No idea. You'd have to ask C5 or Fremantle.

I think H&A is more in need of changes in that regard, with no opening titles for over 2 years now. They've ripped the character out of the show and left us with a load of boring storylines about teenage relationships, no wonder ratings are going down.

What is the full picture though as it's more than just about the EE ratings, it's how the former 10.30pm shows are doing at 10pm too - and also the lead in to 11pm.

Personally I think it is a decision that should be reversed - the 10.30pm slot has served BBC3 comedy well for years, and at 10pm it's generally alone in the schedule in between some documentary and EE, can be up against BBC2 comedy and for non-EE viewers encourages them to turn away from the channel at 10.30pm, rather than perhaps stick around for Family Guy.


I'm sure they've said the Emmerdale live special is all on-location.

Seems like a good move on their part. A nice cheap effective way to fill a slot they've not really been able to figure out as of late.

Moving Eastenders to 10:30 on BBC 3 is the best decision that has been made for a while. 10 PM is a popular slot to launch shows, and has always been successful for sitcoms and panel shows on C4, ITV 2 etc.

Why should Eastenders have a peak time repeat just hours after the first showing. Remember we are now in an era with Iplayer, Sky Plus etc.

ITV don't repeat Corrie till after midnight, If you miss the first showing you can always record it etc.

Last point. I hardly think a 30 minute change in repeat showing is going to make much of a difference. EastEnders is down this year because the plots are weak and the heart of the show has been ripped to shreds in recent years by the loss of veteran characters who have been replaced by characters who lack substance or who were on C4 documentary about poor behaviour in secondary schools.

AFL rights sell off was a disgrace, the hiring of Paul Henry on the million plus contract has been an unmitigated disaster, the Breakfast show has been tanking and his wooden stifled presenting has not helped.

I am not surprised that a resurgent ABC has booted Ten into fourth place, and I agree that baby boy Murdoch showed his lack of business/common sense by allowing his wife to host 'Everybody Dance' , that was car crash from the off and they should have realised that brain dead bimbos do not make good presenters after the Lara Bingle travesty.

Ten will continue to sink in the cities and its demos will get worse, at the rate it's going I can see it fighting SBS for fourth place. I have long suspected that Murdoch wants to knacker free to air in Australia thus giving the viewer no option other than subscription. Aussie commercial tv is in a bad place and its Ten that is currently fighting to stay alive.

I have a feeling Last Tango in Halifax will start on Friday October 12th at 9pm.

This means it will be on:
12th, 19th, 26th, 2nd November and 9th November with the last episode airing on 23rd November a week after Children in Need.

considering where TEN is at the moment, it makes this little bit of Aussie TV more amusing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n42lNEoP5zE

Hmm, it'll be interesting to see if they do elect to split the episode or not. I don't hold much hope for the live episode at the moment though. The trailer is pretty poor IMO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRMdoGpaulk&=

Seems to make it look like all that happens on the show is people cheating on each other. When compared to the Coronation Street 50th trailer it looks second rate to me.

Where would HIGNFY, Blandings and Me and Mrs Jones go then? What confuses me is that they've still got Miranda repeating on the 12th Oct, are they going to let that run and then have the new series replace it on 9th Nov which would have it finish a couple weeks before Christmas, so if there's going to be Christmas special it'll be separate from the series. This would leave only one slot free for the other two comedies.

What's happening with Antiques Roadshow, there's seems to be one episode left from the previous series (which I think is the one digiguide has airing on the 7th) but then do they have another series ready to air? They could be using that episode to fill the slot, so Halifax can start with a Strictly lead in the week after, or they could just be airing it before starting the next series the week after. If Halifax doesn't air on the 14th October, then I think it'll take over from The Paradise like someone suggested earlier (edit: although that would have it finishing on Christmas Day, assuming it's 6 parts, which clearly isn't going to happen. So it's either Sunday 8pm, some random evening/late night slot or postponed to next year.)

TBH I imagine one comedy will be paired with Mrs Brown's Boys in January and this time I think Mrs Brown will get the 9pm slot.

The pickup of Trisha is good given it'll rate similar to Live with but at a fraction of the cost.

Halifax could air on Mondays once New tricks is finished! How many more eps of New Tricks are there?

What is the point of giving less mainstream stuff like Wilfred the 10PM slot when it would do better later paired with Family Guy/American Dad.
Bad Education like Gavin and Stacey and Little Britain before it would have done just as well at 10.30pm.
An utterly pointless move imo.


ITV did air it at 10.30 around 10-11 years ago but it didn't rate very well, presumably because it's audience is generally older than that of Eastenders. It also blocked them airing films.

Don't they have others for then (actually they probably don't ), I thought these two were meant to air this year, I've seen them both down for October. If they did hold one of them back which one? Blandings would fit better, and that does seem to be the most promising so Mrs Brown's Boys would give it a good lead in.


New Tricks should finish on the 29th October. I think it looks good but doesn't deserve that slot surely, against X Factor it would get a decent rating nothing spectacular and tbh I don't think it would do much better elsewhere. Also, if it takes Monday that would put Ripper Street on Sunday running into the new year, I know it's been said that isn't problem for them but I don't think the BBC would want it to get lost over Christmas, especially since they clearly have high hopes for it.

Blandings seems very good. They could launch it over Christmas when viewership is higher. Maybe the second Mrs Browns Christmas Special (there are two Xmas specials this year) on Friday December 28th at 9pm and Blandings at 9.30pm.

I don't think they'd put Mrs Brown at 9.

Ofcom have said a million times the transition to adult material after 9 must be gradual and you shouldn't put a load of fecking swearing on at 9.01pm.

Family Guy's audience is still quite cult. They hate change, they hate it when it gets pulled for live music, they hate it when it gets pulled for sport, they hate it when it's even vaguely delayed.

In many ways it's simply to avoid pissing the audience of their largest show off. Also Wilfred's odd length 20-22 mins mean it's hard to schedule, and there's no way they drop an AD for it...

So Good Cop can go on at 9 with swearing and extreme violence yet a good natured comedy that makes people laugh and uses the word f.e.c.k can't?

Poor Angela Griffin !!

Well maybe. Odd now to think that Mrs Brown's Boys was delayed for six months after Sachsgate because the BBC were worried what the reaction to it would be. I'm still not sure they'd put it at 9pm.

There are a lot of things that can be said about Ten, but it wont be fighting off SBS, ever. Last night for instance SBS showed Coast and a documentary with David Suchet on St Paul, its the sort of stuff BBC4 would show and considering that Coast is specific to the UK and is on its umpteenth season its hardly rivetting stuff. The only shows SBS have that can match Ten (even in the state it is now) are Eurovision, WDYTA Australia, and Go Back From Where You Came. Considering the first is a one off and the latter are a 6 and 3 part series its not going to be pushing anywhere near a million rating programme any time soon.

Commercial TV is not in that bad a place, Seven and Nine provide good competition with each other, yes there are some bad shows, but Nine in particular have been resurgent this las year and its drama in particular bar Tricky Business have been a success.



Mrs Brown should be on at 9 though, its the show that gets the ratings even in repeats. It has more potential to boost another comedy. The 9pm watershed does seem a bit daft and late, espeically considering youngsters have access to the internet these days and can see far worse on there. In Australia its shown at 8.30, and I've not seen any fuss about it, but then again this is the same country that sees lots of complaints about lesbians in home and away so perhpas its not a fair comparison

Astonishingly poor ratings for Thursday!

In a high summer heatwave, we might shrug our shoulders and think nothing of it - but it's autumn, it's cold, dark and wet.

What the devil happened?

I haven't really noticed anything standout in the 10pm slot since the EE move. Bad Education did do well, but it has since dropped back a bit.


Wednesdays and Sundays were still fully open at 10pm to launch new comedies, indeed Family Guy does fantastically at 10pm Sunday when new episodes are airing. They didn't need to go moving Eastenders in order to launch a new comedy (or any other show) at 10pm. I think a lot of BBC3 EE viewers are habbitual viewers who always watch at that time and don't want to start recording it and hunting it out on IPlayer every night.

That's a very good question. Did viewers just go to other multi-channels in droves?

I think we would all like to know why, there is no rational explanation and the soaps being erratic is strange to say the least.

Corrie has its lows but is mostly consistent where ratings are concerned but Emmers and EE are not performing as they should be at this time of year. Take EE for instance certain FB's were trumpeting the arrival of Sharon/producer change as the boost that EE needed and it would be reflected in the ratings, maybe I'm mistaken but the ratings are erratic and have not broken 8 million for a 1st showing for quite a while, Emmers seems stuck in a ratings/stories rut and I believe that the production team are hoping that the live episode will pull it out of the doldrums.

But the live ep synopsis does not give me that must see feeling but I hope there will be more to it. And the Bletchley Code dropping 800k against very poor BBC efforts because of the dropping of Good Cop is weird. Things may get better as the autumn/winter seasons pass BUT its not something I'd bet on.

Last year it was notable that Eastenders didn't break 9m all Autumn/Winter until Christmas day and that was considered disappointing at the time, this year it hasn't even broken 8m yet. With Emmerdale also below par, It is concerning to see the soaps this low. The annual soap ratings deflation has been worse than usual this year though, Neighbours, Holby City, Casualty, Hollyoaks - they have all seen significant falls this year.