I think The Times wins the best cover competition.

NEW PENSION TAX RIP-OFF - The Daily Express really capturing the mood of the nation!

The Times is the best of the lot, IMO. By far the best broadsheet cover. The Mirror's is good as well - same picture as a few others but far bigger and the headline is better too.

Meredith Vierra has been interviewing Danny Boyle for The Today Show.

He revealed a few things in the ceremony. The most interesting is that The Queen's entrance to the ceremony is "weather dependant".

And Meredith is rumoured to have seen the rehearsal of the lighting of the cauldron and commented "If they pull it off, it will go viral in minutes. It's fantastic."

Jon Snow said its the "most extraordinary Olympic cauldron that any of us have ever seen. It is absolutely fantastic."

I love that picture on The Times front page it's beautiful. The Mirror's front page is great as well. I'm looking forward to the opening ceremony. The clips today just wet my appetite for the rest of the ceremony

They evidently do though. Compare Charles and Dianas wedding to William and Kates.

I think it'll be Jubilee Concert territory myself, perhaps lower because of the late finish.

London 2012: Beware billions bollocks. Ceremony to be huge TV hit, but not that huge

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/...at-huge260701/

Interesting blog with some cold hard facts

My final prediction:

22.7m average, 26.3m peak.

They did that for the Royal Wedding and the Jubilee as well, and will do it every single week until they close down or EastEnders is axed.

This may be of interest...
http://broken-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2012...tched-and.html

Well, it's here.

Does anyone remember the ratings for the Royal Wedding build-up last year? Answer, you don't, because the figures were mediocre, 4m at best. Yet the rating for the wedding peaked with over 26m.

This date has been promoted to death for the past 7 years, and anything other than a massive peak would be very disappointing with the amount of preparation.

Out of office Autoreply:

ITV1 is now on holiday until Monday 13 August 2012. For chavs and tat please tune to ITV2, for Horlicks and slippers drama please see ITV3. For anything else, we will get back to you when we return. Enjoy the Games, see you in a fortnight.

Please note this message will not be forwarded.




Brilliant front pages today, and a festive atmosphere on BBC Olympic Breakfast, which will no doubt build across BBC1 programming today. But is the nation really enrapt about the whole affair?

I did expect more at this stage, and I do just wonder if the OC tonight, whilst big, is going to fall short of what we hoped for. I have said guaranteed 20m+ average and a peak of anything from 22/25/30m for years now, but I am getting cold feet. It's a massive broadcast tonight, Lineker is flagging it as "from 7pm" when it isn't really and I wonder how many will go the distance. And over 5.5 hours, people will come and go - the reach will be spectacular, but is there one single point in time when everyone will tune in. Is it 9pm for the start of the OC or around whatever time the cauldron gets lit/the big finish - I have no idea when the "climax" is going to be. Things like that matter.


They are doing special covers every day apparently, and did a brilliant one on Monday of Wiggins in the yellow jersey. The Times is a super newspaper and I constantly implore people to try it.


Let the carping and grousing begin...

I also wonder if BBC1 might roll out an Olympics ident today? They have been running their "x days to go" sting now for a month and for a channel with a series of identifiers based on circles, you can't get better than an aerial shot of the stadium, as the "x days to go" sting uses.

Be a shame if they just use the "stadium Mexican wave" one for the duration.

Maybe this isnt the place for a mature discussion? Its all kids on Christmas Eve stuff. Interesting for a while but who wants that for 3 weeks.........

Watching BBC News, and I'm quite surprised this is not on BBC1 either.

Looks like this place will be pages and pages of sports waffle for the next 3 weeks, and little else. Shame that it's getting more and more difficult to find actual ratings posts in here.

There might be one or two in the morning....

What's happening? Am at work.

Ah yes, that 30 million you're expecting

To be fair, I didn't mean to be snippy and dismissive. It's a fair piece and certainly "on topic".

But if anyone on here was going to party-poop...

Or not. I think the reach will be key - the actual peak will be way below that with people coming and going over the evening. Perhaps 17-20m peak, some time after 9pm, realistically.

They had a live bit with Michelle Obama talking to the USA athletes earlier, and have been live at the archery and at the River Thames with the flotilla.

The News Channel studio is on Olympic Park too, by the way.

So, what's the guess? If I were going to do it, I'd turn the whole stadium into a giant Van Der Graaf generator, make everyone's hair stand up and finish it off by lighting the cauldron with a giant lightning strike!!!

(c)
K

I'm dreading we're going to completely screw it up. Reports today of hundreds being turned away from Lord's archery due to ticketing "confusion".

It's just a load of donuts who think they could get in when it's always been clear this wasn't available for spectators. I knew that.

Looks like ratings are delayed again.

Wonder if its because they might be so low?
I could not find one thing last night so had to watch stuff on the planner.