tweeting for everyone to switch to ITV - that's more like it!

People seem to forget about Mike Yarwood now. At his peak in the late seventies he had 18 million viewers.

Brookside was an innovator in many ways as it had an omnbus when no other soap did and wasn't filmed in a studio. It peaked at 7 million viewers in 1995 with the Beth Jordache storyline, but then it progressively became more far fetched. Ratings halved by 1999 and by the time it finished it was struggling to get 500,000 viewers.

Different ratings system, not comparable with today's figures; similarly the 28 million attributed to a Morecambe and Wise BBC1 Christmas special although undoubtedly it had a large audience.

Ah the Saturday omnibus. Memories...

A more conservative estimate is 21 million, although the BBC are keen to quote the 28 million for the 1977 show. However, it did seem at the time everyone had watched it.
Also Bond premieres were enormous back in the day. ITV quoted 26 million for the premiere of Dr No and, apart from the royal wedding, Live and Let Die was the most watched broadcast of the eighties.

This is what they discussed on the programme last night. He actually beat Morecambe & Wise even though they are seen as the pinicle of comedy and Yarwood is completely forgotten.

Yarwood left the BBC in 1982 and went to ITV, where he made a very below par series that was panned by the critics and he faded away. Seemingly for all ITV offered more money, Morecambe and Wise's career nosedived there as ITV lacked the scriptwriters the BBC had.
However, Benny Hill proved the opposite when he moved to Thames. He was given a lot bigger budget, given more freedom and his shows emptied the pubs in the seventies.

I think all the major sports of the world should be represented. Why shouldn't football be an Olympic sport?

This week the DS Ratings Prediction Game is having a twist...instead of predicting ratings we're going to be predicting when a media site actually publishes them.

Which may be easier, but alas, more boring. Instead, in this blind prediction week we're predicting how the likes of the EastEnders Special, Absolutely Fabulous, Bert and Dickie, Britain's Greatest Gold Medallists, Olympic Football and a certain Opening Ceremony will perform next week so why not have ago?

Click HERE for more details and to predict.

Good luck and thanks to all those who take part.

I'm very much of the opinion that Olympics should be the pinnacle of their respective sports. So football and tennis or Basketball would not be played for me.

I think that would be a very difficult criteria to judge, who's opinion counts as to whether a World Championship is bigger than an Olympics? It is in Football, but not in Swimming? Why not, according to whom, how come, what justification? Isn't that just penalising sports for being popular?

The IOC decides which to include by examining how widely practised the sport is around the World. I think this is pretty fair. And it's why Baseball is now out and Golf is coming back in.

.

Edit misunderstood your point .

DS have just posted the article for Wednesday's ratings, hopefully Thursday through to last night will follow...

Edit: Ignore

5.00 every Saturday, maybe Brookside having an omnibus persuaded the other soaps to follow suit, as EE had an omnibus from day one and CS and Emmerdale followed in the early 90s.

Sorry to be a horrible pain, but as DS have released Wednesday's figures and these haven't been reported I'm getting worried about the game - there aren't enough back ups to cover not having these ratings. If anyone has them, please can they be posted? Thanks.

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park 2012 - Wed 19.30 BBC Two
World's Fastest Train - Wed 20.00 Channel 5
The Wrestlers: Fighting with My Family - Wed 22.00 Channel 4

I'll live in hope that DS may report the Thursday/Friday/Saturday ones needed.

EDIT: Or maybe they won't for Thursday. Does anyone have the ratings for the following for the game please?

Natural World - Thu 20.00 BBC Two
Basketball: Great Britain v USA - Thu 19.00 BBC Three

Thanks.

The BBC will have Hugh Porter as their lead cycling commentator - who by my money is the best sports commentator around.

The ad breaks today though showed why ITV1 gave it coverage - a massive event a weekend out from the Olympics packed full with ads from Olympic sponsors. I suspect they've done quite well out of this weekend, though it'll be interesting to see what happens with the ratings, if anything.


Although the weather forecast should be just that, not a promo for their weekend sports coverage.

I cant help but wonder British Cycling is about to become a thing, people get excited by. I f I had not had my accident and stayed slim, I would like to think I would be alot more active cyclist than I am now, I did (and still do) used to love cycling, I just cant do it as much as I used to.

Fri 20 July:

MOTD: 3.10m
Great British Stories: 1.38m
Superstar: 2.67m
MPD: 1.53m
Big Brother- 9pm: 1.30m, 11pm: 922,000

Above figures are full-slot averages and exclude +1