There's room for a soap centring around the police, I know The Bill was killed but I think ITV regret that (even though they won't admit it).

No risk, no reward, period. Invest in quality and viewers will appreciate it. To suggest there isn't an audience for a quality serial is absurd considering how successful the soaps still are (in relative terms) despite the haters.

And ITV is a different company now to the days of Charles Allen, who loved axing shows mid-run which, while financially a good idea, left viewers reluctant to commit to shows.



I quite agree. I can't help but think the Closing Ceremony won't be as good as the phenomenal opening but it could easily eclipse it in numbers because as you said, Olympic fever has hit the nation.

So proud of Team GB and the BBC, it's an example of PSB at its finest.

The momentum has been building since midweek and it'll probably roll into next week. It's been an amazing couple of days for Team GB, and I'm thoroughly enjoying the coverage. Slightly angry at myself that I didn't record last night's live coverage of Ennis, Rutherford and Farah winning but I suppose recording Olympics Tonight is a mere consolation.


Well from 1988-1998, The Bill was scheduled like a soap, initially twice-weekly and then thrice-weekly from 1993 onwards, but its episodes were largely self-contained and crimes were often resolved within the episode, so apart from multi-part episodes, there wasn't really a soap narrative. It rated well with 12 million up until 1997 time when docusoaps liken Driving School accounted for a decline in figures, and then the following year, against Changing Rooms and Vets in Practice, was barely able to scrape 7m, pretty poor for 1998. In August, it was revamped to initially 1 hour-long ep on Tuesdays and then later on two hour-long episodes, one on Thursday.

The rumours are that Doctor Who will return on Saturday 25th August and it seems right as it started on the last saturday in August last year aswell. Unsure of the time however and yes I am looking forward to it aswell

Also Well Done to Andy Murray & Ben Ainslie today

Could it launch the same day as X Factor I wonder?

The next few months will be huge, with Downton Abbey, X Factor, Strictly and Doctor Who returning to screens.

ITV are brining The Bill back, they just wont admit it.

True Crime

Sounds good. Crap name though.

That's a daytime show, not primetime like The Bill.

But what's the point in cutting Emmerdale and Corrie down and launching a new soap because you'd then have exactly the same number of slots filled with soap as you've got now, presumably with the same sort of ratings (although you'd have to hope the new one catches on, which it might not) but with the expense of having three casts, three studios, three production teams and all the other costs of setting up and making a series.

If Emmerdale's in such a state you'd be better off dropping it completely, not cutting it down because you'll still have all the expense as well as the public embarrassment of virtually admitting it's no good. Why not spend all the money you'd have to spend on a new soap just improving the ones you've already got? It's like when people say this Morning is declining so it should be cut to an hour, you've still got to fill that hour and it's clearly more cost-effective to get as much out of an existing show than starting a new one from scratch.

Glenn may say the same thing over and over again but the chances of a new soap being launched by ITV are miniscule because they've already got two primetime behemoths and launching another one would be a complete admission of defeat, that they can't think of anything else that would rate. And people don't have the time to commit to another soap, I suspect a large number of people probably only watch Emmerdale about three times a week already, if they cut it down and launched a new soap they wouldn't automatically migrate to the new soap, they'd just not watch.

What may well be the case is that they'll launch some limited run pre-watershed dramas in the hope that one of them might catch on and they can run it in increasingly long runs and eventually maybe turn it year round, like The Bill. But they wouldn't launch a new soap straightaway because there's too much at stake if it doesn't catch on.

If Emmerdale is flagging, you don't spend money on another soap and starve Emmerdale of further resources, if there's money about - which there isn't - you give it to Emmerdale to spend on a bigger cast and better writers. If it still declines, you axe it completely.

if its successful, it will move to primetime


when I saw the pilot, it was called "999" which isnt much better, but both names are typical of the kind of daytime documentary this drama, is pretending to be.

EE and Brookie launched in the eighties when we still only had four channels and ITV's schedules weren't swamped with soap.

At one time ITV did have 3 big soaps in Corrie, Crossroads and Emmerdale. Crossroads sometimes beat Corrie and Emmerdale in the ratings despite being on at teatime! but the amount Corrie and Emmerdale are on alone would make it near impossible for them to have a third soap now.

As for EE's 30m in 1986 whether it was one showing or two it's a phenomenal figure. It was the industry standard for figures to be aggregated in the 80s if people have a problem with it take it up with BARB but don't exclude amazing figures for EE from any top shows list due to sour grapes. Corrie has never hit 30m.

Unbelievable! I spend a week wondering if that 24.35m OFAH figure would be topped as the biggest single TV audience of all time and they only go and tie! (including 3d, as we must)

Do we have the figures to 3dp so we can split them?

Sensational numbers last night. Could we get 18, 19, 20m tonight for the pinnacle event of the Games?

The highest rating for Coronation St was 26 million on Christmas Day 1987 when Hilda Odgen left. Going back twenty years usually CS and EE were neck and neck, with 17-18 million viewers.
When Emmerdale had Farm in the title, it was a distant third behind CS and Crossroads. Crossroads at its peak in the late seventies pulled in 17 million viewers, double what Emmerdale Farm attracted( and this was only shown for half a year). However, the decline on Crossroads set in when Noele Gordon left after the motel caught fire and audience figures fell to 10 million and then fell to 8 million in the year before it was axed. Even when it was axed, it was still a million ahead of Em Farm.

Also rarely mentioned when it comes to soaps is the predominance Aussie ones had on ITV in the afternoons in the late eighties/late nineties. Although many of these would be excruciating to sit through now, as the acting and sets were terrible, shows like A Country Practice attracted a loyal audience.

We can add the BBC News figures to that as the ceremony was simulcast on there too!

Ha I love that Crossroads was still ahead of Emmerdale when it was axed. I didn't know that!

Crossroads was axed due to politics, not ratings, it could so easily have been one of the other ITV soaps. Crossroads went through a really bad patch in the late 80s, I remember a feature on Right to Reply about the (lack of)quality of it, but it did seem to be getting itself sorted just before they pulled the plug like Eldorado.

As for soaps that were axed after Eldorado, there was Family Affairs but I wouldn't say that was a failure, it ran for 8 years and seemed to be getting average ratings for C5 when they ditched it. Again that seemed more like politics.

Chuff knows why we're discussing EastEnders today, but rather than "artificial inflation", it was probably a case of simply not understanding the ratings. Only the weekly BARB books included breakdowns for multiple screenings. Every other source presented them as one figure, so only an absolute anorak (like us!) would know. And, judging by the BARB annual Top 10s on the website, a lot of those breakdowns from the 1980s/early 1990s might have been lost by now, because some multiple screenings are treated as one.

A couple of the BARB annual charts have missed EastEnders out altogether, in error.

Coro didn't get 26m on Christmas Day. It aggregates at least one repeat showing/omnibus, as ITV experimented with repeats like BBC1 was doing to devastating effect with EE. IIRC, the Ogden Coro got 18m or so - like it did every wet Wednesday in November...

Family Affairs pulled in ok viewers true, but it was never very cheap, and Channel 5 were never satisfied with its ratings, maybe never understanding that it was never going to be a big hit.

It was revamped time after time, even moved to London at one point, and then Pete Callan left, sealing the shows fate.Sadie leaving didnt help the show either.

Truth is the show only ever broke ground, like a soap with the Costello family., after that it did feature a gay Muslim long before EastEnders did.

To be fair the book doesn't 'artificially inflate' the figures it just doesn't refer to the omnibus being included.

Crossroads was also a victim of ITV's attempts to move upmarket as BBC1 was starting to overtake them in the ratings under Michael Grade. Crossroads was mainly watched by elderly C2DE viewers and research by Central revealed its viewers read The Daily Star more than any other paper. It was a part of a cull at ITV against what were seen as elderly, downmarket shows that included a lot of their variety, World of Sport and Crossroads.
However, credit where credit is due, Crossroads lasted for 24 years, could be very amusing at its height( Amy Turtle was in the KGB), had an ace theme tune and 17 million people loved it during the seventies.

I doubt it will. Doctors has become successful and it's never been moved to a primetime slot.

the difference between the BBC and ITV

That makes sense. Unfortunately, before Emmerdale can improve, the people involved have to admit to themselves that it has problems, but I don't know if that's going to happen.

At least some people at the BBC realised things weren't right with EastEnders, and have taken some drastic steps in the last few months, with the aim of putting things right.


Not as quiet as GeorgeS.

Yes a few years ago EE was in a rough patch and you had Garry Bushell gleefully predicting its demise, but it has pulled round and performs well.
Emmerdale is on too much, which is stretching the cast and scriptwriters abilities. It would be better off losing the extra episode, having more resources put in and getting some really big names to join- have they ever considered hiring Kate O Mara? I don't want Emmerdale axed, as ITV would flounder, but it needs some emergency surgery.