To be honest I could see them just dropping it entirely. They actually moved the repeats to 5* this season where it's been doing okay relative to the main channel showing (around 200k on Tuesday nights) but not sure if it's worth keeping with these numbers, sadly.

Just to expand on the Walking Dead/True Blood comparison further, a quickie comparison:

The Walking Dead
Series 1 premiere: 1.46m (April 2011)
Series 2 premiere: 983k (May 2012)
Series 2 episode 9: 816k (July 2012)

True Blood
Series 1 premiere: 1.71m (October 2009)
Series 2 premiere: 1.03m (September 2010)
Series 2 episode 9: 610k (November 2010) <--- by this time, C4 had become impatient and it had lost its regular 10pm slot, airing instead at either 10.30pm or 11pm

Bottom line I think... these cult US cable shows do not work on a second run basis. First run rights are needed. All second run rights serve to achieve ultimately is to increase ratings for the original channel, i.e. FX in these two cases!

It was an absolute Brilliant episode last night

Good to see it's doing well

I did feel sorry for David Liddiment who really believed in Albion Market and wanted it to complement Coronation St on Granada and rival EE. He tried everything, including features in the TV Times, to get people to watch, but at the end of the day hopeless acting, weak plots and the fact it was against a massive sitcom on BBC1 meant the soap was doomed. I don't think ratings ever got above 3 million, bad enough now, but a disaster 26 years ago.

Article must have been written by a work experience boy/girl with no interest in television. DG Yentob?! I must have missed that...

I'm surprised people still watch this Sunset Beachesque crap, any londoner with taste avoids it like the plague, still it will be gone within the next ten years.

Opening Ceremony day schedule for BBC1:

9 - Olympics 2012
12 - Olympic Countdown
1 - BBC News & Weather
1:45 - Olympics 2012
5 - Olympic Countdown
6 - Six O'Clock News
6:30 - Regional News
7 - Olympics
9 - Olympics: Opening Ceremony
12:30 - Weather



Thanks to Elgin on OG. For those who don't know there's no sport that day - just a small amount of Archery preliminaries that they're unlikely to show. So it's continuous build up from 6am!

And for those wondering, there's been no attempt to diversify the BBC Two schedule. Except for the News at Ten moving across, it's a typical Friday for them.

The commercial channels meanwhile have basically ignored the Olympics and are running normal schedules.

Is that serious?

Not good.

Doesn't the football start two days before the opening ceremony, it usually does.Can you tell us which of the above involve Matt Baker and Fearne Cotton so I can avoid them.

Exactly - they take so long to hit FTA screens I guess people who don't have the channel go the download route (and in some cases the DVD route if available) instead.



Brilliant - at last they're giving it the build up it deserves. Presumably the torch relay will feature prominently during the day too - though there are no specifics on it's journey yet.

No football on the Friday.

So, they're giving a WHOLE day over to Olympics hype, but not actually showing any sport. Crackers

There were big stinkers in the 80s and 90s. Triangle was one, and obviously Eldorado. There was an interesting BBC documentary on Eldorado (repeated on UKTV Documentary at the time) which charts the failings of Eldorado. Quite ironic that as new producer Corinne Hollingworth steadied the ship and ratings rose that the show was axed. I think Tony Holland and Julia Smith had a falling out on the show, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4yRYQmMsLU

im going to have Digiguide hide anything that has word Olympic in the title, or description.

Programme info for the first three days of the first full week:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/

(Click Go below the TV week 31 box.)

Totally guessing, but the 10-10.30pm break on Saturday night suggests:
10pm News
10.20pm National Lottery Draws.

And the two hour break from 5-7pm on Sunday suggests:
5pm-7pm F1 highlights.

I'm not surprised to see continuous BBC1 coverage. I still think people are underestimating how huge this is and how big it's going to be. It's literally the biggest event in the World arriving in the UK after 7+ years of build up.

More details from week leading upto Olympics...

BBC ONE
Saturday
10.00-6.10 Golf: the Open

Sunday
12.35-7.00 Golf: the Open
Countryfile at 7.25, Casualty at 8.10.

Monday
8.30 A Question of Sport
9.00 EastEnders
9.30 Absolutely Fabulous
10.35 Tom Daley: Diving for Britain

Wednesday
3.00 World Olympic Dreams
3.30-6.00 Olympics 2012
7.30 Britain's Olympic Torch Story
8.00 EastEnders
8.30 Bert and Dickie

Thursday
3.00 Olympic Countdown
4.00 CBBC
5.00 Olympic Countdown
7.00-10.00 Olympics 2012
10.35 Absolutely Fabulous
11.05 A Question of Sport

ITV1
Saturday
8.30-10.30 TV's Biggest Blockbusters

Sunday
7.00 Britain's Secret Treasures
8.00-10.00 Dancing on Ice Goes Gold

Monday-Wednesday
Superstar live continues 9.00-10.30 (10.15 Tuesday)
Greatest Gold Medalists on Wednesday at 8.

Thursday
Boys v Girls The Big Sports Quiz at 9pm

Friday
The Unforgettable Ernie Wise at 9pm.

According to the F1 website they are BBC2 5.30pm-7pm on the Sunday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/17238688

But presumably they've been moved up to BBC1. I guess it will be preceded by the news and local news.

oops I appear to have hidden Cool Runnings on ITV 2

Yep, probably the News beforehand.

Brekkie will be pleased.

Sod all that - when's the beach volleyball on?
I need to find my long stained mac to wear while I'm watching it.

Also of interest that week BBC Three goes 24 hours from Friday. Obviously it'll be Olympics all the way from Saturday, but the Friday gives them a chance to imagine what it would be like if they were on all day. This is what they've gone for:

6.00 Total Wipeout; 7.00 FILM: The Magic Roundabout; 8.15 Doctor Who; 9.00 The Real Hustle; 10.00 Great Movie Mistakes; 11.00 FILM: First Daughter; 12.45 Doctor Who; 1.30 Snog, Marry, Avoid?; 2.30 Don't Tell the Bride; 3.30 FILM: Revenge of the Bridesmaids; 5.00 Snog, Marry, Avoid?; 6.00 Don't Tell the Bride.

Demographic Information for BBC1 and ITV1 for Monday 2nd to Sunday 8th July: http://i46.tinypic.com/flv68o.jpg

Don't think so, I reckon if that was on BBC2 it would have done perfectly well. But the kind of people who had already watched that series on YouTube are probably exactly the same people who would have Sky Atlantic, and a DVD release has already been announced.

And Partridge is still an excellent character, the Places Of My Life special (which I watched on Sky One) was well up to standard. The only thing that's wrong with it is that it's on Sky.