It was only three months ago that a new talent show was getting 10.7m. The fact that it screwed up after that owes more to format flaws and poor production. I think it's still an area of huge interest to the public and the ratings show it. The situation in the US is slightly different - everything is down and new series are underperforming. In the UK, it's not as straightforward and we've just seen a big new series.

I'd love to see ITV or the BBC take a shot on a big primetime project that wasn't a talent show. In fairness, ITV did try it with Red or Black. The one thing I can sympathise with in the format was the idea of trying to do a gameshow on the scale of the big talent shows. Just the wrong gameshow!

According to both the BBC and ITV, nobody is coming to them with large scale entertainment series for Saturday nights. Which surprises me because with the increasingly huge indies they have the money and talent to be able to put something together. And the rewards are tremendous.

There was a repeat of Midsomer Murders but nothing else. Don't know News ratings.

What about CountryWise?

And it aired on a Tuesday.

Then again, it looks like Saturdays are ITV's problem night now...


I heard he broke down in tears, so gutted was he not to have obliterated Emmerdale and Corrie in the ratings.

When that rain delay came, I so felt he was going to do it...

I do think the difference with these musical shows is it's very much about the talent on stage rather than the judges. We can also be thankful that Superstar is Barrowman free.

It would be great to see a Saturday night show that isn't just a format - indeed I was thinking with Let's Get Gold how the acts would be better suited as one slot of a bigger entertainment format rather than a show in it's own right.

And talking of Vernon Kay and ITV's search for a summer hit I think they kind of cut their nose of to spite their face in axing both Beat the Star and The Whole 19 Yards, both of which rated over 4m.

Both those shows were never received very well in this thread, I'd assumed they rated lower than that.

From Wikipedia:

The Whole 19 Yards (Saturdays)
Episode Airdate Viewers
#1 17 April 2010 4.52m
#2 24 April 2010 4.41m
#3 1 May 2010 4.31m
#4 8 May 2010 4.44m
#5 15 May 2010 4.46m
#6 22 May 2010 Under 2.61m
#7 29 May 2010 4.68m
#8 5 June 2010 3.44m

Beat the Star (Sundays)
Series 1
Episode Date Total Viewers ITV Weekly Ranking
1 20 April 2008 5,250,000 16
2 27 April 2008 5,170,000 18
3 4 May 2008 3,800,000 20
4 11 May 2008 3,930,000 22
5 18 May 2008 3,900,000 20
6 25 May 2008 4,140,000 18
7 1 June 2008 4,930,000 20
8 22 June 2008 5,190,000 12

Series 2
Episode Date Total Viewers ITV Weekly Ranking
1 19 April 2009 5,590,000 15
2 26 April 2009 4,250,000 20
3 3 May 2009 3,600,000 22
4 10 May 2009 4,140,000 24
5 17 May 2009 4,230,000 18
6 24 May 2009 Under 2,760,000 Outside Top 30
7 31 May 2009 3,870,000 29

Not spectacular but certainly solid. Didn't realise Beat the Star was so long ago actually.

those ratings look "good" now, but they didnt at the time, and I for one panned ITV "Beat the Star" cant expect ITV to keep a flop around incase its replacement flops. NBC have been doing that for a few years now.

Have ITV had a summer series since though which averaged over 4m viewers?

19 Yards did alright - it wasn't regarded as a flop anyway albeit it didn't do particularly well either. Beat The Star did fairly well in a difficult slot and I believe its cancellation was blamed on cost.

The return of All Star Mr and Mrs suggests ITV are aware that they've made some bad decisions in this area. Particularly with Mr and Mrs which I'm guessing was cheap to produce.

How did the Confederations Cup used to rate for Channel5? Maybe Itv should get the rights to this next summer and show some games involving Brazil, Spain and Italy on Itv1 and the rest on itv4? Even though theyre all foreign teams, I bet it would rate better than some of the current rubbish.

That's because everyone up there imagines that everyone down here is as bitter and small-minded as they are.

It's been lower than that before.

Fortunately many many people are recording OUAT each week, so the actual audience is a lot higher than the overnights would suggest and most weeks it's been coming in near the 2m mark in the officials. Bad for advertisers I know but demos for it are reasonable.

1.64m is the current series low for the June 24 episode, affected by the England football match on the BBC.

im sure this was shown on BBC3 in 2009.Im guessing it'll be in Brazil next year so be intresting to see what the kick off times will be and if they'll be kind to the European audiences

8pm and 11pm I think.

Well they could attract 5-6 million people to ITV1. Sad thing is they were Sunday fixtures for quite a few years and did well and then they were dropped. I would have been quite happy for them to still be there and to drop the extra episodes during the week.

Murray's defeat was watched by 305,000 viewers on 7TWO in Australia last night, the most watched multichannel show of the day. The British Grand Prix which started around the same time over on One received a bit of a spanking - failing to make the top 20 - with viewership falling below 173,000, considerably less than the 238,000 who sampled the channel's MotoGP coverage earlier in the day.

On the main channels a particularly strong performance by Domestic Blitz (1.65m) gifted Nine the top show of Sunday. Ten's MasterChef (1.39m) and Seven's Downton Abbey (1.36m) won the 7.30pm and 8.30pm slots respectively, giving all three major networks something to cheer about.

You've obviously never watched wheelchair rugby, which I discovered at the last Paralympics. A sport so tough that they need a welder as part of the support team.

16.92m peak.

If only he'd taken it to a fifth set...

16.92m (67.89%) peak

https://twitter.com/Jake_Kanter/stat...46846045765632

Well how disappointing is that!

Ken

Despite the press hype and hysteria, tennis is very much second fiddle to soccer.

Yes it was a terrible rating for the Wimbledon final their. 16.92m is a awful peak I at least expected it to get 17 million!

In seriousness that is an excellent rating and well deserved.

Ken

Received mixed reviews but Sinbad got off to a cracking start for Sky 1 - should time shift close to 2m.


http://twitter.com/#!/dennytu/status/222248785231872000

Great rating for Wimbledon, albeit a real shame it didn't go to a fifth set as the peak would have probably past 20m then.