Ref: The discussion about the possibility of a new soap I have always been surprised after the success of The Sullivans in Australia that nobody attempted a similar idea here.

Following a family through the war in 'real time' would have worked even better in the UK given how we were in the thick of it all.

Presumably this is never going to happen now (by 2039 when they could do it in real time 100 years to the day soaps may be all gone). I guess they could start at some artificial time - like 2019 and run 80 years behind the real date. But if there were ever going to do this 1989 would have been the time. Running it from 2014 to tie in with WW 1 might work but as we have seen Downton and there were less effects on the home front in WW 1 then WW II would have been better. Though at four years it would be a shorter commitment than WW II.

Pity as it would have been a new twist on the soap genre in the UK, Wonder if anyone ever put this idea to one of the channels and why it never happened?

Nothing major to look forward to? We've still got X Factor yet to come.

The X Factor's and Strictly Come Dancing's ratings will look minute compared to the Olympic figures.

I'm sure they won't fall below 10 million at the least.

ITV will be hoping (after their calamitous fortnight during the Olympics that isn't finished yet) that people aren't bored of TXF. Anecdotally, a few people I know who are huge fans of the show were 'done' with it by the end of last series.

To be honest, it was a bit dull last year, and ratings flattered it somewhat.

I'm not sure - both panels have been weakened this year IMO and The X Factor is launching off the back of a dreadfully produced series. It seems like Simon cares little about the UK version now so we'll see what happens but I expect Strictly to easily beat The X Factor this year unless the latter can pull something extraordinary out of the bag.

What a cheery thought...

Interestingly, I was talking to someone the other week intimately involved in it. There's not just a moth-eaten document stashed in a drawer somewhere, lots of people out there are already spending lots of time actively doing tangible things to get ready for it. Fascinating, and rather macabre, really.

The royals have a habit of living very long lives, so this could be some years off, but I'd imagine the Queen's funeral could reach 40 million. A more unlikely event would be England in a world cup final, which would pull in a similar amount.
This year has been exceptional for event TV like the Diamond Jubilee, the Euros and the Olympics. I do think with a world cup in 2 years time and England involved 15-20 million is possible, but nothing in recent years can match the massive ratings for this year.

BARB have updated!

Just thought I'd post these figures re. the opening ceremony
BBC 1 - 24.245m
BBCHD - 0.114m
BBC News - 0.213m

This totals 24.572, which is easily the most watched programme (single showing) of all time!

Also, in the top 20 roundup I think we should include the two figures for BBC HD and the news channel as they were both simulcast at the same time.

rzt is currently away and will be back late August that's why there's no posts regarding the ratings recently from him.

I didn't want to mention The Queen's funeral but we all know that'll be big. Didn't even consider the coronation.


Sunday is the highest rated of the week isn't it?


And then you had all of the people viewing live on iPlayer. I have no doubt that the Closing Ceremony will do just as well.

Exactly. The ratings for these events really are 'massive' compared to SCD & XF. For the most part they average 9m-11m for most episodes which isn't 'massive' by a long shot.

It is still very high by today's multichannel, I Player standards, but still miniscule by the standards of the past. Remember Bruce Forsyth's Big Night was cancelled in 1978 for attracting these sorts of audience figures. Mind you the Generation Game on BBC1 was attracting double this.

I'm hoping the REAL drama of REALLY talented people will make these shows look the frail sham they are.

I won't hold my breath though, looking at the Sun and the Mail sites they're still featuring the Towie lot and Imogen ****ing Thomas, highly

To compare the Olympics to lowest-common-denominator X-Factor is like comparing Waitrose to Lidl.

I don't care if I'm the only one in the UK to say this but I most definitely am NOT looking forward to the brain-drain that is the X-Factor.

Do you think Digital Spy are going to post any of the non-Olympic ratings for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? At least D.M.N. posted the Saturday and Sunday ones, but I am interested in seeing what the TV landscape looked like on Friday...

DS's overnights reporting has been pretty poor as of late...

You seem to have forgotten the 1966 World Cup Final - 30 million on BBC1 and 3 million on ITV.

That's very good for the 3D transmission on BBC HD, outrating the many of HD simulcasts for the first weekend.

Shame we don't get to see what the Sky 3D figures were.

Also no figures for the Opening ceremony on Eurosport and Eurosport HD.

How does the 100m final compare with the same figures from four years ago? I guess it will be lower as it was past midnight UK time wasn't it?

Quite disappointed to see BARB have not published the raw data for the 24 BBC Olympic channels.

Pretty sure it was in the afternoon/early evening.

There's no point comparing "tv shows" like x factor or strictly to global events like the olympics. Although i'll not be surprised if Danny Cohen is spending his days on the phone to agents recruiting for a Team GB series of SCD!

Obviously we'll not see these numbers again on such a consistent basis, this is a once in a lifetime event (we'd be even more broke than we are if it wasn't!) fuelled by team GB's great success. Rio will rate well, but nowhere near this level - interest won't hold for 4 years and the home element will be gone.

We may see one off peaks again - although i see no likely cause of one for many years yet. For actual tv shows, the talent shows are/were the last shows to pull huge numbers, if xf and bgt didn't do 20m in 2009/10, no show ever will.

So we've got a few days left!

well its cheered me up

I have a question about the Zoo, without everything else taking a hammering, why did it do "so well"

Well we have the football world cup in Brazil 2014 that should get 15-20m peeks, in 2015 the Rugby World cup in England which will do much better then the last few ones and then of course Euro 2016 which should see the 15-20m peeks as well. So no we won't see these big peeks but the next 3 years after that should see good ratings.

Well, D.M.N. certainly did that for the Royal Wedding last year. Then again, he goes by "broadcasts" and as the Opening Ceremony coverage started at 7pm and ran unbroken until 12.40am, I assume he is going to have to get his calculator out (like he has done for the Euro 2012 figures)- and produce a figure presumably sub-20m.

I personally don't think BBC News simulcasts should be included, because whilst I think it's right to include HD simulcasts where people are almost certainly chosing to break from the networked SD transmission for the HD broadcast (and this is official BARB methodology as regards BBC1 and I believe Ch4), why would any BBC1 viewers think "we'll migrate to the BBC News channel for this then". It's clearly folk who are watching BBC News, which just happens to be showing the same thing, and they should be counted as such.

However, adding BBC1/BBC1HD and BBCHD (for 3d), then the official Opening Ceremony figure seems to be 24.359m. That is 24.36m to 2 decimal places, which noses ahead of the OFAH special (24.35m) at the top of the single-channel list.

I think?


It could well get 20m given the Olympics frenzy across the nation and I think the more viewer-friendly broadcast slot. Then again, they did build up the Opening Ceremony somewhat.

It would certainly round off the most amazing summer of TV ratings ever if it topped 20m too, or even matched/bettered the Opening.