Interesting how BBC1 regularly puts on over a million viewers at 6.30 for the regional news - and ITV try to tell us viewers aren't interested in local news.

Fairly decent across the board last night - pretty much as expected for the 9pm slots on both BBC1 and ITV1. They might have wanted a bit higher for Millionaire (that's about the same as it did on Tuesday?) but across the 3 days it has done alright. We'll see a lot worse before the summer is out.

How long does the Tour De France run? July will surely be another big month for ITV4's audience share thanks to this.

Sunday week for Le Tour. Interesting that what could be the stand-out British sporting triumph in this year of the Olympics, a British Wimbledon finalist and Euro2012, is buried away on ITV4.

If Wiggins does look like winning it over the coming week, I wonder if coverage might transfer to ITV1?

Excellent daily coverage btw.

Channel 5 had a strong night with the London Underground programme, just proves that if they have strong 8pm shows, it'll boost the rest of the lineup.

Some people are easily pleased. Must be a youngster who can't remember the good old days when seven million viewers was poor enough to get a programme taken off air or shunted to half past eleven at night.




Praise for ITV?!! ------

Nothing on ITV1 that afternoon that couldn't be ditched for the cycling (2pm to 5pm on ITV4). Wiggins is getting a few headlines in the media (in part because of his bad-tempered press conferences) but is it enough to get ITV1 a bigger-than-average Sunday afternoon audience for the final stage?

The Apprentice has been recommissioned for two more years, according to Broadcast.

I forgot to ask, have Channel 4 and Channel 5 still got Million Pound Drop and Big Brother Live on Opening Ceremony night?

Utterly ridiculous if either have.

BBC2 showed Springwatch as normal on Jubilee Concert night and ratings plummeted to 1m.

You couldn't blame C5 for showing BB that night because it's a daily show.

C4 have a history of dropping their normal schedule when another channel has a big event on. Comic Relief is the one that most springs to mind. (They sensibly decide not to put comedy on against comedy.) But if they want to show MPG that night, then that's their problem.

Channel 5 have Big Brother as normal, Channel 4 has Million Pound Drop but it's not live.

Don't really understand Channel 4 putting new programming against the Opening Ceremony, there is little point in putting Million Pound Drop against it, even if it is not live.

As for Big Brother, the eviction should be on another night, with the highlights show on at 20:00 on Friday to avoid the main part of the Opening Ceremony.

In this respect, ITV have made the sensible decision putting Emmerdale and Corrie from 19:00 to 20:30.

Volcano Live has not quite worked so not surprised that the ratings seem to reflect this.

I love geology (studied it at uni) but the geologist presenter is no Brian Cox (though he is quite good looking so easy to forgive).

Moreover, with Stagazing live you have a bit of variety. Here they have just wandered from one bit of solidified lava to another and it has become somewhat repetitive.

Not sure that the live format is really enhancing what could have just as easily been made as a 4 part recorded series (and then more tightly edited so better).

I hope there is no plan to try to follow Stargazing Live with a whole series of things and over work the format whilst chasing ratings like the various incarnations of Come Dine With Me.

However, the live tag has to really justify itself in other versions and given that volcanoes are not going to erupt to order and if they did then the cameras would be hastily retreating anyhow I am not sure how they thought this merited shipping a BBC unit to Hawaii for a week .

What next: Trainspotting Live? At least there would be things happening I suppose to justify it being live. Even our British rail system moves slightly faster than geological time so I guess it could be up next. Now if Brian Cox can explain the fare structure in our rail network as easily as Quantum Physics then it might just be worth it

So Channel Four-esque, in fact, they've already done this show, they did Britain's Most Watched TV in 2005. It was entertaining, as this'll probably be as well, but this and the Number One show are not really the kind of thing you want to see on primetime ITV.


And there's two of them on YouTube! 1980 is at http://youtu.be/4Qq831Tutoo and 1983 is at http://youtu.be/KG7kABliRxI

I too used to love this show, it actually did really rather well in the ratings but presumably there wasn't another series because they'd exhausted it all in the first series, though there was a Christmas special too - and of course the spin-off book. It was the same time they were doing TV Heaven as well, us telly-mad kids were well-served in those days. When Pip went to ITV he did Schofield's TV Gold though it wasn't the same, it was just Pip linking comedy clips, but they made a lot of them and I used to like it because it was in Pip's "house" and he got to do comedy material, which pleased me greatly.

It wasn't Pip's first primetime show, though, because in 1990 and 1991 he did Schofield's Europe, the series where he'd explore a different city every week. It was a CBBC production but it was officially aimed at family audiences, with the first series on Sunday teatimes and the second, in the autumn of 1991, on Thursdays at eight after EastEnders, not quite the cushy slot it might have been because it was opposite The Bill but I was still very surprised when it turned up there. Pip presumably had to give up all this extra-curricular stuff when he started doing Joseph.


Er, no, because they've never done it for any other Olympics and "during play" is a very strange description for the Olympics. They don't even have to show it all live, I don't mean they have to stockpile it but when they had the cricket when that was listed they would regularly break away from it for other sport and the news and that.

ITV did get fined when they shoved the second half of a World Cup match in 2002 to ITV2 but that was because ITV2 didn't qualify for the listed events and they didn't ask for permission before they did it.

Sad state of affairs when DS report on US ratings before UK numbers.

P.S. 4Seven doesn't have a +1, don't give them ideas.


Not to take anything away from TDF's superb figures on ITV4, on a good day Cricket on 5 can bring in over a million. I think the recent series against Australia got a bit lost amongst other sporting events. Interested to see how the first test against South Africa fares next week with most of the obvious distractions out of the way.

The programme received a big boost recently when it secured sponsorship from Toyota.

Yes, I noticed Simon Barnes in The Times the other day congratulating the ECB on their incredible ability to organise a series of cricket matches against Australia that absolutely nobody cares about.

Does anyone have the ratings for Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model (Monday, 9pm, Sky Living) and Super Tiny Animals (Wednesday, 8pm, ITV1) excluding +1 please?

Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model: 248k
Super Tiny Animals - 3.1m (source: Bushmills)

Big Brother on Tue 10 July had a tape-checked overnight average of: 1.33m (7.0%).

Thanks rzt and Bushmills.

Anything for Hot In Cleveland on Sky Living last night please?

Do you know why they put the second half on ITV2?

I think England played in the following match so they opted for extended build up on ITV1.

is that with or with out +1??

Without.

Oooooh the plot thickens aha...

Haha what do you mean?