In all honesty though I don't think acts like that ever really bring in the viewers. The people watching may talk about them, but not sure the people not watching would watch specifically for them.

My wife and daughter!!

It's real drama. Proper exciting and tense stuff. Not like the 'will they/won't they make it' tripe that TXF offers up (and I was a TXF fan up until the end of last season - just feel it needs a refresh now that it's become incredibly dull with equally dull judges).

I quite like golf, but don't have Sky and neither does the pub, but will also watch TXF to be sociable with the lady bar staff.

I'm not disputing there's an issue, but as far as I am aware, nobody has bandied any numbers about. You have just done some extrapolations, made some assumptions on how much you think C4's figures were overstated - and then awarded the "extra" viewers to ITV1. For all we know, they may have actually included the ITV1 numbers and counted them as C4 as well. Or missed some from ITV1 but not the magnitude you have assumed.

We may get some revised overnights, I suspect we probably won't - they will just correct it in the officials.

I don't particularly mind a post saying "I reckon C4 were overstated by 1.5m and if all those viewers were actually watching ITV1, then that would mean TXF got 10.8m". But to post them up as "revised" "official" overnights seems a bit ahead of ourselves - and likely to cause confusion.


See!


Fantastic drama, although it didn't look on the cards did it?

The Ryder Cup should be a listed event IMHO. The BBC could be delivering a mega audience now, and probably doing one on Downton and TXF.

That's the only reason you want it to be a listed event.

The Davies Review Panel came up with a list of suggested listed events and the Ryder Cup wasn't one of them.

Sky have bought the rights up to 2018 so no chance of it being listed.

Best TV of the year!!!

I agree it's unlikely, but if Parliament listed it, that contract would become null and void, surely? It would have to be renegotiated and Sky would get a partial refund, methinks.

Well, ITV might bid for the rights.


Yes, I'm well aware it's not listed. I'm just saying it should have been.

Rugby League Challenge Cup Final - listed; Ryder Cup - not listed.

Go figure...

Take Me Out appeals to a young crowd and could dent Strictly. On the other hand it doesn't really rate that well considering the column inches devoted to it. We'll see what happens.


Strictly used to be the show that started later in the evening, think it changed around 2008/2009. Once X Factor claimed that later start time they've never looked back.


The days of X Factor being on one night are long gone as it brings in the viewers for ITV across the weekend. It would be financial suicide to give up a night with their cash cow.


Remember Jay Hunt and George Dixon are doing this together. Terrible scheduling with terrible programming. Comedy World Cup is easy money for Tennant though. More fool Channel 4.

With the Government giving Sky a refund. I can't see that happening somehow.

It's not that simple I'm afraid, the Irish Government wanted the 2006 event to be free to air in Ireland, but Sky Sports and the European Tour had already done the deal for the Irish TV rights. It ended up in the courts and the Irish Government gave up the fight eventually.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jan/12/bskyb.sport

Sky wouldn't want a refund, and they would challenge it in the courts. In reality no Government is going to add it to the list, it wasn't even recommended by the Davies Panel and the European Tour don't want it to be listed.

The review said any existing contracts would be honoured - hence why Sky went and grabbed up the rights to the Ashes through to 2019 as soon as they could.

Not a golf fan at all myself but can see the argument for it being listed. Indeed it's the only event other than cricket on the B-list (which guarantees highlights) that isn't on FTA.

Historically though has it ever pulled in the ratings, even before the Sky days. I think unlike many other events on the list (other than the Challenge Cup) it isn't really one that grabs the imagination of an audience outside of golf fans, unlike say Wimbledon and The Ashes, which do appeal beyond the fans of that sport.

A minor sport that is only played in a few parts of England and whose ratings never go above 2 million and whose biggest teams only get 15,000 a match. Golf, which is the biggest participant sport in the country, with 4 million players, is far bigger esp in Scotland. I live in a rugby league town, but even here football is vastly bigger now and the local team only gets 800 a match.

You could say the same about the new General Hospital team who still can't get the 18-49 demographic up- god, even Cheryl Cole could do a better job than them.

lets be honest US soaps are walking corpses, there will be precious few new viewers for them. The best they can do is hang onto the viewers they already have.

This should act as a warning to UK soaps, who still have life in them, but could well be headed in the same direction in 10 years time.

How the do ratings for the Ryder Cup on Sky and the BBC highlights compare?

I know twitter trends after midnight are rather pointless but nevertheless just seen #onceuponatime trending in the UK, but not worldwide or in America? I didn't think the show was even that successful in the UK? Or is that because everyone hd downloaded it before it even came to air?

The NRL final scored 2.4m yesterday and the presentations got 2.42m so down about 0.7-0.8m than the AFL finals on saturday. Interesting to note that even though the presentations were only ever so slightly up on the final itself, the numbers decreased by 159k in Sydney and increased by 209k in Melbourne (to the extent that more people watched the presentations in Melbourne than any other city). Needless to say, I'm pretty sure you can all guess which city the winner came from, and which the loser came from

Like you say it is pointless trying to guess.

My favourite twitter trend ever remains when TNA wrestling bragged on a live on US tv show that they were the current number 1 trend in the UK. It was 2am UK time and there was no legal way to watch the show live in the UK, so the tweets were presumably from people asking for or watching illicit streams. Didn't stop TNA bragging about it of course.

Repeats and movies are part and parcel of being a digital channel. E4 are showing Crocodile Dundee in Sunday primetime this week and Fantastic Four on Friday. Their Thursday comedy block is, for the moment, entirely repeats.

E4 is picking up better US content. But that's about it. Their original content is miles behind where it was a few years ago when Skins and The Inbetweeeners were coming through and to a lesser extent stuff like Misfits and Dead Set. Made in Chelsea is doing great for them but a lot of their reality commissions outside of that have really struggled.

Looking at this weeks schedules, Sky1 is by far the best. Fridays comedy block in particular looks good with one hour of brand new US comedy and an hour of brand new UK comedy. Then they've got the Ross Kemp series and Strike Back on other nights as well. And a lot of the stuff they are repeating are shows they've made in the UK in the past year. Finally the budget they have seems to be going to better use.

I've watched the first three episodes of Comedy World Cup and while I like the format, it's too long at an hour and Tennant isn't the right host for it. They could easily drop a few rounds and it would flow a lot better.

I've not seen any of their commissions but US comedy wise
Modern Family - Crap, Intolerably unfunny, heavily overrated
The Middle - Crap but tolerable
and starting in a few weeks time
Last Man Standing - Awful, since when was "hipsters" a punchline...

Also, E4 have brand new Suburgatory on Tuesdays, which beats the entirety of Sky's comedy output....

Anyone else find it strange that ITV aren't showing their Jimmy Savile Expose until 23:10 on Wednesday. The show is all over the press and internet...so I am baffled why they'd give it such a late slot.

just to say, there is no way the Golf is going to dent X-Factor, no way.

I will now await the actual ratings.