I thought the bit where they showed pics of viewers wearing cowboy hats said it all. Hardly riveting stuff and nobody missed much by dressing up and sending in silly pictures of themselves whilst it was on. Background tv, nothing more. 4m might have it on in their homes, but how many are truly watching it? And how many just have it on whilst they do their crossword or something?

It must be background tv of many. Left on after the news programmes.

Edit - Opps just seen Dancc said the same!

God I miss seeing stuff like Telly Addicts on weeknights on BBC1 at 7pm.

Putting two new episodes of Family Guy on Sunday night appeared to help BBC Three recover from the awful share The Batman Shootings received. The wrong presenter was used and a rush job.

Zai Bennett appears to be trying to get another 'name' onto the Three roster with Fashanu's daughter, but I think that particular programme should have been produced after the trial and presented by a journalist or Stacey Dooley who's docs rate well.

Seven had a good night with The X Factor launch and GCB premiere. I guess Up All Night double episode didn't do that well after, since the numbers are nowhere to be seen. Nine is having a huge decline week-on-week with Big Brother and Underbelly (didn't Underbelly get something like 1.7m last week?). I think Nine should give up on Gordon Ramsay now. That's another show that Gordon struck out for the network.

As for Ten, oh dear. Modern Family repeats are struggling, Don't Tell The Bride tanked and is now affecting Can of Worms, which was the only decent "new episode" show. It makes me wonder how I Will Survive will fare when it premieres tonight. I used to think somewhere around 1.3m-1.4m, but now looking at how ALL Ten's reality shows have been doing, they will be lucky if they even get 800k. The Shire should be axed immediately and their tapes burnt, so people will never have to see the light of day of this atrocious shit. Seriously, 251k is really pathetic for 9:45pm and even Ten's standards.

Once again, whoever is the programmer for Ten should get fired. The all-reality 7:30pm weekly lineup is clearly not working. If new and/or existing FOX/CBS produced shows proves to be a hit in the US, perhaps Ten should focus on that more. They should also focus on creating more scripted shows, since Offspring did decently well and Puberty Blues had a promising start.

The Newsroom on SoHo premiered to 90k, whilst regular time slot premiere for Seven's Up All Night attracted 470k, beating The Shire and Gordon Ramsay.

It looks like Seven's decision to delay the X Factor a week has worked wonders, Big Brother and Underbelly both down by over 500,000 on last week. Home and Away nalso seemed to benefit with higher numbers than last week despite the main events now being over.

Ten doing awful as ever. I do actually like The Shire (prefer it to TOWIE and Geordie Shore) but it really hasn't resonated with an audience. Perhaps this stuff is better suited to digital channels, I'm sure once Seven's Brynn Edlestein (or whatever her name is) doc airs we'll see whether these have a place on TV or not

That first bit, is well said and obviously true.

As for the Heather Trott murder, yes EE is a bit without a long term plan at the moment, that is what comes of having a new producer. However I really think this storyline does most of what you ask, its certainly changed Billys relationship with Jay. That Ian was involved was not THAT odd, given he is Bens brother, but I thought the wild card they played with Ian was a different way to move closer to the reveal.

Not to discuss this in too greater detail, but we have known for a while Max has some sort of secret, and I do worry about Sharon getting ever closer to the Branning pack, so its not like this is totally unplanned.

I don't know how normal my viewing habits are (probably not that ) but I very rarely watch something when it is actually on.

Every thing is put on the programme planner and left to record. I'm not bothered what's on before or after, I'm not bothered what channel it's on. If I want to watch it I will, and if I don't then <shrug>. Things are carefully crafted and the +1 is used when there is a clash.

Even if I watch things at the time, I always give programmes on channels with adverts a good 15-20 minutes before starting to watch. Even a non-ad channel gets 5 mins head start. I must be an advertisers worst nightmare. I haven't seen an ad for years.

You and I are not the norm!! But don't forget the overwhelming majority of Freeview homes don't have a PVR.

Plus of course a lot of viewing is done in other rooms of the house. So even if there is a PVR in the lounge, the chances are there aren't others around the house..

But in previous years, they use ratings for the entire programme. Same with Champions League finals. I prefer to use the entire programme because then you have consistency across all football matches irrespective of year.

- Silent Witness: 4.83m
- RuthRendellsThirteenStepsDown: 2.7m/11.2%
- #IanBrady documentary draws 1.7m/7%

What the hell happened there? Awful for Thirteen Steps Down.

It was crap. I tried watching the first episode and gave up after 20 minutes, it was so old fashioned looking, dreadfully cliched story and hammed up acting.

In the great game of trying to guess when DW starts, DW is in the Coming soon/next week bits of both TV and Radio Times, RT claims DW is back and has SM's exclusive ep guide and a free Dalek wallchart, And in TT its an Autumn Season special and says "the time lord carries Amy on their final Adventure together (they lie because the picture shown is the one with the Doctor carrying amy through fiery Daleks. Not sure if any of this means whether or not DW starts on Set 1st or the 8th but it says something I suppose.

Dallas is also in the Next issue bit of the TT. Chris Evans on't radio yesterday said Wednesdays with Double ep start.

We watched it on one of the 24 HD channels (so we got all the dives and none of the chat). Looks like it may have been Olympics 2, which got 1.033m on Saturday at 20.25.

Dreadful opening fortnight so far for ITV1 drama :/

I think there's probably a decent number of people out there who don't plan their viewing to that extent. Specifically for new shows though (especially those that don't really fit a channels 'branding') a strong lead-in is somewhat important. Just to get that initial sampling and eyes on the network. If for example you're watching Coronation Street and ITV are plugging a new drama during that, that starts immediately after it then I suspect there's more chance of viewers sticking around to at least see what that's like than telling them its on, on a Sunday after a repeat of The Cube which they won't be watching.

SPOTY 2012 - Excel London - Sunday 16th December

Strictly Final - Saturday 22nd December

These will be official in a couple of days....

So will it be Sports Personality of the Year v XFactor Final on 16 Dec?

Sports personality can rate extremely well this year because of Olympic success. XFactor final is screwed if it wants to rate as well as last few years ! My prediction is Strictly come dancing will be top entertainment final this year.

Just read DS Soaps article, EastEnders even with the aftermath of its big week of storylines got lower share than Emmerdale

Pretty sure TXF Final will be on the 9th this year if they stick with last year's dates.

I thought XFactor normally says that the winner has a chance of Christmas Number One? Is the 9th of December the week eligble for Christmas Number One or is it the following week?

They're probably getting the weak one(s) out of the way first. Really bad for 13 Steps Down.

Think Mrs Biggs and Mr Selfridge have hit written all over them, however. I can't call if Monroe will do well. Could see Selfridge pulling 7-8 million.

EastEnders still floundering I see...

EE isn't that bad quite frankly:

CS1 - 7.37m (36.4%) (+1 201k)
CS2 - 7.81m (34.1%) (+1 214k)

Em - 5.89m (32.4%) (+1 185k)

EE - 7.06m (31.9%) (Three 778k)

No 'big week' effect anyway; but its not had a negative effect.

Celebrity Big Brother soars to 2.17m last night.