Not surprising Sky is bitter. All they've been able to offer is a test series that hardly anyone has noticed and Superleague, which is an extremely niche sport. Also might Sky be a little narked that something as supposedly obscure as a 19 year old winning a gold in taekwondo pulled in more viewers than most of their massively overhyped and expensive football matches get.
I am so sad Sky have been reduced to the level of Europort in the mid nineties I'm having a drink to celebrate. Who said BBC Sport was dead?

Also hats off to DMN, to saying the ultimate heresy, the tide might be turning against football. After all, the generally nice, polite, dedicated and mostly poor athletes make a big change to overpaid, overexposed footballers.I will be watching ratings for fitba with interest.

So will the return of the messiah to EE boost ratings or will they remain a stagnant seven million?

And whats the guess that Person of Interest will do well for Five, i predict 2.6 million.

I really wish it were the case but sadly by the middle of September I suspect normal service will be resumed.

Schools are also largely to blame - so many kids inspired by so many sports this summer but I suspect for most schools it'll be football, football and more football once they return.

Lol at Sky backpedalling furiously after the **** hit the fan due to their stupid remark.

Apparently there was a time where they weren't allowed to talk about Wimbledon on Sky because it wasn't on Sky and therefore not proper sport. Not sure how true or not that rumour is, but I'm inclined to believe it.

I'm sure attitudes have changed to a degree, more because they have had to more than anything else.

Hope so, John. But it's not been given much of a slot. When you consider that at the very max CSI reruns do 1.5m coming out of CSI, it's hard to get too excited about its chances there.

I would have waited until next week so it could launch at 9pm.

However, most girls and a large percentage of boys neither have the interest nor the aptitude to play football and I wonder if seeing someone like Jade Jones get her gold at 19 could inspire them.
It is hard to say as come the winter, the athletic tracks, the tennis courts and the boating lakes are locked up and obviously football is the main sport. I do think people being exposed to so many other sports might be the turning point.
However, back on topic, this was a bitter and childish remark from Sky over the olympics. Sky know fine well that from this weekend onwards they have their biggest sport back, but I think the huge ratings the olympics have achieved has narked them as they will have the less than thrilling prospect of a few 0-0 draws played to half empty stadia in the winter to audiences of around 1.5 million diehard fans.

The article I read refereed to them as the same contract and I said it would end in 2013 (with 2012's season 11 likely to be the last shown on the BBC - which is perhaps where I got confused)


http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/...ontroller.html
Perhaps it's like ITV's deal with 20th Century Fox which gave them film premieres up to around 2005, but they can still repeat them,

Anyone have a breakdown for the Closing Ceremony?

I'm lucky enough to have viewed POI, will be watching it again, its the breakout show of last fall.

I'm pretty certain its a stupid move launching it at ten, Dallas should also do well, i predict an initial three million.

Yeh, I believe it. I knew "a friend" who worked at Sky, and in the plasma TV in one of the offices switched the default channel to BBC News much to the annoyance of the directors there! This friend said he did it deliberately as he was constantly subjected to tirades of anti-BBC, pro-Sky verbage (especially when it came to Sport) - he said it was akin to being slowly brainwashed! I for one believe him.

I hope so, both episodes were really strong tonight, would be nice to see 8 million, but its early days, EE is fresh back from BBC 2, and its far to early to say its coming out its recent slump. I thought both episodes were very encouraging.

The BBC trailer still says 'This week' so i expect many thought the big ep will be Thursday/Friday....with word of mouth i fully expect Tomorrows episode to top both of tonights

Wonder how many viewers Mrs Brown's Boys will get tonight. The repeat's in the same slot as the original screening but with an Eastenders lead-in instead of The Royal Bodyguard.

EastEnders could be dented by BB tonight but should rate well.

When was Mrs Browns boys episode shown first time around?

You should consider a career as a politician.

"Spin" is you're middle name right?

Maybe you should Right for the Sun...They get their facts wrong too

No spin what so ever. Tuesday is EastEnders biggest night of the week and i expect the episode to rate higher than tonights (share would be closer to 40%)

i'll go for 7.9 at 8:00pm and 7.4m for 9:00pm but a BBC3 figure of over 1 million

I think BB is like a gnat buzzing around now, it's there but you don't really care about it, but the return of Sharon to EE should guarantee a healthy 8 million as the temporary move to BBC Two and a certain sports event has made people forget about the show a bit and her return is a big thing, far more than a largely ignored reality show.

Yeah I could see EE building over the week actually.
If it rates 7 million then theres a bigger problem and I'd say its time for some bigger changes to the show; not drastic 'crisis' changes, but more long term decisions and just play it a bit more 'safe' for a while. BBC will want to build up for christmas again, and to put it mildly last Christmas's episode was dreadful.

They've pulled it out of a rut where the stories weren't just bad but the character stories were so different from personality that following it could be difficult - people just drop out over time.

Mind you BBC Three EE should deliver a strong rating, its an hour long.

If i remember rightly BB final dented EastEnders:Peggys exit a little back in 2010 (it was the channel 4 final) with some crossed fans it could dent it.
I know some in the soaps forum are saying they are catching up now as they wanted to see BB live so they can vote.

I personally don't know anyone that watches the show now but if i went back to 2005ish alot did.

I stand by my statement of tomorrows episode rating higher
than tonight and think 8.2 (40%) is possible

EastEnders will build with Tuesday and Thursdays the highest rated eps of the week and friday at 9 the lowest.

It's not a complete hour episode though. EPG has it down for 10:30pm & 11:00pm

Be interesting to see the ratings for E4's Beaver Falls this week, Got a trending topic on Twitter, but that's not particularly hard given it's demographic's social media presence.

Last week was a bit of disaster, didn't even make it into E4's top 10 programs for the week. Consequently it needs to find/average at least double what it got the premiere to stand a chance of renewal.

I dont think 7 million for tonights episode would be a total disaster, however I would look to see a strong BBC 3 figure, and some growth tomorrow.

Cant see Big Brother being a problem, if anyone even still watches it, they could record it, watch EE, then ffwd the ads, till they get to live.

BB might pick up tonight, but the whole series, except for the opening night, has been well below 2 million. It's as much a threat to EE as the factual shows on ITV1 on Tuesday nights.
I think CBB will do better, but the overkill with this format and the fact it's following on from the lowest rated BB ever, can't do it that much good.
However, I am quite interested to see how that England friendly will rate on ITV1 on Wednesday as football has been totally overshadowed by the Olympics. 4 million is what I'll go for as we're not facing a major team, but there's always an audience.

I can't remember word for word what Zai Bennett said when he was on Points of View in December 2011, but it was something along the lines of "I can't comment about any negotiations which might be ongoing, but I can say whatever happens in any negotiations, Family Guy will be on BBC Three for a few years to come."

It stuck in my mind because it was one of my friends who sent the question in.