Yes it will affect ratings, it will mean ratings will be lower than what they could have been had those 11m people chose to watch in front of a TV screen at home.

Thursday 26th July 2012 - Soap Ratings
BBC One
13:45 - Doctors: 1.05m (16.3%)

ITV1
19:00 - Emmerdale: 5.51m (32.6%), +1: 174k (0.9%)
20:00 - Emmerdale: 5.30m (26.4%), +1: 278k (1.3%)
20:30 - Coronation Street: 6.19m (28.4%), +1: 328k (1.5%)

Channel 4
18:30 - Hollyoaks: 530k (3.4%)
* lowest ever rating on Channel 4

Channel 5
13:45 - Neighbours: 646k (9.9%)
17:30 - Neighbours: 826k (4.1%)
18:00 - Home and Away: 601k (4.2%)

5*
18:30 - Home and Away: 375k (2.4%)

E4
19:00 - Hollyoaks: 395k (2.3%)

Source: DS. Ratings include HD and are tape-checked where necessary. First set is here.

Extremely bad soap ratings yesterday. Why ITV didn't merge the two Emmerdale's, I don't know.

LOL, it would be so funny but that's impossible, add another 22m and then I think your there for the average

From the amount of people complaining about it on twitter, before it's even started, you'd think that was a realistic prediction .

In reality it should be Opening Ceremony 100% share, everything else 0% share.

Even if you are an anti-olympics moaner you'll tune in to the opening ceremony so you know what to moan about.

The newsreaders on duty tonight must be a bit annoyed. They've spent weeks building up to the ceremony and then will have to do a bulletin (either on BBC2 at 10pm or ITV1 at 10:30pm) half way through. No doubt those bulletins will consist of Olympics stories even though anyone interested won't be watching!

I've got most of the next 2 weeks booked off work so I can enjoy the games, both in terms of watching on TV and attending some events.

So BBC1 have ditched the red "now and nexts" in favour of new Olympics ones, but kept the old idents!

Idiots....

that is what the web is for.

That said, im just not turning the TV on tonight, so my viewing figure wont be elsewhere.

I agree - the Olympic emblem is circular so it should have been easy enough to incorporate it into the current BBC ident.

Quite a let down from the Beeb that there is no post-ceremony show. There should have been a post ceremony show until 2am IMO.

Expect big ratings for American Dad on BBC3 tomorrow. I'm guessing 1.3 to 1.5 million for AD.

This might sound a bit silly, but do the amount of people at these tv screenings across the UK get added to the total audience of the opening ceremony?

No.
...

I'm thinking this is why they are handing over to the BBC News Channel straight afterwards rather than airing a late film. The BBC News will act as the post-ceremony show.

Twitter trends for the UK:

United Kingdom trends · Change
Nike #findgreatness Promoted
#UnderratedArtists
#olympicceremony
#takethebaton
Jake Humphrey
Michael Johnson
Danny Boyle
Benedict Cumberbatch
Chris Hoy
Dizzee Rascal

Yeah. I think this is going to be pretty massive.

Agreed it will be massive. But does everyone think it will drop off a lot after the first few days. I say this time next week, the ratings would probably be 33% down IMO. Just me who thinks that?

Doesn't bold well for tonight and the next couple of weeks then
Poor Old EastEnders and Holby is on BBC2 aswell

Disagree totally. It'll start off slow with the swimming then the ratings will go up and up as the Olympics go on.

Good to see them making a bit of an effort with seasonal trails for autumn. They always used to make a lot of trails packages of autumn programming (the way they still do for Christmas shows), but they've been very lax in promoting new season programming for the last ten years or so.

And it gives Brekkie a comfort break.

Exactly the point I was making! That's 11m people who won't be counted in the viewing figures, which means the figures might be quite a lot lower than some of our highest estimates.

They did that in 1984, and they got into trouble because they didn't obtain permission first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLpPw7g1g64

Rubbish odds but if you've got some notes to spare, lump on!

22m+ average for a 3.5 hr broadcast ending at 12.30am in the year 2012? I think not. There's only one sensible option out of the above choices.

Yes, it's potentially a once in a lifetime event. But everything we have learned from studying the numbers over the years in this thread points towards 22m being completely unachieveable as an average in these circumstances. It's rare enough as a peak.

Looks like a lot of new drama coming this Autumn, Ripper Street I'm guessing will aired on Sundays as will Shetland, maybe Michael Palin's Brazil will be airing on a weekday. Accused, Good Cop and Hunted will probably air on Mondays and Tuesdays. Crickley Hall, not too sure about, maybe stripped across a week?

Ten episodes of New Tricks to fit in somewhere, too.

Just a reminder - the main rating tomorrow will not be from 19:00 to 24:30, it will be from 21:00 to 24:30 as it is split into two separate programmes on the EPG and TV guides.

They've had seven years to get permission this time around.


At least...they better split it for the sake of the prediction game!

I hope you mean 0-1%, but it's most likely that nothing will get more than 10% share.