I mean't that he should wait until after Downton is finished and not get distracted like he was in S2 of Downton by Titanic

You're welcome; I'm glad you liked my product placement. I don't expect a cheque but how about a few points? I could do with them!

Studio 60 was alright but came across as a platform for Sorkin's rants. Not seen the Newsroom but it is similar to Sorkin's other work?

I think Fellowes should something that isn't set in the early 20th Century or something in the vein of Gosford Park but as a TV series.

I'll see what I can do.

*Attempts to hijack BARB boxes*

The anticipated disaster zone just took a few more hours to materialise for NBC, then! I'm sure there'll be lots of talk about what they can do to try and revive 'Must See TV' - but it just strikes me that they don't care for that anymore. The rebuild at the network is taking on a day-by-day quality. I expect any good midseason replacements they might posses must be used to backing up the successes they're seeing on Mondays and Tuesdays. ie. I imagine their hottest midseason comedy will join 'Go On', with a fancied drama slotting in for Parenthood afterwards. Thursday will have to make do with the scraps.

An odd night for ABC. On one hand, Greys is incredibly resilient with age and hyped premieres / finales still punch their weight with any other drama out there. But Scandal doesn't seem to have a lasting future at 10pm, and Last Resort is inevitably isolated at 8pm.

CBS was absolutely solid (though Two And a Half Men looks old) and Elementary did OK - probably worthy of 9pm, really. Fox will, as discussed, be sore that The X Factor still can't really take hold - but they're jut going to have to be happy with it. They don't have a drama that can come close to those numbers, with Glee still on the skids. A poor premiere week for them.

On that point, I'd expect the monday night shows to get hammered next week; it's Chicago @ Dallas, and what with all the refereeing shenanigans I'd expect Monday Night Football to do a monster number.

Provisional Schedules, thanks to "Played all my Cards" on GB...

Saturday 13th October
BBC One
17:30 - Total Wipeout
18:30 - Strictly Come Dancing
20:25 - Merlin
21:10 - Casualty
22:00 - Lottery Draws
22:10 - BBC News
22:30 - Good Cop

ITV1
17:45 - You've Been Framed
18:15 - Fool Britannia
18:45 - Take Me Out
20:00 - The X Factor
22:15 - The Jonathan Ross Show
23:15 - ITV News

Sunday 14th October
BBC One
- schedules look like a bit of an error, but a Strictly vs Corrie clash looks unavoidable

ITV1
19:00 - Coronation Street
- on for one hour because it is not on Friday 12th October due to England vs San Marino
20:00 - The X Factor Results
21:00 - Downton Abbey

Tuesday 16th October
- Poland vs England airs on ITV1 from 19:30

Wednesday 17th October
- Emmerdale is on from 19:00 to 20:00; no Corrie

Thursday 18th October
- the displaced Corrie from Wednesday will more than likely air at 20:30

Most probably the 40th birthday live episode

Yeah it is the live episode.

So the live episode has no other soaps around it to act as support. Given the ratings at the moment (though it's pretty much the same distance behind the other two as always) this does worry me. That said it's got a nice little slot with I assume very little competition. They'll be extremely lucky to get over 8 million at this rate though.

I actually think much of the rest of the week may rate higher, especially Thursday.

So its Take Me Out as the lead-in for XF, I wonder how beneficial that'll be.

Any ratings for Alan Carr last night? I presume it rated over 2m at least because of One Direction on there

Surely all their idiotic little fans are in bed at that time?

Chatty Man is usually good but I had to avoid it as those talentless morons and the equally talentless fashion disaster Jessie J were on it.

The special Emmerdale is up against the usual hour-long One Show, C4 News and Eddie Stobart on 5, with a 60-minute TBA on BBC2 (running all week in that slot, so could be a stripped series) according to Diguiguide.

The Story Of Wales, a 6 x 60 minutes documentary first shown on BBC1 Wales starts on Tuesday at 7pm on BBC2 with episodes 2 and 3 on Wednesday and Thursday. Expect to see episodes 4, 5 and 6 to run in the week of Live Emmerdale either Monday to Wednesday (TSOW is not on this Monday because they're showing Ryder Cup highlights.) or Tuesday to Thursday. Either way, expect it to BBC2's alternative to Live Emmerdale (and not much in the way of ratings competition.)

We've had this debate before, most notably when ITV's stroke of genius wrecking tactics of Call the Midwife with a "displaced" Corrie backfired earlier in the year.

If the displaced Corries end up in a one hour Sunday night episode against the first SCD dance off show, then it's because ITV wants to use the football as the pretext for denting Strictly.

Simple as.

They don't have to air them in that slot. Why not an hour on the Wednesday and one ep in the Thursday slot Corrie has happily occupied for the past few years?

No, it is going up against Strictly so it goes up against Strictly.

Why? Was does it say?

So the usual competition then. And yeah I can't imagine that BBC2 show to be any major threat.

Nonetheless I still think the live episode will only be about the 3rd highest rated show of the week. Though they may trail it incessantly nearer the time.

Now that would be good.


The reports say the roles would be recast with younger actors so obviously he intends to do it on screen.


So with three Friday football games since Corrie was officially reinstated on Wednesday they could have had six weeks of episodes on Thursdays, propping up their new drama slate, rather than throwing them to Sundays at a point of the year Sunday doesn't actually need propping up.

Seems unlikely with C4 managing only 5.4% across Friday, a very low share for their standards.

C5 also performed poorly yesterday with only 3.9%.

Ah, Strictly can cope with a little bit of competition. Isn't that the reason ITV dropped their soap hour from Sunday nights - cos Emmerdale kept getting drubbed in the ratings by the Strictly result show? I wouldn't be surprised if Antiques Roadshow rates higher against X Factor than Corrie rates against Strictly (although if I was putting money on it, I'd go for Corrie rating higher than Roadshow).

Missed you yesterday, Robbie. Was waiting to see your gloating comment at Homefront rubbish ratings.

That is exactly the reason why it's happening from what I've been hearing.

Thanks - the TBAs run Mon-Fri that week so they must still be wondering which days to strip the rest of the Wales series, and which days to slot the other two things in. I agree Wednesday is very likely to be Wales though.


As high as number 3? TXF, TXF results, Strictly, Strictly results, DA? I think they'd be more than satisfied just for it to be the top soap episode of the week and get somewhere near 8m [EDIT: would probably need 8.5m to be top soap]

It got 3m didn't it?

We are led to believe by ITV's cheerleaders that this is quite respectable now in this day and age...


And I wouldn't bet against this Friday's second Corrie airing 8.35-9.02pm. Just to be petty.

On the subject of ITV dramas not fairing too well, I don't understand why they don't revert back to similar things that were huge hits in the 90s, stuff like Bramwell and all those Catherine Cookson adaptations. Downton is their only runaway smash hit and look at the period it's set in. I'm not saying they should recreate that, but in general they should clearly invest in more things like this. Is it the cost aspect that's stopping them? As for suitable material, there are a wealth of books by popular authors with settings from Victorian times up to the 60s that would probably go down a treat. They would inevitably do better than things like "Leaving" which, while nice enough, was effectively one long singular soap opera story spread over 3 episodes. Hardly must-see TV.

I didn't see The Bletchley Circle so can't comment on why that didn't do better, but that seemed more detective based rather than the whole "family drama saga" set in certain periods/areas I mean.

Call The Midwife obviously exceeded expectations but it shouldn't be that shocking as again, the period it's set in and the subject matter meant it was bound to draw in a large crowd. Plus wasn't that book absolutely huge?

On the flip side, as much as they make me want to vomit, they need more lightweight "cosy" dramas like Where The Heart Is and Wild At Heart which shouldn't necessarily be restricted to Sundays alone.

Fair play to them for trying more this autumn and adding variety, but it's got an element of throwing stuff and hoping something sticks about it rather than going with subject matter and settings that could work so much better.