It went up slightly to 1.2m on Tuesday but that is still poor.

Both of those include +1 btw, without it DBTI got 0.9m on Monday and 1.1m on Tuesday (all figures from Bother's Bar).

But they're always going to do a pilot before a series even if it's not transmitted, so you're not losing anything by showing the pilot, and even if the pilot doesn't rate very well everyone will have forgotten about it before the series. Cold Feet is a good example, the pilot was in an atrocious slot and got next to nothing but the series was hugely successful.


Well, I do know that if ONDigital had won the Premier League rights in 2000 they were intending to show some matches on ITV to make up for not everyone being able to pick it up, but that never happened. And I doubt this'll happen either, because while you could argue that it would be good promotion for BT, in reality the casual viewers would be happy enough with the ITV games and Match of the Day so it would sell absolutely no subscriptions.


Well, it was a boring game that was more or less sorted in the first few minutes, Celtic have never rated very well outside of Scotland and Helsingborgs was about the last glamorous opposition you could get. Wait until you see next week when the options are Anderlecht V AEL Limassol, NK Maribor V Dinamo Zagreb, Panathinaikos V Malaga, Udinese V Braga and, the one I really hope we get, Hapoel Kiryat Shmona V BATE Borisov.

I'd be very wary of writing off football, though, based on the Charity Shield opposite the Olympics, a dull England friendly and Celtic. We'll soon see exactly how popular athletics is week in week out with the ratings for the athletics on Sunday on BBC2.


But I don't see the media proclaiming Doctor Who is in a ratings crisis, though? All we had last year was seemingly based on some story in Private Eye which went nowhere, and by and large, the media are all over this series, there's another bloody massive picture from a forthcoming episode in The Sun today where the story is entirely "Look at this massively exciting thing in Doctor Who!", not "Here's something desperate from this ailing show". I just don't see it. It gets the same kind of coverage that any other long-running series would get. Even 'stEnders being "in crisis" hardly registers in the real world, because the TV mags still put in on the cover every week.

And Red or Black is by far a bigger story because it's Ant and Dec and Simon Cowell's big idea flopping, as opposed to a series that's now been back for seven years undergoing the kind of sagging that everything else does. And Red or Black is going to flop and people will run "Cowell exterminated by Doctor Who" headlines. In the first series the headlines were about Who getting massive ratings, not the fact it was opposite Celebrity Wrestling and Kindergarten Cop so should have been anyway.

The fact is, Doctor Who will easily beat Red or Black and you'd have to be a massively pessimistic Whovian to spin it as a failure for Who if it doesn't get double its ratings. And the papers still love Who, it gets a massively easy ride. If some moron like Kevin O'Sullivan wants to slag it off, it doesn't matter because he's a moron.

Nice one.

I guess social media and iPlayer is finding it new viewers. That said I saw the start of episode 1 on iPlayer, and thought it dreadful.


That football game is a shocking low, guess its a Flop Zone thing.

The Great British Bake-Off & Queen Mum both did very well, both were watched by my dear old mum last night.

Nope, it's just tiring when people ask this day after day when you could also find the ratings at any of these places...

- http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/compl...erage/ratings/
- http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/co...e/soapratings/
- http://www.attentional.com/screenwatch/
- http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/ratings/
- http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/
- http://www.channel4sales.com/data/overnights/
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/media

Did you not pay attention to the media coverage of the last series? The running theme across most (if not all) of the media was that it had become 'too complicated' and was too difficult to follow and that as a result ratings were down to worryingly low levels for an expensive flagship drama. This was the theme because the focus was on the somewhat unimpressive over night ratings rather than the final figures. There's was even a series of stories about it being beaten by Family Fortunes.

Certainly the media isn't currently declaring that Doctor Who is in the midst of a ratings crisis but the fact the show isn't currently on the air and they don't have any figures to report probably plays a large role in that. I'd also point out that the papers and magazines all cover The X Factor to an absurd degree but that doesn't stop them from putting the boot in when its ratings don't live up to expectations.


Only Red or Black isn't the story.

On Saturday night the story was The X Factor posting its lowest series opener since 2006. This coming Saturday the story will either be 'The X Factor continues to sink' or 'The X Factor rebounds'. Even here in the ratings thread Red or Black was barely given a passing mention and the entire focus was on The X Factor. Saturday September 1 the story will be Doctor Who and The X Factor. Red or Black is unlikely to figure into equation and that's the point. Doctor Who's return gives the show (and potentially even The X Factor) a large degree of media cover because its another show to draw fire and its something else to write about. And frankly the media is always going to be infinitely more interested in 'formally massive show has ratings drop' than 'new show that was never a hit has ratings drop' regardless of the talent involved and the accuracy of the reporting.


*sigh*

I haven't suggested that Doctor Who won't beat Red or Black. I've suggested that going against Red or Black raises the expectations of what Doctor Who should be achieving in the over nights and that since television ratings are largely an expectations game if it fails to meet those expectations that's the story. Not that it beat Red or Black. Not that no one is watching Red or Black. But that Doctor Who isn't the all conquering hit it was expected to be or should be.

Remind me how many more million viewers did The X Factor have on Saturday night than everything else that aired? It would have been at least double the vast majority (if not everything) that aired on Saturday night and the story wasn't 'X Factor crushes competition' but 'X Factor has lowest opener in years'. Again this notion (particularly for big shows like X Factor and Doctor Who) that success is determined by the competition isn't true. Its determined by what people expect a show to achieve and how close it comes to it.

If, for example, ITV aired a new drama on Tuesday night and it pulled in 3.5+ million viewers what would the reaction be to that? I'm guessing most would see that as a relatively positive outcome for ITV regardless of the fact that in the same slot BBC1 pulled 4.5+ million and that on any other night of the week a drama pulling in 3.5 million would be bad. Because sure 3.5 million isn't great and it got soundly beaten by BBC1 but absolutely nobody would expect the show to do those numbers because of its slot.

I'd also point out that at this stage all Red or Black has to do is not completely collapse against Doctor Who to get some positive spin. And God forbid it posts gains opposite Who.

As I said before lets say Red or Black holds at 3.5-4 million viewers and Doctor Who ends up with an over night of 5-6 million. What do you think people focus on? Red or Black or Doctor Who?

Thanks for that. Still no Rob Brydon ratings?? Strange!?

Interesting discussion between you two, and I think you both have valid points.

AlexiR, if Red Or Black does get 4m on 1st September, and Doctor Who gets 6m (overnights), I think it will be pretty much what most people would expect, no? I don't think anyone could spin that much one way or the other. The last series of Doctor Who only got over 6m in the overnights three or four times (the two 'launches', and the finale, if I recall), so it seems reasonable to expect 6m for Doctor Who on 1st September.

Do you think such a result would see negative headlines for Doctor Who? If The X Factor posts an overnight of 8.5m that week (plausible, yes), then I think everything would have gone as we could reasonably predict.

I think if Doctor Who doesn't pass 6 million (over night) on September 1 then it has underperformed. There's something of a perfect storm brewing for it though. Its got a big Dalek storyline, its had months of promotion because of the announcement of Amy & Rory leaving and the new companion joining, it had healthy promotion during the Olympics and it'll have basically no competition. Not to mention that 7PM Saturday night (or thereabouts) is where most fans have been begging for it to consistently land for a while now. If it can't top 6 million in those circumstances then the BBC have to look at what's going on regardless of how strong the timeshift and iPlayer figures might be. If nearly a third of the audience isn't prepared to watch live or live+SD then questions have to be asked.

I'm not saying a 6 million rating would be a disaster although sub-6 million would certainly be beginning to boarder on that territory. I do however think there would be every reason for the press to pounce on that number and pick-up the thread from last year. Whether or not that's reasonable or fair is another question entirely.Its all about spinning a narrative.

Glad Bad Education got 1m, up on last week. I don't normally like Jack Whitehall, but he's very good in this and he writes it too.

Very much an "InBetweeners" of the staffroom, I think BBC3 could have its next major hit here.

wow, I understand half of the Chase but Tipping Point that really was an awful program!

If sub-6 million for a opener? Thats very bad, last year had 6.5m though and that did rise to 8.9m, so its not an end of the world rating.
It actually only had about 4 million for last years opener, it then timeshifted around 2m 'overnight' giving it an overnight average of 6.5m.

So its actually about half its audience already not watching live already. When we take iplayer into effect, its probably just above half.
This was all based on a 6PM slot though, fact is Doctor Who punches above its weight in whatever slot you put it in.

I don't see a big reason for it to be below 6m, am seeing the highest overnight in a long time actually, possibly bigger than Matt Smith's opener (8m) but at least in the 7m's, hopefully the higher half of 7m.

7:20 is the perfect time, Wipeout will grow throughout, and then Doctor Who. I see no reason to think it'll be sub-6m.


I agree with this 100%. Whitehall has pulled back on what usually puts some people off him, hes playing a more likable character than usual but still a sleazy and lazy one. The shows a lot of fun which helps.

ITV1's schedule moves back 10 minutes, so The X Factor now starts at 20:10.


This is actually a new series of six episodes: http://www.itv.com/presscentre/theco...2/default.html

Won't they both skew old? Those who watched Dallas in the 1980's and those who remember The Great Train Robbery.

Dallas got 5.9m viewers in the US and 2.5m in the 25-54 age group. Don't know how old the other 3.4m were, but assume a high percentage were over 55.

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...series/145629/

Its a difficult one to call.

I'd like to see it get 7+ million for the return but I'm not sure I'll be holding my breath. It seems to me that there's been a pretty big and consistent shift to sections of the audience watching the show by other means and at other times and I'm not sure there's much the BBC can do to turn that around. When you factored in iPlayer and repeats there was probably a fairly consistent 3 or so million people who just weren't watching the show on Saturday night and I don't know how you bring that audience back to Saturday night. At least I don't know how you bring them back for just Doctor Who.

So now I'm going to come back to a point I repeatedly raised with The Voice at the start of the year – it seems to me that Doctor Who is repeatedly left incredibly isolated on the schedule. Perhaps you get some of those 3 million people back to BBC1 on Saturday night if they had any kind of interest in the rest of the BBC1 line-up. I honestly think that the BBC do themselves a massive disservice by keeping their Saturday night schedule so blandly consistent. I mean if you don't like the Lottery quizzes or Casualty then why wouldn't you record Doctor Who or catch-up with it on iPlayer and do something else on Saturday night? For better or worse Doctor Who doesn't have the unavoidable gravitational pull of something like The X Factor or Strictly (partly because its only 45 minutes long) so why can't or won't they build more exciting and engaging Saturday night schedules around it? Last I remember Doctor Who has pretty great demos and I'd guess that's not something that matches up with just about everything else BBC1 airs on Saturday night.

As horribly over reliant as ITV might be on The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent there's at least a sense that they build their Saturday night schedules around these shows rather than just dropping them into the same schedule you get every other week of the year.


I have to confess that I've been very pleasantly surprised by Bad Education. I've really enjoyed the first two episodes.

Big cowards.


So much for ITV using this slot for new comedy.

This is a good move for everyone. Doctor Who and X Factor should hopefully boost one another.


Won't the Corrie Years 2 be all the B-stories now? Did it really need a second series? Suppose its decent slot filler, some people will enjoy it.

To their credit Channel 5 do seem to be trying to grab a younger audience for it. The Celebrity Big Brother sandwich should at least gift it a strong sampling of younger viewers whether it can keep hold of those is another issue. In general though the DNA of the Dallas reboot is that of a prime time soap trying to grab younger viewers. At least the handful of episodes I saw were. In the grand scheme of things Dallas should start with a bang. My concern would be that I'm not sure its going to sustain that.

Personally I don't see Mrs Biggs doing much.

But having something like X Factor on immediately after Doctor Who should help DW as it's bringing more people to watch TV live on a Saturday night so those extra viewers could decide to watch DW live before they watch X Factor instead of using iPlayer or watching later in the week.

And BBC1 can't really do much with their schedule to help DW as it's always been on during BGT or X Factor's run and there's not much point trying to compete when thet know they have shows like the Lottery and Casualty that can post solid numbers.

Steven Moffat has claimed repeatedly that the BBC don't care what Doctor Who's overnight rating is, that every episode of Who has 10 million viewers plus with iplayer included and it's more popular than it's ever been. I don't see why he'd be wrong about that.

I do agree with this. BBC One is too happy with Casualty and the Lottery holding things up.
Casualty especially could do 6m if it was a run of 20 episodes - anywhere in the year, across the year it gets stretched out too thin.

I enjoy it but lose track and stop watching it, just too damn long.

I'm hoping Merlin continues for a few more series, but the BBC could really do with another family drama in there to make things a bit more interesting on a Saturday night.

Final Schedule:

Wednesday 5th September
No changes, Celebrity Big Brother is a live eviction night.

Thursday 6th September
9pm: The Hotel Inspector (Repeat?)
10pm: Celebrity Big Brother (New Episode)
11pm: Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side (New Episode)

Friday 7th September
8pm: Dallas (Repeat)
9pm: Celebrity Big Brother (Series Finale)
11pm: Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side (Series Finale)

Can't see what all the fuss is about re the laughable Dallas re-make. The fact it's ended up on Channel 5 tells you all you need to know.

It will settle at 1-2m I suspect, and hardly anyone will notice it after that once the C5 PR machine has run out of steam.

Look at all the fuss about Neighbours going to C5 and how its audience was decimated at a stroke despite being on at the same time every day.

Series 1 was 3 episodes. That's 90 minutes from a TV series that's been running for 50 hugely successful years. I think they've only scraped the surface. This one could run and run if ITV wanted.

The Corrie Years sounds like Corrie Family Album they used to have 5 years ago. It sounds a bit desperate to me, as if they couldnt think of anything better to show, so are using Corries brand to make cheap spin off shows. They dont always work like that Corrie Kenya documentary from last week and I think Emmerdale fans after the 8pm episode will rather watch the 2nd half of Waterloo Road than the Coro St. docuemnatry.