So does this mean for six weeks it'll be a ratings war between DW and XF?

I'm very intrigued to know, and I think a lot of others will be aswell, what's the highest audience/peak for a non-Euro/World Cup match in the UK ever?

Are you old enough to remember when gritty, social realist drama was on every week on BBC1 in peak time for 14 years? Play for Today was one of the BBC's foremost offerings. Most people will think of Abigail's Party, perhaps the lightest and most popular plays of the genre, but more often than not, these were quite grim, one I do recall is about someone who is put in solitary confinement for 30 years for murdering a policeman and turns gay, or is forced into being gay. Not a bundle of laughs by the sound of it, but this what you could expect and ratings were often quite low.

Demand from where exactly? The first series was barely watched and dropped week-on-week throughout the entire run and series two looks like it'll follow the exact same trajectory. On top of that it took them nearly two years to get the second series on air without anyone batting an eyelid. Accused is on BBC1 right now because its a Jimmy McGovern drama and no one ever got bad press for commissioning a Jimmy McGovern drama not because there was any real audience demand to see a second series. And especially not an audience demand that couldn't have been served with one of the many other 'gritty' drama commissions we've seen (and will see) this year.

BBC Two have had success with Line of Duty which was very good. I do critics give drama that isn't dark or gritty a hard time, same applies with comedy as well, stuff like 30 Rock get raves over stuff like Mrs Brown's Boys or Miranda.

Channel 5 Programme Information w/c 15th September


Source: C5 Press.

The ratings pick of these is clearly Being Liverpool. I fancy that to do very well indeed if scheduled well. Slight concern though that Thursday night is showing up as TBA, as Liverpool will be in Europa League action on that night. This wouldn't be a problem in week 1 as their match kicks off at teatime, but for the second leg in week 3 it would be (8.05pm kick-off).

Play for Today wasn't all bleak gritty drama though (although certainly some of it was) and existed at a time when there was a wider variety of content on BBC1 than we see now. Again my point here isn't that the BBC shouldn't ever be making these dramas but merely that they shouldn't be making them purely to make them or purely to appease critics and more often than not that feels like what's happening. Equally I'd argue that they shouldn't be making so many of them when they're neglecting so many other genres and types of drama (not to mention comedy and light entertainment).

YAY!! Somebody said "Gritty BAFTA" so we all know what that means! It's THAT clip again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HXaj2IYYn8

Making Faces sound interesting, I guess with the success of Midwives on BBC Two, One Born Every Minute and 24 Hours in A&E on Channel 4. I guess Channel 5 are looking for a similar show. I'm surprised they've not considered firefighters, must be the only emergency service that've yet to have a factual series.

In fairness Mrs Brown's Boys is awful and it doesn't matter how high viewing figures get no one will ever convince me otherwise. I tend to agree with the general point though.

You've said it, but it's totally unacceptable.

In future please stick to more wholesome words like melons, bazookas, paps, mounds, jugs etc... etc..

The word you used was far too vulgar.

But Lynda La Plante was whining in the papers not long ago that the Beeb weren't commissioning her stuff so it's certainly not the case that they'll commission stuff from name writers regardless, and they wouldn't be shoving it out in August if they were in awe of McGovern. This is not a new thing anyway because Will Wyatt in his book talks about when he was in charge of BBC TV in the eighties and nineties and he said it was a bugger to get more iight drama on the screen because everyone wanted to do gritty and arty stuff. If it's not there they can't show it. The same is true for ITV who have been notorious in the past for endless psychological thrillers, but the audience want that kind of thing. And as has been said, they do plenty of light drama, New Tricks, George Gently and Waterloo Road are all on at the minute, which are frothy mainstream BBC1 dramas to a tee.


Well, so much for everyone getting bored of football, given the audience the athletics actually got, they probably would have got just the same before the Olympics.


The thing about this, though, is that the audience on the other channels wasn't really that big. In the 9pm hour C4 were getting about eight and a half million, while BBC1 had 3.4 million and Channel Five just over two million. If you swap over BBC1 and Channel Four, that's not an unusual occurance. You could well imagine that if BBC1 had The Apprentice, C4 had One Born Every Minute or something and maybe Sky had a big Man U match, which is likely, the overall ratings would be virtually the same. So ITV shouldn't be writing this off as a freak rating, because it could happen again sooner rather than later.


No. No they are not. They bought 12 Yard but they still make plenty of shows for the BBC and of course ITV Studios make plenty for them as well. And they've got nowhere for him to go as they have Ross and they don't invest after 10pm. So no. It does not mean that at all.


Yeah, but the general point is that generally atheltics events outyside the Olympics don't get particularly big ratings. I remember William Phillips in Broadcast reviewing the ratings of the 1997 World Atheltics Championships and pointing there was no primetime BBC1 coverage - they only did daytimes with the evening sessions on BBC2 - because in 1995 they'd rated very badly on primetime BBC1. Before the Olympics, no channel showing any event had shown them non-stop.

I'm sorry but did a show entitled 'Wills and Kate: Baby Fever' just describe itself as being packed with insight?

Talking of Strictly.....

Strictly Come Dancing 2012 Launch Trailer - BBC One

I'll join that club - I can't stand the show and think the joke of someone acting/dressing up as a woman and f'n this and f'n that every other sentence is tiresome. But - it's a ratings winner for the BBC and good for them unearthing it.

My thoughts exactly! Unless they know something we don't, which I very much doubt. Oh well, at least they've two decent sounding factual series launching that week to make up for it.

The feeble sounding talking head bore-athon Will & Kate show will probably be the highest rated though, frustratingly.

How dare you say that about BAFTA's Best Comedy Series of last year!!!

Interesting the Paralympics appear to be hurting ITV more than the Olympics did - though I guess it's more down to BBC1 not being effectively off air for the games.

C4 coverage is what it is and I think it still needs to find it's feet (the BBC took a good 3-4 days to get into their stride). It's no surprise the ads are the focal point of most complaints - and C4 will be quite happy with that I'm sure.

Full sessions from the Edinburgh TV Fest are now on YouTube, just search for 'mgeitf'. Not actually much there yet, but the session on the Olympics is very interesting. Hopefully the Meet the Controller sessions will be up soon.

None of the controller sessions are there yet. But they are still adding stuff I think.

Indeed - just edited my post before I saw yours. Started watching a meet the controller session from last year and then realised a couple of minutes in! Hopefully they'll be up soon.

Firstly Lynda La Plante isn't Jimmy McGovern.

Secondly Accused got a fair bit of promotion during the biggest event of the year so the idea they're shoving it out in August doesn't really fit.

Thirdly I don't for one second believe that the BBC (or any other broadcaster) can't commission or find light(er) drama. Is anyone honestly going to argue that if Ben Stephenson were to say to production companies, writers, agents, producers and anyone else who'll listen that he wants a series of lighter dramas for BBC1 nobody would pitch? And that none of those pitches and scripts would be any good?

Fourthly when, exactly, did Waterloo Road become a pinnacle of 'light, frothy mainstream' drama on BBC1? Does it not give anyone pause for thought that when looking for lighter drama on BBC1 Waterloo Road is something people are bringing up (and have these people watched Waterloo Road)? And whilst I'd agree that something like New Tricks or George Gently certainly have a lighter tone than Accused or Good Cop I'm not entirely sure that's a great qualifying criteria for light and frothy. The fact that both of those shows are crime drama (another genre horribly over exposed on BBC1 and television in general– weren't we supposed to be getting less of that on BBC1?) doesn't help their cause either.

I've tried my best to block that out. Although its not as if it was a particularly stellar year (or lets say decade) for British comedy so there have been some stinkers winning in that category anyway.

unless Richard Desmond knows something the rest of us do not, "Wills and Kate: Baby Fever" seems to be in very poor taste, and far more tabloid than a TV channel should be, even one owned by Richard Desmond. I do not want to see the rise of "Tabloid TV", even if shows like TOWIE and the ex-Factor ( ) are designed around the tabloids, but I guess this is nothing new, all reality TV can be very tabloid when it wants to be.

The Radio Times credits the first four episodes of series 2 of In With The Flynns to "Written by Simon Nye" but according to Wikipedia, there are two writers for each of the first three and Nye is just co-writer of episode 1. Poor old Simon, coping the blame for the whole lot.

To be honest I'm expecting to see "Written by Alan Smithee, Alan Smithee and Alan Smithee" in the end credits.

edit: Close. There were no writers credited in the end credits. Nobody wants to assume responsibility.