But competing head on with BBC One and the old BBC Television Service was always ITV's strength. Making more upmarket drama instead of low brow, forgettable entertainment means more ABC1s, better advertising revenue and more long term profits in repeats, exports and DVDs. ITV in the past always had this cunning combination of more earthy fare like Benny Hill mixed with BBC style programming like Weekend World.

That's the Key. They need a mix. A good mix of both makes a good mainstream channel. ITV1 has some big problems at the moment. There Breakfast show, Tuesdays, Aging programs, The Summer. It looks bleak. However I do think they can turn it around. There is no big variety show anymore like Morecambe and Wise. Talent shows aren't the only shows that get big ratings. There are other alternatives.

Ken

With the transfer of New York Housewives and Jeremy Kyle USA to ITV1 indicates where they are heading.

This is what I've said for years, while their niche channels do the job and I'm a huge fan of ITV4, the main channel seems to be in a real mess. Breakfast is just the same tired, busy mums cliche GMTV was, their morning shows are absolute drivel, a lot of their entertainment shows are ancient( YBF was first shown in 1991) and, as you say, summer is a dead loss. Also the overkill with the soaps is starting to harm them.
ITV need to keep the traditional fans happy with their earthy fare, but need to win back viewers from the BBC and Sky with more intelligent drama and a bit more factual. This was always the network's strength in the past and why it was always ahead of BBC 1.

You've Been Framed may be 21 years old but to be fair it's in better shape now than it was a decade ago and is one of the last things they should be axing - although it repeats well enough for them they could axe it and still air repeats for years before anyone noticed.

The thing with ITV is most of their flops (in entertainment and factual at least) are out and out flops from the outset - if we can see it, why can't they? Obviously there are others which don't perform as well as expected - though I do think with Superstar it's a case of it suffering from being jammed into the schedules as they really could have done with it in a non-football championships year so it could be stripped on Saturdays over the summer.

another thing being that the upper levels of ITV management have said that they want more ITV Productions commissions from ITV, not only for ITV 1, but for other TV channels around the world.

I know twitter means nowt in terms of ratings but it wasn't even trending earlier. Most of the top 10 was about The Temple of doom.

Maybe people just aren't interested in the Cube? I recall that it used to do a bit better in numbers a few years ago.

I caught Superstar earlier and thought it was a really good show! It deserves to be rating better.

I am watching Mad, Mad World... I think it's great that ITV1 are trying out a new panel show in the late Saturday slot but I haven't found this very funny yet. On the other hand, that Sunday Night Show is a brilliant panel show with Adrian Chiles. Any word on if that's coming back?

I think Mad, Mad World could have become as popular as Celebrity Juice, but I'm not finding it as funny as CJ. Keith Lemon really makes that show.

As with many of ITV's Saturday night shows, they do alright when they have an X Factor/BGT crutch but when they have to fend for themselves they dont really get much of an audience.

Some of the time these shows struggle with the crutch. We see ratings dive from around 10m to 2m in two minutes flat (or climb from 2m to 10m).

The Doctor will see you.....in six weeks.

For several years now, ITV have been putting a huge amount of emphasis on in-house development. Nor did they ever stop developing new series.

ITV network doesn't need to (and legally can't) make all its shows in-house. Nor does it make any sense. There are precious few good ideas in television. It would be a mixture of arrogance and foolishness to believe that all the people with the good ideas are working at ITV Studios.


They are trying - they have hired a remarkable number of senior figures to drive forward ITVS entertainment development. Poaching one of Simon Cowell's top executives won't come cheap. And she isn't the only new addition recently.

But they don't need to find an ITVS show. Sure that would be a great bonus for ITV plc. But for ITV1 they just need to find that hit - regardless of where that comes from. Chances are that it comes from an independent production company (and quite possibly not one based in the UK). Could be Syco, could be Endemol or Fremantle or a company we've never heard of.


For ITV, the only ones that spring to mind are The Chase and Piers Morgan's Life Stories.

Then again, there have hardly been many global format hits in the past few years. The Voice being the big one and then you've got X Factor sales taking off fuelled by its UK success and UK launch.

Fremantle UK have had Take Me Out and Celebrity Juice from the past 5 years. Can't think what has come out of BBC's in-house entertainment team? Endemol have had Million Pound Drop, Pointless and Total Wipeout.


You've already pointed out that those "worthless" shows make ITV tens of millions of pounds and stand as the most profitable shows on television.

Nor are they ever going to fill Saturday night with drama. You can't have drama on every single corner of the schedule.

So DW returns on August 25. Is it confirmed? If it is, I told you so.

That means Merlin can start on September 29. Perfect!

Matt Smith said it'd be August today, and the 25th is the only day it can be, unless the Edinburgh tv festival is previewing it after it airs. Which would be odd.

Not a surprising date for Doctor Who, just as long as the Beeb don't put it on at 6pm...

Now that Radio Times has got around to Friday 27th, here is the detail for that days schedule:

BBC One
06:00 - as normal
12:00 - Olympics 2012: Countdown
13:00 - as normal
17:00 - Olympics 2012: Countdown
18:00 - as normal
19:00 - Olympics 2012: Opening Ceremony Countdown
21:00 - Olympics 2012: Opening Ceremony
24:30 - Weather
24:35 - Joins BBC News

BBC Two
19:30 - The Great British Story: A People's History
20:30 - Gardeners' World
21:00 - A Year in the Wild
22:00 - BBC News at Ten
22:30 - Newsnight
23:00 - Lottery Draws
23:10 - FILM: The Shipping News

ITV1
19:00 - Emmerdale
19:30 - Coronation Street
20:30 - Vera (R)
22:30 - ITV News and Weather
23:05 - The Big Sports Quiz (R)

Channel 4 - as normal

Channel 5 - as normal

And the descriptions for each programme:

12:00 - Having arrived from Greece on May 18, the Olympic flame has been carried around the UK for the past 69 days, with almost 8,000 bearers bringing the excitement of the Games to the thousands of well-wishers who turned out to greet them. Today the torch is making its final journey through the streets of London toward the Olympic Stadium, where tonight it will be used to light the cauldron - a sign that the 30th Olympiad has begun. Sophie Raworth and Jane Hill follow the final day of the relay, and look ahead to the opening ceremony and the 16 days of exciting sporting competition to follow.

17:00 - With four hours to go before the eyes of the world are focused on the East End of London, Sophie Raworth presents live coverage as excitement mounts in anticipation of an event not held in the UK since 1948.

19:00 - Seven years after the announcement that the 2012 Olympic Games were to be held in London, the moment has finally arrived. One billion people are expected to be watching worldwide as an 80,000 capacity crowd fills the purpose-built stadium in the East End for the official start of the 30th Olympiad. This live programme follows the run-up to the ceremony, with BBC reporters capturing the atmosphere in the Olympic Park as crowds and dignitaries arrive to take their seats, and around the rest of the UK as people eagerly anticipate 16 days of sporting competition.

21:00 - The countdown is over - now the ceremony begins with a show produced by Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle. The chime of the largest harmonically tuned bell in Europe is the cue for the cast of 10,000 volunteers to take the stage in a pageant about a land recovering from its industrial legacy. It promises country scenes, with families taking picnics, farmers tilling the soil and people playing sports on the village green, on a set featuring real farmyard animals and landmarks like Glastonbury Tor. But further details are being kept strictly under wraps. The panorama also includes two mosh-pits, representing the Glastonbury festival and the Last Night of the Proms, while the music - if recent reports are to be believed - is an eclectic selection ranging from the Beatles to the Monty Python theme tune. The performance is followed by the athletes' parade, in which more than 200 countries are represented. Then the Queen will carry out the official opening, before the arrival of the Olympic flame, when the identity of the final torchbearer - who has the honour of lighting the cauldron that will burn for the next 16 days of competition - will be revealed. Sue Barker, Gary Lineker and Huw Edwards are among the presenters and commentators.

Ratings for The Cube?

I'd be surprised if anything rated over 4 million last night

I'd be surprised if it rated anything less. It was beaten so it must have gotten it's highest ratings ever. Just waiting for them to come through.

Nothing is ever confirmed until it happens, but it's the nearest thing you'll get to confirmation for a month.


Without wishing to blow my own trumpet too much, I said last Autumn that the first part of this new series would be on mainily during September !!!

Only thing I watched was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on BBC1.

The Cube averaged 3.1m/17.4% (3.3m inc +1) which is pretty standard for it away from X Factor.

More here.

At least Superstar was broadly flat instead of dipping further. Nation's Favourite Number 1 is more suited to Saturday - although the rating was only very slightly higher than last week it looks a bit less dismal than it did on Sunday.

Awful Ratings for Big Brother...... 870,000.

2nd lowest rating ever.

How can it be the second lowest ever when it excludes +1 and a number of Saturday episodes last series rated around this mark?

It's a bad rating, probably fuelled by the wrong person going on Friday, but not the second lowest.

For example, it had 886k for the October 15 episode. Unless it only brought in 16k on +1 last night which I doubt, it ain't the second lowest ever.

Not even headline worthy really. The real story was another set of dire figures for ITV1.