Well, no actually. Neighbours has gradually lost viewers. It had an excellent first year or two, a very good third, and has gradually become more and more disappointing since then. It's absolutely wrong to say it was "decimated at a stroke" and even more wrong to assume the declines are to do with what channel it's on and not to do with poorer storylines, for example. If the BBC were still airing the show the ratings wouldn't be what they were either.

It's not just Neighbours though, it's Hollyoaks also that has been "decimated at a stroke", which has been well documented in this thread, if you were to compare:

17.30- Neighbours: 2.3m (14.2%)
18.00- Home and Away: 1.4m (7%)
18.30- Hollyoaks: 2.3m

From 11th February 2008 that is, you can see that it is Hollyoaks that has plunged the most, followed by Neighbours and Home and Away.

I haven't come across any yearly averages for Hollyoaks - although it seems to be level year-on-year, maybe slightly down.

I really dislike this idea that the BBC should essentially just roll over when Britain's Got Talent or The X Factor are on (and the same mentality that suggests ITV shouldn't try opposite Strictly etc.). As we've seen with Merlin which has gone from strength-to-strength opposite The X Factor if you viewers an engaging alternative then you can still attract viewers. I'm not suggesting that everything the BBC did would be as successful as that but I find this idea that they should just keep churning out the same tired Lottery branded formats every year and Casualty endlessly really irritating. The BBC schedule as a whole desperately needs a shake-up.

I would really love to see the episode orders for The One Show, Casualty, Holby City and Waterloo Road in particular dramatically reduced (I wouldn't object to EastEnders being pulled back to 3 times a week either). The beautiful thing about the BBC is that they can afford to do that. They aren't driven by ad revenue so don't have to stick with what they know works. They can be so much more exciting and interesting than they are. But I went through all this during the build-up to The Voice so lets not travel down this road again.


I'm not suggesting he is. I am however suggesting that if the BBC aren't asking why almost 50% of Doctor Who's audience aren't watching Live+SD every single week then something is very wrong. And if the over nights continue to drop and no one at the BBC is questioning why that is then they're mad. These are big issues that need to be addressed at the very least.

Additionally I'm not entirely sure what people expect Moffat to say on this subject. Even if the BBC were unhappy about the situation do you think he'd be saying it?

And just for reference sake what do people suppose would happen if 50% of EastEnders audience weren't watching Live+SD? Or 50% of any other shows audience? Its all well and good to say 'but people are still watching' but I'm not convinced any show other than Doctor Who would get that treatment.

Yearly overnight averages, main showing no +1

Hollyoaks
2011 - 1.06m (5.5%)
2010 - 1.14m (5.8%)
2009 - 1.50m (8%)

Neighbours
2011 - 1.18m (8.3%)
2010 - 1.35 (9.1%)
2009 - 1.42m (10.2%)

Don't have suitable averages for 2012 yet but both will be well under 1 million unless some sort of miracle happens in the next 4 months. Even an autumn re-bound to a regular 1.1m would not prevent averages below 1m now. All the tea-time soaps have lost a lot in their average ratings in the last 3-4 years.

But why should the BBC care if people are watching on the night, or watching later? It's not like they have advertisers to keep happy. WHY does it matter if a viewer watches on the night, via a recording, or on iPlayer four days later?

I suppose – attempting to answer my own question here – if people are watching it 'live', they're more likely to watch the programme before, or the programme after, but historically that doesn't tend to happen with Doctor Who much. People tune in specifically for Doctor Who, but they're not bothered about watching Don't Scare The Hare, or whatever...

Because if more than 50% of the audience isn't compelled to watch live or even on the same day as broadcast how long is it before they aren't compelled to watch at all? The argument here seems to be that Doctor Who is fine because half of the audience gets around to watching it eventually but is that really the attitude you want people to have toward what is supposed to be your flagship drama and one of the most popular shows on British television?

I would suggest the question the BBC has to address is why is half of the audience not watching live or on the day of broadcast because the answer to that question is incredibly important. If, for example, the answer is that audiences are just less and less interested in or involved in Doctor Who then serious issues obviously have to be addressed because unavoidably that additional audience will tail off. That there isn't a sense of urgency about watching the show is in and of itself concerning. Equally I think for all the talk of how great catch-up options like the iPlayer and Sky+ are people tend to overlook the potential for people to simply not get around to watching a show they record or intend to watch via iPlayer or simply forgetting to record it altogether. This becomes a bigger issue the longer the playback is left. Doctor Who's iPlayer stats can include months of catch-up viewing.

And again lets repeat that around 50% of Doctor Who's audience comes from playback at least the day after broadcast and catch-up services. That's not a small number. Again I ask what would happen if half of EastEnders audience was watching in the same way? If its over nights dropped to about 3.5-4 million would people be as relaxed and defensive of it as they are Doctor Who? I suspect this thread and the media would go into an absolute meltdown about it.

Some brilliant ratings for BBC Two and C4 last night, then. The Great British Bake-Off doesn't seem to have stopped growing just yet - with an 18% share, it's rapidly heading into Top Gear territory for the channel. I wondered last year if it's success was having a knock-on effect on Holby City, but the ratings there seem steady enough at the moment. That's also another very solid rating for Accused at 9pm. It's never been a big-hitter, but really those numbers are very acceptable indeed for a weekday in August.

Seems like Royal documentaries are the "new Peter Kay" for C4 at the moment - every time they wheel one out they seem to far exceed expectations and last night was the most dramatic example yet. It's not even like they had a particularly good night aside from that (Embarrassing Bodies is completely over-exposed - in more than one way - and has been burned out in traditional C4 style) but the Queen always comes through for them.

Also, BBC Three will be pleased with Bad Education - I wasn't that amazed by it's debut rating (or reviews!) and Our War was down on Series 1 on Monday too. I was wondering if the hoped for Olympic bump had failed to materialise. But clearly the saturation coverage of Bad Education has helped, with the late night repeat doing especially well, and it's on track to be the channels most successful comedy in some considerable time. A result for the work they put into promoting it.

Neighbours has been hit badly by a below par storywise year in 2010 and the emergence of Pointless and The Chase

Thought that might do well when I saw it in the schedules last night as C4 have previous where documentaries on obscure royals is concerned.


It'll launch well I'm sure, but I think it'll end up doing a Voice.


Just hope it is left on BBC2. I think now might be the right time to return Masterchef there too - they've already done that with the celebrity version and I think BBC2 could benefit much more from Masterchef, scheduled however they like, than BBC1 can by having it now weekly for 12 weeks or whatever it is.


The trouble is though these pilots seem to be increasingly commissioned with the intention of airing them and the focus seems to be more on filling the strand than finding potential series - with C4 preferring to commission another run of six pilots than take a chance on one of them and turn them into a series.

C4 is supposed to be a risk taker after all - so it would be nice to see them put some faith in more shows and commission them to series.

So much for ITV's new sitcom slot, then.

Is it about that train robber's wife or mum?

Wife I believe. Co-production with Channel Seven in Australia.

Interesting to see that Corrie and EE got ratings in 2008 that shows like XF and BGT get nowadays.

If I'd had to guess which of the MasterChef shows would be last to leave BBC One primetime, I'd have opted for the celebrity version. I think the fact the public one is still on BBC One, and the celebrity one has gone to BBC Two is more to do with the time of year the programmes are delivered for transmission than anything else.

Of course, the only reason both versions ended up on BBC One in the first place was the production company grasping for more cash.

Thanks. I hadn't heard of the series until it started getting so many mentions on this thread.

But I think you're making a huge leap of logic that those who don't watch live are less committed to the show than those who watch on the night. But surely those who make the effort to catch up later are MORE committed at making sure they don't miss the show. Those who watch live are likely to be made up of a number of people who are watching simply 'because it's on'.

And this goes for any show, not just Doctor Who.

There's no need to start sighing over this. I don't think this was the media storm that you're painting, there was a few snide articles and Vernon Kay posted on Twitter but nobody was announcing the show was in terminal decline. In fact I remember papers saying the ratings were down back in the early days of Tennant's reign because they weren't getting what Eccleston got in his series and the media pondering if the bubble had burst. Much of the media coverage was the kind of sneery article they run in the Media Guardian to try and stoke up some kind of row.

Furthermore, I question whether anyone even remembers the coverage or the ratings last year, apart from people on this thread and Whovians. Certainly a look on the Media Guardian website suggests they've made no reference to the ratings in the umpteen stories in the last six months, when they were always quick in the early days to refer to "the little-watched BBC3". I mean, at the same time Media Guardian were reporting on X Factor's lowest debut for six years, they were simultaneously publishing this article - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...athan-ross-itv - which suggested everything was pretty rosy for ITV because it won the night. And also, that was the article that went in the paper.


But if it falls to new lows, which it easily might given Who is now getting a head start on it, it does become the story. It's "This show was supposed to be beating everything in its path, now it's getting next to nothing". If the papers are going to remember that they reported about Who's ratings last year, you'd assume they'd also remember how much they hyped Red or Black up last year. Doesn't matter if it's show one or show three, if it's sinking and sinking it will be noted. And it's also easier to slag off Red or Black because they put the boot in it last year because of the criminal winning and Cowell is always good for a quote.

And generally the papers don't have a clue about telly or ratings, that's why they only ever bang on about BBC1's aggressive scheduling when ITV feed them the stories. So when they get the ratings, they and their readers will go "Doctor Who beat Red or Black", they won't ponder as to how many Who could have had. It's like how last year they reported no show on Christmas Day got more than ten million viewers for the first time - when they should have realised, of course, that's because the schedule was more competitive.


I don't think the schedule for September 1st is that boring either. It's easy to say they rely on the lottery but the ratings have shown that the draw itself isn't the attraction, it's the quiz the surrounds it and the good quizzes have done well and the rubbish ones - like The People's Quiz - haven't. People know now that they only need to turn on five minutes before the end or get the numbers from the paper. And the Beeb also regularly lose the quiz and just do the draw if they've got something better to show. It's certainly not a crutch.

And also, Casualty is just as much an alternative to The X Factor as Merlin is, because who else is doing drama on a Saturday night? It's an obvious alternative. I don't see what else they could do there.


I don't know about that, given the budget cuts that are being introduced across the Beeb. If they can afford to do that, they could afford to buy sports rights. You'd still have to spend as much on 'stEnders three times a week as you would four, you might be able to let some of the cast go but you'd still have all the production expenses with less end product, as well as the expense of filling the extra slot.

And it's not massively more than you used to get, in the seventies Z Cars would run for 26 weeks of the year and I've got a Radio Times from 1973 when there's both that and Barlow on in the same week, and most other dramas would run at least thirteen weeks every single year. Nationwide would regularly run past seven o'clock and that was also the days when telly closed down far earlier and there was far less stuff late at night, there certainly wasn't the equivalent of the 10.35 slot.


Well yes, because it means it's a programme that people are wanting to watch, and it doesn't matter when because they're consuming a BBC product whether on telly or on iPlayer or on DVD or whatever. It would be an argument if it was on ITV because people wouldn't be watching the adverts. And 'stEnders is no argument because people aren't buying merchandise based on it and they're not selling it abroad so 'stEnders is a show that live and dies on ratings alone. It simply would not be the cast that 'stEnders ratings would be 50% on iPlayer because it simply isn't made to be consumed like that. Also, it could well be the case that lots of those Who iPlayer viewers are watching it again, which is further proof of audience loyalty and appreciation.

Sky are always quick to show their flagship programmes over and over again and promote Anytime and Sky+ and so on, so I don't know what the argument is that people watching it on a PVR or online are any less of an audience than people watching it live. The broadcasters encourage it.

I do hope, though, that we can all agree Kevin O'Sullivan is a moron. That's my main point here. You can disagree with anything apart from that.


Yeah, I was amazed they were repeating the first lot when surely there were more they could have a go at. More value than showing episode one again.


I also enjoyed it, despite Jack Whitehall, I think it's an entertaining show. In fact given I've started to like Jack Whitehall you can ignore everything I've said as I've clearly gone mental.

Also, I think it's worth pointing out that Doctor Who's overnight audiences of 5m+ would be decent as FINAL figures for many dramas. If it then goes on to actually increase by up to twice that figure in total reach, well, that's even more amazing!

But for you to then turn that whole thing around 180 degrees, and say – "yes, but only half watch the audience actually watches on the night," is kind of turning what's actually a hugely positive thing into a negative.

It doesn't make ANY sense to say "if more people are timeshifting, how long till they stop watching at all." The people who are catching up via a recording are the MOST LOYAL viewers of all!

One theory: while it's a flagship drama for the BBC, with a large young audience, it's also become a flagship for promoting iPlayer on various devices and become very important for the BBC in terms of promoting new digital stuff. Doctor Who can push people to being more familiar with red button stuff, web content and lots more - it can lead the way in production and lead viewers the way to new ways of watching.

Also, to "Doctor Who's iPlayer stats can include months of catch-up viewing.", while there are those stats from a series worth of viewing, the main ones used are Live+7 (7 days), aren't they?

While it'd be interesting to see if a show like Eastenders saw such a shift in viewing that Doctor Who has - I wonder if that's less likely with the number of episodes and less time between them to catch up?

Well, they commisioned three series from the first run of Comedy Showcase, and four from the second, which sounds a pretry good strike rate to me. And now I'll shut up for a bit.

EastEnders & Corrie still have ratings of 9/10m+ and in fact they both have had some earlier this year.
As the nights start to draw in and it gets colder both shows will be around the 9million mark (October time).

Any description for that episode of The Cube on September 1st, is it a new one or a repeat (of the Mo Farah episode I would presume)?

For the record I'm not suggesting that viewers who don't watch live or on the day of broadcast are automatically less invested in the show I merely offered that up as one potential answer that should concern the BBC. In a previous post I highlighted the generally dull nature of BBC1's Saturday night schedule driving viewers away from watching live. The general point here is that we don't actually know why around 50% of Doctor Who's audience is watching via other means at other times and I think its madness that more people aren't asking that question. Equally I think its madness to just accept this line that the BBC is happy with the total reach numbers and not questioning why such a high percentage of the viewing is coming away from the first run broadcast and the night of the first run broadcast. The BBC absolutely should be asking the question though because however you slice it the answer is a fundamentally important one for Doctor Who (an expensive flagship drama) and potentially television as a whole.

If, for example, you take the view that Doctor Who has such strong catch-up and timeshift viewing because it has a high percentage of younger viewers and that's how those viewers want to watch drama or will watch drama or scripted content or television in general then that's incredibly important data to have going forward. Particularly if you have a youth focused channel that's supposed to be catering their content and its delivery to that audience. Perhaps though timeshift viewing is so high because people just don't want to watch Doctor Who on Saturday nights. In that case might it be better for them to move the show to Sunday night where not only might it perform better but it might draw new eyes to their Sunday night schedule.

On the subject of catch-up viewers you can't really paint them all with the same brush. People use the iPlayer, catch-up and timeshift for any number of reasons. So its probably absolutely true to say that some of the audience watching via timeshift or iPlayer are probably some of the biggest die hard Who fans its probably also true to say that there will be a percentage that are watching it when there's nothing else to watch. And then people who run the gambit between those two options.

But given how important Doctor Who is to the BBC as a whole (and I don't think there can be any denial of its importance) I don't think people can simply afford to take it as written that half its audience aren't watching Live+SD and that's perfectly fine.

The Radio Times website says it's the Mo Farah episode.

I think you make some interesting points – but we don't really know what questions the BBC is or isn't asking. For all we know the later start time of the new series (7.20pm) is an attempt to do just what you're suggesting – get more viewers 'on the night'.

However you cut it though – these things aren't hugely concerning. As I say 5m overnights are better numbers than most of the dramas (and that's at the low end of what Doctor Who normally gets), so I'm sure the BBC sees it as a nice 'problem' to have.