Best get my CV polished up then, just in case...

I agree. Cohen has certainly been a strong controller in terms of commissioning and he is not scared to be controversial either. Who though, could succeed him? Zai Bennett?

We should try having a year without EastEnders/C Street at Christmas

It would be nice to try something different, but there is no way on earth BBC would not air EE and ITV air Corrie

ITV are such spoilsports. They should do a 1993 style schedule again, in return for the Beeb promising not to air EE.

And frankly, the Beeb wouldn't need to...

Tuesday 28th August 2012
BBC One
13:45 - Doctors: 1.30m (19.3%)
17:15 - Pointless: 2.35m
18:00 - BBC News at Six: 3.88m (24%)
18:30 - BBC Regional News: 5.21m (30%)
19:00 - The One Show: 3.84m (21%)
19:30 - EastEnders: 7.31m (36.7%)
20:00 - Holby City: 4.69m (20.8%)
21:00 - Accused: 4.08m (18.02%)
* last week: 4.54m (19.5%)
* two weeks ago: 5.31m (23.37%)
* third episode last series: 3.84m (14.06%)
* slot average: 4.63m (19.31%)
22:00 - BBC News at Ten: 4.14m (21%)

BBC Two
20:00 - The Great British Bake Off: 4.17m (18.61%) inc HD
* peak: "near 5m"
21:00 - The Midwives: 2.57m (11.36%) inc HD
22:00 - The Rob Brydon Show: 1.21m (6.3%)

ITV1
18:30 - ITV News & Weather: 3.045m (17%) inc +1
19:00 - Emmerdale: 5.84m (31.5%), +1: 149k (0.7%)
20:00 - Lewis: 2.38m (10.54%), +1: 260k (1.3%)
* slot average: 3.26m (13.61%)

Channel 4
18:00 - The Simpsons: 1.28m inc +1
18:30 - Hollyoaks: 790k (4.5%)
20:00 - Superscrimpers: 1.38m inc +1
21:00 - Islam: The Untold Story: 1.24m (5.8%), +1: 149k (1.0%)
* slot average: 1.28m (6.6%)

Channel 5
13:45 - Neighbours: 681k (10.0%)
17:30 - Neighbours: 836k (6.3%)
20:00 - Born To Kill?: 1.48m (6.6%), +1: 133k (0.6%)
21:00 - Person of Interest: 1.21m (5.3%), +1: 132k (0.77%)
22:00 - Celebrity Big Brother: 1.95m (11.2%)

Primetime Shares
BBC One - 21.7%
ITV1 - 12.5% (+1: 0.9%)
BBC Two - 10.8%
Channel 5 - 6.0% (+1: 0.4%)
Channel 4 - 4.6% (+1: 0.8%)

All Day Shares inc +1's
BBC One - 20.7%
ITV1 - 12.8%
BBC Two - 7.8%
Channel 4 - 5.9%
Channel 5 - 5.3%
ITV2 - 2.7%
ITV3 - 2.2%
E4 - 2.2%

Multichannels
5*
18:00 - Home and Away Classics: 130k (0.8%)
18:30 - Home and Away Classics: 161k (0.9%)

BBC Three
21:00 - Don't Tell the Bride: 864k (3.8%)
22:00 - Bad Education: 927k (4.7%)
22:30 - EastEnders: 626k (4.2%)
23:00 - Family Guy: 819k (7.9%)
23:45 - American Dad!: 664k (9.3%)
24:30 - Bad Education: 374k (9.2%)

Dave (inc +1)
21:00 - QI XL: 479k

E4
18:00 - The Big Bang Theory: 629k (4.0%) inc +1
18:30 - The Big Bang Theory: 757k (4.3%) inc +1
19:00 - Hollyoaks: 464k (2.5%)
20:30 - The Big Bang Theory: 617k (2.7%) inc +1
21:00 - New Girl: 745k (3.3%) inc +1

Film4 (inc +1)
19:15 - FILM: The Simpsons Movie: 397k
21:00 - FILM: The Time Traveller's Wife: 322k

ITV2 (inc +1)
21:00 - Hell's Kitchen USA: 680k (3.0%)

More4 (inc +1)
19:55 - Grand Designs: 426k
21:00 - Secret Eaters: 260k

Watch (inc +1)
21:00 - FILM: A Gifted Man: 146k

Yesterday (inc +1)
19:20 - Last Of The Summer Wine: 403k

Source: Attentional, Broadcast, C4 Sales, DS (1, 2), ITV Media

Sadly - I can see why they air the soaps, but I'm the type of miserable git who is very much of the opinion that if Christmas Day isn't on a normal transmission day for a particular soap, then it shouldn't be on!

very strong rating for british bake off last night. with holby suffering significant annual year-on-year ratings deflation, bake off it is starting to get close.
ive revised my prediction down a bit from 2 weeks ago. will now go for a 10m peak with average around low 8s.
excluding +1. the competition from other channels is weak especially 8pm hour.

You should have gotten the Director General job Robbie. Controller of BBC1 would be a massive come down for you!


Please God not Zai Bennett!

Danny Cohen has done a few smart things for BBC1. Moving Mrs Brown's Boys earlier, commissioned some great dramas for the channel including the blockbuster Call The Midwife. He still needs to find a good comedy. But I'd say he's doing a decent job so far.

I think everyone is for more ITV drama but what is the point in making it then throwing it away against the biggest competition possible?

Paralympics prediction, around 6.6m. 8pm-9pm will rate stronger (around 7.5m), 9pm-10:30pm probably around 6m.

Despite the hype, I would say the Opening Ceremony tonight will be 5.4 million but overall coverage will dip to possibly 2.8 million culminating to the Closing Ceremony of 3.4 million.

I would suggest that despite ticket sales being excellent (bought largely due to people missing out on The Olympics), the overall interest isn't necessarily as high as the media pretends it is.

my only question is how does the Tuesday flop zone have a slot average of 3.26m?

MONDAY:- 9pm A MOTHER'S SON v New Tricks (BBC1).

TUESDAY - 9pm A MOTHER'S SON (pt. 2) v Accused (BBC1), Midwives (BBC2).

WEDNESDAY - 9pm MRS BIGGS v Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC1), Dallas (Channel 5).

THURSDAY - 9pm BLETCHLEY CIRCLE v Good Cop (BBC1).

I agree they are up against a few tough nuts (biggest threats listed above) plus Paralympics etc. - so perhaps they are coming across as a bit "gung ho" and suicidal next week.

I think Mrs Biggs will be strong on Wednesday, but I am a bit concerned it is a 5 part series - will audiences have the staying power for it? And it's up against Dallas - I think Channel 5 will dent their audience with that and the pre publicity for that show is gathering pace.

New gameshow format to look out for called The Money Pump [video included]: http://www.worldscreen.com/worldscreenings/display/8255

Looks quite impressive visually. Reminds me of a certain Channel4 gameshow though . I'd like to see it come to the UK.

No idea, Broadcast's slot average may be from the consolidated ratings. I think they are.

Tuesday 28th August 2012
Interesting night for BBC One, ratings seem slightly down across the board. I mean, it was still a good night for them as is every Tuesday but The Great British Bake Off is denting Holby City to under 4 million and Accused, unfortunately, went down again in the overnights. ITV have stronger opposition next Tuesday at 21:00, so Accused could go down further, but on the other hand saying that A Mother's Son faces New Tricks on the Monday so that could be a timeshifting situation, there.

Fantastic night for BBC Two, The Great British Bake Off is a confirmed hit for them. I do wonder how many discussions there have been about transferring it to BBC One for next year? Given how many things One has 'stole' from Two, I'm not sure whether it would happen or not. I think they may have a fight to keep it though.

Emmerdale rated lower than usual last night in terms of raw audience, under 6 million. Difficult to judge and comment on the Lewis repeat given that it was unadvertised. Nevertheless, it was higher than what the Champions League did in the 21:00 hour last week.

Not only am I bemused by Channel 4's scheduling, but I'm also surprised the Islam programme was not under 1 million. It just seems... odd. Going from comedy programming for two weeks to a programme about Islam? There should have been a Paralympics preview programme or something else on at 21:00, the Islam programme (I didn't watch) looks like it was thrown on for no particular reason. Odd scheduling.

Born to Kill? did very well in the 20:00 hour for Channel 5, nearly as high as Channel 4's documentary on the same subject last week despite the show last night getting very little promotion. Big Brother remained solid, but part of me thinks they will be disappointed with Person of Interest. The timeshift figures will be of interest though, if it is like Once Upon a Time and timeshift to ~2 million, then I think they will be pleased.

Bad Education did well again for BBC Three, Tuesday nights seem to be their night at the moment ratings wise with all programmes near to 1 million. Also worth mentioning New Girl on E4, consistently at 700k, showing it was the right decision to move it to E4 from C4.

Whdere do I find the extra channels that are supposed to be available for the Paralympics - I understood there were to be six. Are they on Sky ?

Yes, 450 to 455.

Indeed, it was. When in Oz I even went out to 'Wandin Valley' and gathered info for a book from the cast.

Did not work for the last year when they shifted channels and moved filming to Melbourne. The Dandenongs were the wrong scenery for Wandin.

Fans of Stargate and Farscape might like to know that one of their favourites started in A Country Practice. And, of course, half the current cast of Home and Away are ex ACP regulars (or so it seems).

As for The Sullivans it should get a rerun (it was aired in the 90s on something like UK Gold). And it is the reason I have posted several times about why the UK has never run a wart based soap like this (which ran in real time parallel to the war decades later). It would have so much more scope in Britain where the war was fought at home and away.

Apparently Mrs Biggs was originally going to be stripped across 5 consecutive nights, which might have worked better. As it's a co-production though I guess the audience expectation won't be as big as some of their other dramas.

It's a shame for Dallas that it finds itself up against a drama on a bigger channel competing for a similar audience, but I think it could prove rather tough to beat on the night. The UK press launch was a big success and the show has managed to bag plenty of coverage in the media including front page treatment on all of the week's major TV magazines (eclipsed only by the Doctor) so I think it can go well and possibly even cause an upset by beating its more fancied ITV rival.

I think Dallas will beat Mrs Bigs with almost 4million viewers for Dallas and 3.5million for Mrs Bigs. I havent heard much of Mrs Bigs but Dallas has been very well trailed by Channel5 and Dancc is right that it's got lots of front cover mentions across many publications. But lets not forget the wildcard which is the Paralympics, if Britain win a lot of golds and theres a big event, this could rate extremely well for Channel4 and maybe even beat Itv1 and Channel5 on the night.

Zai Bennett has wrecked BBC3, His Bad Eduction programme is rubbish and the audience that tune-in to that channel doesn't know any better

By not showing foo fighters live last Sunday, He has proven that all he cares about is ratings instead of quality

Bad Education is a bit hit for BBC Three, Digital Spy says it was the most successful launch for a sitcom on the channel ever. The ratings since have been even better than the launch. Good job Zai Bennett.

Right, my one (and only!) Christmas Day schedule prediction post for the moment:

One question:

The BGT semi final on 29 May 2009 which averaged 13.14m (overnights) and a 57.3% share, it peaked at 15 million, what was the peak share?

Also, what were the one-minute peaks for the finals of X Factor 2010 and 2011 (when the winner was announced), if there isn't then the five minute peaks would do.