I'm all for light-hearted stuff to provide a contrast to the darker/'miserable' stories, but it needs to be well written and not come across as weak filler material.

Channel 5 programme information w/c 3rd November:

Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan (Series 1: 1/4)
Commencing this week on Channel 5 is an exhilarating travel-adventure series that follows actor Dominic Monaghan (‘Lost’, the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy) as he explores some of the most remote, spectacular and dangerous landscapes in the world in search of their most unusual and interesting animal inhabitants. A self-confessed bug-nut, Dominic already keeps a menagerie of insects, snakes and reptiles at his home in LA. In each episode, Dominic takes the viewer on an intimate, action-packed journey as he hunts down and gets close to some of the most lethal and elusive creatures known to man.

The All New Gadget Show (Series 17: 1/7)
As the tech-lover’s favourite show returns in a brand new format, ‘The All New Gadget Show’ sees presenters Jason Bradbury and Pollyanna Woodward travelling all over the world, testing a huge range of consumer gadgets in their own exhilarating, entertaining and adrenaline fuelled style.

North Pole Ice Airport (Series 1: 1/3)
Every year, for one month only, a bizarre community springs up in our planet’s most hostile environment. Men and machinery, parachuted onto the barren polar wastes from Russian transport planes, sculpt an airport from scratch on the drifting ice of the Arctic Ocean. Our cameras have exclusive access to Ice Station Barneo, one of mankind’s most ambitious and most improbable projects, and to the extraordinary cast of characters it attracts.

World War 1's Tunnels of Doom: The Big Dig (1/2)
For eight months, Channel 5 has been following World War 1’s biggest archaeological dig, taking place at Messines in Belgium ahead of a 2km pipeline being laid around the town. Amid the unexploded wartime shells lying inches below the surface, the diggers are uncovering some of the best-preserved trenches, bunkers and tunnels ever discovered on the Western Front. Against the background of the dig, we reveal the story of how, after three years, the stalemate of trench warfare was finally broken by the detonation of huge mines underneath the German lines.

Castle (New Episodes)
Back from its summer break, the gripping crime drama about a novelist who shadows an NYPD detective continues. This week, Castle and Beckett investigate the passion-fuelled killing of a student with a sideline as a dominatrix.

Dallas (Season Finale)
This highly entertaining revival of the glossy Texan family soap reaches a riveting climax this week. As secrets are exposed and enemies are revealed, Christopher and Elena learn that not everyone is who they appear to be, including the people closest to them. And JR’s most bitter enemy finally shows his hand.

Movie Premiere: Bangkok Dangerous (2008)
Thriller about a cold international contract killer who travels to Bangkok for his last assignments. As retirement approaches, he makes some sloppy errors, leaving traces of his identity. He also gets emotionally involved with both the local tough, whom he has taken on as an apprentice, and a charming deaf girl who knows nothing of his secret life. Can the killer pull himself together and get out of the game alive?

milkshake! Olive the Ostrich (Series 1: 1-3/52)
An adorable young heroine makes her debut on Milkshake! on Wednesday this week. Olive is a cute pink ostrich with a big imagination, a huge heart and a gigantic appetite for adventure! Each time she buries her head in the sand, her fertile imagination takes her on travels to all sorts of exciting places. Uniquely on television, all the locations, characters and things that Olive encounters are pictures drawn by real children and brought to life by award-winning CGI animators Blue-Zoo and lively narration by the nation’s favourite Australian, Rolf Harris.

Source: C5 Press.

I have watched EastEnders for 20 years and do unfortunately think it has hit a dip in form at the moment.

They bought a big name back in Sharon without any real though of what to do with her. I feel this with a lot of the characters at the moment, that they are floating around with no real purpose.

A lot of the families have had members leave the show leaving floating characters with no real purpose. I feel this currently relates to Phil, Jean, Tyler, Jamie, Whitney. The Masood's are about to be depleted further, and the Mitchells are down to the bare bones. I have liked many of these characters, and think some of the best actors on the show are used to portray them.

Now, the only major family on the show is the Brannings. Long gone are the days where you had clans of Fowlers, Beales, Mitchells, etc etc...

This, IMO, is why the ratings have gone down. The family element is missing from the show, and there are too many floating characters.

Agreed. Fatboy is another character the writers just do not seem to know what to do with at the moment.

I think the big two, like the two main political parties that voters have drifted away from in the last three elections, always have an entrenched following, which explains why CS and EE very rarely fall below 6 million viewers, even though in the modern era they seldom top 10 million. In the case of CS, some people have been watching for 52 years and won't give up the habits of a lifetime, same as you will always get diehard Tory and Labour voters.
I think what is happening are viewers are gradually losing interest in soaps. It is possible ten years down the line that these shows, like America, could be relegated to daytime.

An improvement for Russell. Higher than the officials for episode 2 (last night was episode 4)

GBBO would have topped that list by miles. Strange world we live in.

I have never done this before so god help us!

BBC One
13:45 Doctors 1.28m (19.0%)
17:15 Pointless - 2.4m
19:00 The One Show 4.37m
19:30 EastEnders 7.99m (37.4%)
20:00 Waterloo Road 3.49m (15.8%)
21:00 Hunted 3.44m (15.5%)

BBC Two
21:00 The Choir 2.84m (12.8%)
22:00 Hebburn 1.81m (9.6%)

ITV1
17:00 The Chase 3.01m
19:00 Emmerdale 7.59m (36.9%) at 7pm 179k (0.8%) on +1
19:30 Tonight 3.23m
20:00 Emmerdale 6.82m (30.8%) 417k (1.9%) on +1
20:30 Emmerdale at 40 3.7m (16.7%) 228k (1.0%) on +1.
21:00 Homefront 2.34m (10.6%) (+1: 160k/0.9%)

Channel 4
18:30 Hollyoaks 698k (3.6%)
20:00 Location, Location, Location 2.13m
21:00 Embarrassing Bodies 1.55m (7%) (+1: 196k/1.2%)
22:00 My Tattoo Addiction 1.68m (10.3%) +1 229k (2.7%)

Channel 5
13:45 Neighbours 670k (9.8%)
17:30 Neighbours 889k (6.0%)
18:00 Home and Away 794k (4.6%)
21:00 Pale Rider 914k (5%)

Primetime Shares

BBC One 19.8%
BBC Two 9.6%
ITV1 17.1% (+1: 0.8%)
Channel 4 6.9% (+1: 0.9%)
Channel 5 3.6% (+1: 0.1%)

I think it's best that someone else does the multichannel ratings and stuff I have missed because I am terrible at it.

Ken

Thanks as always rtz. Another interesting list.

I think this shows how much ITV is going to miss Harry Hill next year. I would say ITV should persevere with light entertainment at 8pm on Wednesdays as it is working for All Star Mr & Mrs. Take me Out should perhaps be once per year in Q1 and The Chase: Celebrity Specials should perhaps get more episodes per year.

I would be surprised if the bottom 4 get recomissioned for next year. I would also keep Keith Lemon away from ITV1 where he is considered a flop, and keep him on ITV2 where his shows are considered break-put hits for the channel.

This list also shows how valuable Britain's Got Talent, The X Factor, Dancing on Ice and I'm a Celebrity are to the light entertainment department at ITV - even with their year-on-year drops.

I think you are better at this then you think. Thanks Ken.

Another day with no programmes breaking the 1million barrier on Channel 5 disappoints me. I have always been a fan of more money being thrown into the schedules by Desmond, but something isn't working at the moment.

It seems most of the money has gone into Big Bro which has paid dividends for the channel, but at the detriment of the rest of their schedules. I do think they have made a massive effort on new documentaries in the 8pm hour which are very worthy PSB, and this should be applauded. I just feel they have such a low viewing base from 7pm which is effecting the rest of the evening.

Perhaps, now is the time to refresh the scheduling of the top US imports as they seem to be hit and miss at the moment. Also, perhaps some money being pumped into original scripted comedy and drama is now the way forward. Also, getting in more FTA sport such as the boxing which is serving well for the channel at the moment.

Series 4 did go off the rails a bit, I agree. Skins series 5 was a bit slow but actually very enjoyable and really well made. By the end I liked all but one of the characters.

The series after however was utter crap: misogynistic, lazy, terrible continuity, characters' personality's retconned - to be much more unlikeable, drama-whoring waste of time. Though your mileage may vary.

However, neither series 5 or 6 of Skins will have much (or apparently anything) to do with this final hurrah series 7 they're currently making. I've seen that they are posting a lot of behind the scenes on their youtube page about it.

Rough night for The CW in the US. The Vampire Diaries slid 25% from its premiere to a 1.2. In its second week, Beauty and the Beast collapsed to a 0.7, down 42% from last week (when it faced the VP debate). Means that Arrow could be the #1 show on The CW this week unless TVD gets an adjustment up in the finals.

With a likely upward adjustment in the finals, The Big Bang Theory will probably just top Modern Family in the ongoing comedy battle (MF had a 4.7 on Wednesday). It'll likely tie The Voice for #1 this week in the demo (it had a 4.8 on Monday). Can The Walking Dead beat them all again?!

Year on Year:
The Big Bang Theory - down 4%
Grey's Anatomy - down 6%
The Vampire Diaries - down 8%

Last Resort - up 42% from Charlie's Angels
Elementary - down 8% from The Mentalist
Scandal - down 17% from Private Practice
Beauty and the Beast - down 22% from The Secret Circle

FOX's miserable week continued last night. They'll be praying the rain stays away on Sunday or else they'll find themselves with another overrun pushing their animation block off the air.

Bianca,Carol and the kids are back soon so that solves the whitney problem. Phil has his grand daughter stay with him soon. Dot also returns. I think a new family is needed but i reckon Lorraine will announce one in the new year.

Couldn't agree more those scenes were terrible. In fact so were all the scenes featuring Denise and Fatboy. To think Denise was such a promising character when she was introduced and slowly but surely this seems to have been diminished. This latest storyline is not amusing in the slightest and is not believable. In fact last night's episode as a whole was weak.

There is hope though. The episode recently when Lola's baby was removed from her was excellent. That kind of quality needs to be maintained on a daily basis and not once in a blue moon as it is currently.

In theory The Chase should be boosting the ITV regional and national news to, and also the ITV1+1 airing hurting the BBC Newshour (and it's own too I guess). Certainly gives ITV1 though a strong start to it's early evening schedule.


Always think BBC2, C4 and C5 should really never dip below the 1m mark in primetime but it's becoming more and more frequent - but then again looking at the ratings for BBC1 and ITV1 last night that shouldn't be too surprising with neither getting close to 4m at 9pm. Not that long ago it was unthinkable for either to dip below 5m at 9pm.

Big Entertainment Averages:

Britain's Got Talent - 9.5m
The X Factor - 9.0m
Dancing on Ice - 6.9m

Note that those are episode averages. DOI and BGT have higher hourly averages (I think BGT is 9.8m) but their episode averages are dragged down by short, low rated results shows.

Most of the shows coming from two sources as well:

ITV STUDIOS:
Dancing on Ice
Piers Morgan's Life Stories
The Chase
Red or Black? (ITV/Syco)
The Jonathan Ross Show (ITV/Hot Sauce)
Superstar
Fool Britannia

FREMANTLE UK:
The X Factor (Thames/Syco)
Britain's Got Talent (Thames/Syco)
Take Me Out (Thames)
All Star Family Fortunes (Thames)
Keith Lemon's Lemonaid (Talkback)
Let's Get Gold (Thames/Superhero)

AVALON:
Harry Hill's TV Burp
You Cannot Be Serious

SONY:
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (Victory)
The Exit List (Gogglebox)

OBJECTIVE:
The Cube

CPL PRODUCTIONS:
All Star Mr and Mrs

PS: ITV entertainment can't take credit for Life Stories - it's from ITV Studios factual and commissioned by the factual department at ITV network.

I may have missed some sort of build up, but the fact that Channel 4 are running a telethon type thing tonight seems to have gone off my radar.

How do we think this will rate?

It's up against tough competition. 2 x Corrie, Have I got News, new Graham Norton etc.

Pizza's Christmas Day:

To be fair, their main offering was a 27 year old film repeat. They can't have reasonably expected much more than about a million, which they probably just about got with +1. And it still did a 5% share across the 2.5 hours it was on, which isn't bad, and a marked improvement on recent Thursday performance. But it wasn't a great schedule.

Let's see how Hatfields gets on next week though. I'm not expecting much but you never know, it might surprise. BBC One and ITV1 are likely to underperform significantly again, which helps, but on the negative side there's still around 5m drama viewers 'locked' into those two shows until the bitter end, unlikely to be tempted by something fresh and award-winning.

In terms of the Whitney" problem I have a hunch it may have been solved another way.By that I mean that while other and many EastEnders stars like Adam Woodyatt and Jacqueline Jossa were tweeting they sadly couldnt watch the Emmerdale live episode because they were working late and most of the cast seemed to be -Shona McGarty who plays Whitney was out and about here there and everywhere in Central London and partying in the GAY nightclub in the city centre.Even Tony discipline seemed to be working late and Tyler is hardly a central character.Couple that with the fact that June Brown,Linda Henry and many senior cast members were seen with Shona ina London nightclubs function room on Saturday night and I have a sneaky suspicion that Shonas birthday party was dovetailed with a leaving party because I really cant see June Brown at the age of nearly 86 going out on the town to celebrate Shonas 21st.Just a suspicion-no need to beat the idea to death if I am wrong.But I think Shona has finished filming and Whitney Dean has is leaving.

The Chase was commissioned by the ITV daytime/factual department too.

7.99m, oh so close for Eastenders. I think we can accept that as the first 8m of Autumn though. By coincidence, it just so happens it's one of the first episodes in a long while to be up year-on-year as well - although that is due to a football denting for last year's equivalent episode. Disappointing numbers for last night's BBC3 repeat though at 417k.

Waterloo Road was lucky not to be dented too badly by Emmerdale and stay in the mid 3s. The breakdown posted by gslam2 earlier today is a good indicator of how Waterloo Road is dented:

2000 - 3249
2015 - 3316
2030 - 3621
2045 - 3785

If it had a soap free first half an hour it may well still be capable of 4m, so certainly worth trying it back in the Wednesday 8pm slot I think.


Good rating for the 7pm Emmerdale but that 8pm episode is really quite isolated now. It is strange to think that it used to be the highest rating episode of the week often 500k to 1m above the day's 7pm episode but now is regularly the lowest of the whole week. How much of that is down to the Waterloo Road soap genre clash I don't know.


eep...


Graham Norton show back tonight, main guest is Arnold Schwarzenegger who should be interesting. I predict 3.8m.

IAC is produced by ITV Studios and is their biggest ITV produced entertainment show.

Teatime soaps yesterday:

17:30 Neighbours 889k (6.0%)
18:00 Home and Away 794k (4.6%)
18:30 Hollyoaks 698k (3.6%)

Same night last year:

17:30 Neighbours 1.18m (7.3%)
18:00 Home and Away 857k (4.6%)
18:30 Hollyoaks 1.11m (5.5%)

Interesting how H&A seems to be holding up better than the other two teatime soaps recently.

The Stink is 60 minutes guys and I think it'll have an early evening slot away from Christmas Day like The Borrowers had last year.