I'm worried. I'm organising a international search team to look for George. Rumour has it he's staying at an ostrich farm in the Maldives taking a very close look at the sand but should be back a week tomorrow.

not sure that is a good idea

yes ok in the past Kate was very sexy

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45594544@N08/5231185468/

now she is just a warning about the use of plastic surgery.

http://static.bbci.co.uk/programmeim...4ef5527e58.jpg

and yeah I know, real women age, blah blah blah, but that does note excuse the surgery.

I think 2012 has been an exciting year for TV, some of the highest ratings of the century, some amazing shares, as well as a few unexpected hits and flops... A great year for the BBC with new hit shows across previously difficult time slots in the first half of the year, and now a great summer of sport, however *cough* The Royal Bodyguard *cough* has had some tumbles as well... ITV have excelled in new areas, but some cracks are widening in those it used to reign over the BBC in... C4 and 5 have tried to some success to move on from older views of the channels, with C4 finding success with docudramas and C5 slowly moving away from over dependency on CSI, but both having some errors with the scheduling or application with flagship shows...

But this year truly belongs to the BBC celebrating 80 years of television broadcasting, with amazing ratings, talent and displays of innovation and diversity across all channels. 2013 will be nothing compared to 2012...


It's so nice to get back to scrolling through this thread after a holiday with no WiFi aha.... :

I heard he was down at the beach volley ball

Oh no, hope not. Might give him ideas for a new ITV1 post-watershed gameshow...

The BBC has also scored a major comedy hit with Mrs Brown's Boys. I'm confident Doctor Who will bounce back as the stories look far better than last year's. However, as you've pointed out, David Jason has scored his first flop for decades and the revival of Ab Fab was poor.
ITV, well nice to see ITV3 overtaking ITV2 at times and ITV4's coverage of Le Tour and the TT was excellent and fair play for them branching out into international tennis. However, we can't get away from the fact ITV2 is still trashy( BUT GIVES ITS AUDIENCE WHAT THEY WANT) and ITV1's new entertainment shows are a complete disaster and Daybreak is stalling.
As for Channel 4, too much of the same few shows, although Million Pound Drop does well for them and is good. Channel 5 seems to do OK on a limited budget and I like a lot of their films and factual, but I think it's time they axed BB but kept CBB, which is their biggest rater.

Emmerdale was on a real roll in 2010, almost on a par with Corrie. But then its star producer, Gavin Blyth, became seriously ill and died.

It benefitted from the momentum he'd created for quite a while, but for the last 12 months has been going steadily downhill. Just shows what an impact a really strong producer with a sure touch can have.

Hmmm. Don't know if it's old news but the Olympics evening programme has been split so there's another show from 9.45pm to 10.15pm containing the 100m final.

Any ratings for Friday at all?

True. I think he'd be devastated if he could see what it's become.

The last episode I saw (a few weeks ago) seemed like a cross between BBC1's short-lived 1995 soap Castles and one of Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques sketches.

We'll get the 9pm figures tomorrow when www.broadcastnow.co.uk updates.

I must say, even though it's by far the main ratings story in town, the editorial decision taken by DS to only report Olympic related ratings (and soaps) during the fortnight seems a little extreme given their usual policy is to ignore sports ratings altogether.

Whilst I am, like everyone else it seems, enjoying the Olympics from a programming point of view (not a ratings point of view) I do look forward to things returning to normal so there's more to discuss in here.

The reviews for Emmerdale have not been at all flattering of late, but not sure how relevant the point is to ratings when the show seem to be holding up satisfactorily at the moment (pre-Olympics certainly*, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt since).

The worst I could say about it at this point is for all it's (reported) faults, the viewers have largely remained loyal to the programme. And with viewership like that, it can bounce back from any bad patch.

*=source: 'Emmerdale pips EastEnders on Thursday night' [20/07/12, DS].

The problem with Friday's and Saturday's ratings articles (here and here) is that there is very little information in the articles!

A bit like a bare-bones piece.

I supose it's the same kind of audience loyalty EastEnders benefitted from until recent months. I could see big problems developing with EastEnders by late 2010, but the audience figures were resilient much longer than that. It was a delayed reaction, but the ratings have started to suffer. Assuming the recent changes behind the scenes actually put things right, it could take a year or so until that's achieved, and the ratings could be worse by that point.

I think Emmerdale's delayed reaction will come, and if ITV and Emmerdale's team haven't yet reached the point of realising the soap has problems, let alone doing anything about them, viewers could be looking at at least another year of sub-standard stuff, by which point the ratings could be very amus..., erm, interesting.

It's almost as if they are using the information provided by other sources on the internet that is being posted in this thread and re-hashing it into articles of their own...

Nobody noticed as I'm roughly the only one watching but the first trail for Dallas aired on C5 before Once Upon a Time.

'The Greed', 'The Money', 'The Glamour' it teases as the legendary theme music kicks in, over shots of various locations used in the show, before the '5' logo reveals itself in the centre at the end.

I'm tentatively pencilling in 2nd September as a likely start date as a 4 week promotional campaign sounds about right and Once Upon a Time draws to a close the week before. Only question marks are whether it will be 8pm or 9pm and where the John Barrowman fronted docs about the revival will air.

Great to see that given the choice of football and world class sport, people voted with their remotes for our athletes with talent. Quite surprised how poor that figure is for the football really - even with the great figures on BBC1 I'd have thought 2-2.5m would watch the football.


Brilliant. I don't think the closing will top it but as it's been such a good games it might come close. The BBC forcing us to go cold turkey the next day though - can't believe they're not capitalising on it with something on the Monday reliving the golden moments of the games.


Very annoying for anyone who has recorded it as unlike the opening ceremony the two programmes aren't linked - so if you've taped tonights show hoping for the 100m final your recording will cut off before it.


I doubt it'll be that high - unlike Wimbledon the Murray final was just another medal opportunity and although it'll rate well, I think the peak will be around the 10m mark, average 7m or so. Apart from the result too it wasn't that great a match.

Dancc will like this, I'm currently staying in a hotel in Elstree enjoying some real life Olympics action. One group had taken over the plasma tv in the bar last night and were excitedly watching. What were they watching? You've guessed it Big Brother. I can only assume they were family/ friends of housemates as I believe they film in round here.

The Olympics naysayers are becoming a smaller group as the days go by. I don't think I've met anyone who isn't completely absorbed in every moment of it. The BBC's coverage has been fantastic.

Yes, it is quite sad to think that the exact same sports boasting massive ratings now are normally very unapealing. I looked on Barb back to July 2002 and for the week 22nd to 28th the 2002 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony was only 4th () top rated on BBC1. It had an audience of just over 8 million! The games too were held in the UK, Manchester, but mustered significantly less viewership. Have times changed and people just care more about sport than they did back then or do the Olympics just have something special? I wonder because it is now only 2 years till the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and I wonder what ratings we will see for that. What, I'm proud of my city and I hope the best for it!

The Commonwealth Games are a second division competition in my opinion. Many of the top athletes are not competing, so the excitement is far less.

With China and USA easily ahead in the Olympic medal table, how can a competition without either country be compared?

Really don't get the excitement of the 100m Its over in 10 seconds and totally obvious to even the braindead what the result will be

Would you be saying that if it was a world record?

I think you are missing the point of the Commonwealth Games.

It'll be fabulous.

Probably yes... It's just...in comparison to what Jess did across the week it seems like alot of attention and adulation for such a short race

It's filmed on the sprawling Elstree Studios site, which was home to many of the sitcom spin offs and British horrors of the seventies. However, getting near the BB house is a bit like trying to break into 10 Downing St- pretty much impossible.
I really have enjoyed the Olympics and even the biggest non fans, like my sister, have become regular viewers. From a ratings point of view, they have been excellent. I'm watching about 3-4 hours a day and it's been a real joy.