Their coverage of the Flotilla was an unmitigated disaster and total embarrassment

But very quickly forgiven.

It had no lasting effect whatsoever.

Thanks a lot rzt.

ITV numbers seem particularly interesting. For a very long time indeed it's been a story of substantial ITV1 declines with ITV's overall share only falling much less due to strong digital channel growth.

This month sees a complete reverse with ITV1 stopping the decline to be essentially flat but with the digital channel growth now coming to a halt.

Will be interesting to see what happens next.

Based on the so-so ratings for The Town last Wednesday, I'm going to predict that The Poison Tree will lose to the repeat of New Tricks tonight (excluding +1)

I can best be described, I think, as an ITV agnostic, and the figures were lower than I expected. I really thought a lot more passives/ex-X Factorites would at least have tuned in to see who won't be getting the Christmas Number 1...

Because their coverage of London 2012 was, arguably, their greatest triumph ever.

They could, and they could do it well. They could even do it at ITV. I'm not sure they have much ambition, though. After setbacks with a sitcom pilot and a weak film, they seem to be clinging to the comfort blankets of what's worked for them for the last decade or so.

Got it on now.

It's more like an ash tree...



Edit: why does ITV persist with these dull metropolitan middle class troubled family melodramas, whereas BBC1 seems to be focusing on the regions and the working class, or more generally interesting subject matters.

Does it come from having an ex BBC bosses in charge?

I'll be discrete...

I think it was very kind of ITV to end X Factor a week early so that:

the battle for Christmas number 1 would be more exciting (because a lot of the X Factor sales will be the week before)

and

Sports Personality Of The Year could have a Sunday all to itself. (They also stuck the RVP on a Monday night to help out here)

Merry Christmas from ITV.




Why did they finish X Factor a week early?

You answered your own question there! Robbie tried his usual shotgun approach to postings but few people bit.

They had to finish last weekend because it's the ET tribute show this Sunday.

With no Olympics/Paralympics next year, we should possibly see ITV1 grow compared to this year, which would surely be a first for many years.

It's actually Drama Of The Week in this week's Radio Times. Which, considering The Killing III is still running on BBC4, is no mean feat.

But your edit may explain why the Radio Times chose it as its Drama Of The Week.

It's all my fault?




Doors Open looks quite good on the trailer just then. Hope it's not a threat to Miranda and Mrs Brown. Think ITV were a bit sneaky making everyone think Dale Winton was going there then putting a big new promising drama on instead.

That's how TV works.

Doors Open looks good but I'll be watching it after Miranda & Mrs Brown's Boys. I think most people will be doing that.

They could have shown ET before the X factor final instead of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

And what about Millionaire? It rated less than 3m including +1. And was beaten by an archeology programme shown against the X Factor Final. And the umpteenth showing of Elf.

Oh, ITV, where is your humanity? A mercy killing is needed now.

I think tAnt & Dec are good at what they do. The acting gigs didn't work, I'd rather they did presenting to be honest. But going to the BBC and leaving big shows behind at ITV would be madness. They won't leave anytime soon.

Or maybe discreet.

I agree that the trailer looks good. But as it's on against Miranda and running for two hours I wasn't going to watch it. Until now, You've talked me into it. I'll watch it on ITV1+1. I can stay up to midnight. It's Christmas.

It figures were no better or worse than The Paradise which was given another series. It fell to close to Downton. There is meant to be a shift towards working class period drama next year with Heidi Thomas reinterpreting another Gaskell novel. I thought UpDown was a very well written and produced drama but I don't know how a third series would have gone down with millions of viewers, it didn't set alight the ratings and wasn't supported like the also underwhelming performance from The Paradise.

The first EastEnders Omnibus of 2013 is split into two parts (on Saturday and Sunday afternoons) on BBC Two, and as the omnibus of the Christmas week episodes is also on BBC Two, I wonder if it's a permanent move.
I wonder if the criticism of Likely Lads hurt them more than people realise.

Indeed - it's very obvious that RT columnist Alison Graham is unusually sympathetic towards ITV drama, bigging it up at just about every opportunity, excessively fawning over it and even lamenting the demise of Monroe in a current edition. So I wouldn't expect a very objective view from them ...

I just sat through The Poison Tree and would guess it will lose viewers across the hour. The characters, their behaviour and the world they inhabited seemed a far cry from what an ITV audience will expect ...

I think if Ant & Dec wanted to do a new Saturday night primetime show then they first place they'd go would be ITV because they know and trust the producers there.

Takeaway gives them a lot of freedom to do what they want. It's their show and nobody else on television could get that kind of vehicle at the moment. If they want to do games, they can. If they want to do sketches, they can. It's a very open format. If it does well I think ITV will do a run of Takeaway in September around the launch of The X Factor.

With sitcoms I think it would be impossible for them to play different roles. The only option I can see would be to do a kind of "Ellen" style show where they basically play two best friends called Ant and Dec who live next door to each other in Newcastle with "regular jobs".

God, it sounds awful.

UK audiences seem to struggle to accept that people can do two things - they like people to stay in their boxes and certainly like presenters and actors to very much stick to their own thing, especially on TV. I can't think of many people who do both successfully - Stephen Fry, Alexander Armstrong and Bradley Walsh just about get away with it but I think now are all seen first as presenters, second as actors.