I don't watch Coronation Street but my observation would be that they made a major mistake when they started shifting it around the schedule. Personally I've no idea when it is on as it just seems to pop up all over the place. Whereas Emmerdale 7pm & has been since its move from lunchtime donkeys years ago. Same with EastEnders far more static in the schedule. These soaps really are for folks who like routine, characters they know - putting on a comfy pair of slippers in the early evening. The other show that has fallen into that type of genre is The One Show.

As for time prior to heavy laden soap schedule you had numerous Sit-coms each week. Still comfy slipper time but with a few laughs thrown in

Also in the Emmerdale slot at 7pm you used to have Wish You Were Here, a decent travel show, Winner Takes All, or an import. In the pre EE days 7.30 on Thursdays meant TOTP, I'm sure the creation of EE was the start of TOTP's downfall as its running time was cut and then the BBC started moving it around the schedule.

yeah I dont think TOTP problem was EastEnders, TOTP problem was everything else in the world of music.

Yet the show was never the same when it had 10 minutes cut from its running time. However, the rise of music channels, downloads, more pop music radio stations, led to its eventual demise.
At its height in the mid seventies TOTP had 14 million viewers and was must see television for teenagers. Older men tended to like it as well when Pans People came on, they would moan about the stupid longhairs but suddenly shut up when the dancers appeared.

Re soaps:
I do think there is still an effect from the summer on habit shows like the soaps. This summer has been unique in its extravagance with event after event offering up new experiences and maybe peoples mindset is not yet back to sitting vegetable like 15 times a week in front of people who largely have depressing lives.
However, give it 3 weeks of grim October weather and Im sure people will welcome that particular rut.
I have not seen a minute of Waterloo Road this time around after watching the previous two series-just started too early in the year to get involved with it.

Ther soaps are in a lull right now. East Enders less so as it has the big who is Kat's secret lover tease ongoing. But otherwise you can miss a week and feel like you just went out and made a cup of tea.

Corrie has no major plots at all. Sue Johnston is hard to take seriously as a baddy/meanie having been so used to her as a good egg in Brookside, Royle Family and Waking the Dead. So what they presumably hoped to be a big bang with her coming in as Michelle Collins mum is a bit like fizzy pop gone flat.

Following Emmerdale is harder than the Da Vinci Code these days as most of the cast have gone through a personaslity transplant swap with the rest. So you cannot work out who is doing what or why because this is entirely different from what it would have been six months ago.

And not terribly interesting anyhow.

Oh, and I cannot watch the ad breaks because I scream when that ad for the Midsommer Murders 'special episode' is promoted for the 99th time and it is again obvious that by special they mean - the ordinary upcoming episode that we took off the shelf to call a special in the hope this will convince viewers that Tom Barnaby will reappear as a hologram to solve the case when in reality we just want to call it that so viewers will not watch that actually good looking BBC period drama about a roguish good looking gent who sets up a department store as we are doing one just like it soon but the beeb got in first.

Completely agree - most of us have normally given up on summer by the second rain soaked week of August, but the Olympics felt like the beginning of summer rather than the end and I think as a nation we're clinging on to this unique summer as long as we can.

Also of course everyone is probably off playing Handball on Friday nights now.

The second series of Friday Night Dinner has been given an air date . . . on a sunday. Personally it seems a bizzare choice, but then this is Channel 4 we're talking about! I thought the clue was in the title! :P

Also Beaver Falls has been axed so won't be returning for a third series

The soaps do tend to do best in December/January due to bad weather and strong storylines. However, if they show no signs of ratings increasing by then, it's a sign people are getting fed up with them. I notice at work soaps feature far less in conversations than when I started in 1998.

The soaps have been getting mediocre ratings long before this summer. There hasn't been any big storylines that have had the country gripped for well over 18 months.

I reiterate - my idea that Eastenders be cut to twice a week (which won't happen because BBC1 has become a very lazy, unadventurous and unambitious channel) has just one objective - to increase the quality of the soap and thus the ratings. Because it was suggested that the recent lacklustre ratings for all the soaps was due to there being too much of them. And my theory is that if the writers have less episodes to produce they'll come up with better stories and better drama. Wasn't that one of the reasons Steven Moffatt opposed longer runs of Sherlock? Because less is more and less means more effort can be put into what you're making.

Coronation Street has three main plotlines running at the moment and they all involve children - a baby being born into an abusive relationship, a surrogacy plot and someone finding out he's dad nearly 30 years after his child was born. If you're sick of children you'll be sick of the programme and the latter storyline took centre stage this week, which is the dullest of the three. The former is moving forward next week so I expect viewing figures will be stronger once again.

Meanwhile, as alluded to by the 40th anniversary trailer, Emmerdale is full of affairs - Chas has cheated on Dan with Cameron who is turn is cheated on Debbie; Jai has cheated on Charity, Laurel and Marlon have left their respective partners to start a sordy relationship that I haven't seen anyone express their love of.

And EastEnders...well it's problems have been well documented already but the identity of Kat's mystery man isn't exactly a Who Shot Phil? attraction. It's interesting that it's taking now, after Kirkwood's work has left the screen for a little while, rather than when he was in charge.

All three shows have a chance to recover - they have some big returnees coming back in the next few months which will start new storylines and I'm sure the viewers will be flocking back come Monday. But last night's figures are extremely poor.

Because Sharon's return last month provided a really big boost to Eastenders ratings, didn't it?

Your Monday comment is spot on. By Tuesday we'll wonder what all the fuss was about. Monday night is the first night of the working week so people are more likely to just stay in and slob out in front of the telly.

The soaps ratings have been declining bit by bit for years now, and will continue to do so. I suspect in around five years times, ratings of 5 million will be quite normal for run of the mill episodes for Corrie and Eastenders.

People just don't find them entertaining any more. In the past Coronation St was noted for the humour and warmth of the characters, now it's taken a more depressing approach with nastier plotlines and characters. My mother gave up watching it six years ago as she said it was too depressing these days. Also in the case of Coronation St and Emmerdale they have an ageing audience and fans that die out often aren't being replaced.

that is not 100% fair, just you wait until Sharons next big storyline comes up, that will see viewers return.

One of EE biggest problems at the moment, is that it does not know what to do with Kat and Alife, personally I never liked Alife, and have liked Kat less since her return, both should be gotten rid of.

Meanwhile the EE cast is in too much of a flux, people taking breaks etc, making it hard for the show to plan storylines.

On a smaller level I am worried about the Masoods, with one of there number leaving, and Tamwar being so boring, they will need a fresh angle soon.

All that said, economics wise, the BBC will save very little by cutting 1 episode of EE, in terms of long running drama, the soaps are as dammed near cost efficient as you can get.

BBC are to be advertising Tuesday night as a night of drama, Eastenders, Holby City and The Paradise, probably hoping to stop being turning to Midsomer Murders. I think the the fact that between their two main channels they'll have 8/9m watching at 8pm, should be enough to prevent Midsomer Murders doing too much damage, but it's good they're making the effort.

I have a theory as to the low soap ratings, bear with me.

For BBC One and ITV1 this week at 9pm, we had:

Monday - New Tricks vs Leaving
Tuesday - DIY SOS vs Football
Wednesday - WDYTYA vs Mrs Biggs
Thursday - Good Cop* vs The Bletchley Circle
Friday - In With the Flynns/Mrs Brown's Boys vs Piers Morgan

* originally scheduled

Now, in years gone by, it was watch one, forget about the other. Today, we have watch one, record the other. Except when do people watch the recorded programmes?

Because those recorded programmes must be denting live programmes in a domino effect. And as the soaps are on a lot more, people may be thinking that they can be missed if there is a dull week of episodes.

I'm not saying that is the reason, but just a thought.

All of yesterday's ratings are out but Digital Spy have only reported the soaps. How disappointing.

Thought it was another strong X Factor episode tonight- regaining a bit of its mojo I think. Cowell features (briefly) in tomorrow's episode and Cheryl will be back next week at judges houses.

I really give up on C4. Not surprised about Beaver Falls but Friday Night Dinner on a Sunday is ridiculous and will almost certainly kill the show, especially if it's alone in the schedules.

Now TV controllers and schedulers have always made bad decisions but it seems at the moment every decision made by C4 is a bad one and it's a real shame that since Shilpagate they've been so blindsided by PSB worthiness that the fact they're making a complete commercial mess of the channel is seemingly going unnoticed by the board. The ironic thing of course is when Big Brother was at it's peak not only were they strong commercially with a strong slate of popular drama and factual entertainment but the PSB stuff that sat alongside it was much more worthwhile too.


I've never bought into this notion of ridiculously short series means better quality - it's just UK writer's excuse for laziness really and although a nice luxury, I think TV in this country needs to be realistic in that it is a business and they need shows that can give them more than 4-6 weeks of content, and also meet a quality threshold too. I don't buy at all that cutting the soaps down would improve quality - all of our main soaps have had period of huge success at their current episode quota, and I'm sure all had lulls too when they were just 2-3 times a week.

Personally I would cut EE to twice a week though (well, personally I'd axe it but that's another story) - but one hour twice a week. That's less about EastEnders though and more about reviving BBC1 and as a consequence hopefully TV as a whole by effectively turning EE from four half-hours of soap to two hours of drama. I've not watched for years but I've always felt EE was at it's best when it was story-led, with stories stripped across a week, so I think a change in format could actually suit it and kick new life into it.

For what it's worth if the BBC became the Brekkie Broadcasting Corporation I would put EastEnders at Monday and Thursday at 8pm, Holby stays on Tuesdays, Casualty moves to a consistent slot on Fridays at 8pm and then Waterloo Road takes Wednesdays most of the year, with a mixture of sitcoms, films and other drama (like George Gently) airing when Waterloo Road and Casualty doesn't. And then without changing much at 9pm that gives BBC1 a strong 2-hour block most weeknights.

It does leave a hole at 7.30pm which could be filled with the factual stuff that currently floats around the BBC1 pre-watershed schedule (I'd probably put Panorama at 10.35pm though rather than 7.30pm) and things like Masterchef and Celebrity Mastermind could be stripped there. Casualty's slot on Saturday night would kind of be absorbed by giving primetime a bit more breathing space - with the BBC it always seems to be either all or nothing on a Saturday night, but generally it could be filled by moving things a little later or a little earlier, and also moving Sunday night results shows to live on Saturday night instead (certainly The Voice anyway).

Anyway, I won't go into any more detail as you'll just find more holes in it, but I'd hope by BBC1 strengthening up 8-10pm, even at the expense of weakening their 7pm hour (though in reality, only on Tuesday and Thursday) would result in a change of direction at ITV, with them keeping soaps in the 7pm hour as much as possible and then opening up the 8pm hour themselves to a richer range of content to compete. However it could well backfire and ITV could just move all their soaps to the 8pm hour instead and have a cheap filler hour themselves at 7pm.

It's ridiculous isn't it? Only saving grace is that i Believe it launches the same night as Homeland, so hopefully it will maintain some of it's audience. But putting there best hope at a hit sitcom at 10pm on a sunday really is stupid beyond belief.

Oh, so C4 are putting Homeland against Downton Abbey. It may have done well for C4 on Sundays at 9pm earlier in the year but when you look at the schedule they need that sort of thing at 10pm in the week far more than at 9pm on a Sunday.

I have a couple of ratings for you from Friday.

Mrs Brown's Boys 4.7m
Piers Morgan's Life Stories 2.9m (3.0m with +1)

I predict Homeland will do well on Sundays for Channel4 and good on them for sticking with it at that time even against downton. I think Homeland will beat BBC1's Andrew Marr show some weeks.