Yes, Drama may well live on ITV - but not for long if the autumn is anything to go by. Can only really see The Bletchley Circle getting a recommission out of the autumn slate. Thank goodness for Downton !

That said, I think ITV do have a strong slate of new drama going into 2013 - although with a couple of exceptions nearly all play to ITV's fallback of crime drama.

Mr Selfridge (1 x 90 & 9 x 60)
Broadchurch (8 x 60)
Scott & Bailey (8 x 60)
Whitechapel (6 x 60)
Lightfields (5 x 60)
Law & Order UK (8 x 60)
Life of Crime (3 x 60)
The Ice Cream Girls (3 x 60)
Vera (4 x 120)
Endeavour (4 x 120)
Lewis (4 x120)
Poirot (5 x 120)
Marple (3 x 120)
Foyles War (3 x 120)
Murder on the Homefront (2 parter)
Doc Martin (8 x 60)
Downton (Series 4 ?)

We're going to have to disagree here but a lot of the kids shows today are brilliant, already this year I've watched The Ministry of Curious Stuff with Vic Reeves which was fantastic, great fun for kids and adults alike, and on Friday afternoons on CBBC at the moment there's 12 Again where grown-up celebrities talk about what was happening and what they liked when they were kids and it's fascinating to hear them try and explain the likes of The KLF and the Munich Air Disaster to a child audience. The other week they even featured Ghostwatch!

You could compare Jonny Briggs to Tracy Beaker and I don't think the modern day programme would found wanting, we used to hate Jonny Briggs. And the Wednesday 5.10 dramas used to bore me to death. There were obviously great shows like those with Johnny Ball and Tony Hart, and I used to be obsessed with the Saturday morning programmes, but lots of it was really shoddy and really boring. Even the modern day Broom Cupboard, I would suggest, is just as good as the old one - you don't get the fun of Pip doing it all itself but it's very creative and quite subversive.

And I used to hate all the cartoons, which were mostly cynical marketing exercises, when I was out of the target audience I used to be jealous of kids getting the likes of Cow and Chicken which were way more fun.


I don't think it could sustain a ninety minute episode, to be honest, you've seen one celeb dive, you've seen them all. Blue Peter did this as part of their Blue Peter Olympics this summer and they got it all over and done with in under ten minutes.

Yeah, so much for everyone hating football now because of the Olympics. There was cycling on the BBC at the weekend and I doubt the tens of millions who were tuning in August were that bothered. On Saturday it might even have rated less than the Arsenal vs Spurs match on Sky Sports.

Football is still the UK's number one sport and the suggestion people are turned off by greedy footballers is a non-issue, back in 2006 we had the WAGs at the World Cup and Ashley Cole swerving off the road because he was only being offered 55 grand a week. Even before that we had the likes of Winston Bogarde. Football's always had massive wages and transfer fees.

Unless something remarkable happens tonight, ITV's match before Christmas is going to be a dead rubber but that can't be helped, that's the price you pay for this format of the Champions League. And some years the British clubs have a crap season. That's football.

Way back in 2007

w/e 9 Dec 2007

STRICTLY COME DANCING (SUN 1815) 9.16m
BBC SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR (SUN 1900) 6.86m
CRANFORD (SUN 2106) 7.12m

ITV1

THE ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE (SUN 2001) 7.78m

Have you not seen the C4 schedules - they may not be living up to the creative part but are certainly doing plenty of renewing, whether it's deserved or not.

I think Deal is safe for now whether it should be or not as nobody at C4 has the balls to tell the current management team to get lost and bring in new management with the balls to make the necessary changes. As with most faded C4 shows they just don't understand that less would be more - Deal or No Deal, Countdown and Come Dine with Me would all benefit from having their runs reduced and it would give C4 more opportunities to find potential replacements by taking them off air a good 3-4 months of the year than trying to shoe horn new shows into the 3.30pm slot.

Seen some of 12 Again and it is a good show.

Quite a quick turnaround on Splash! then. I think they ought to split DOI over the weekend of the 5th and 6th of January and give Splash a decent lead-in for its first week at least. But that's always a good weekend I think. I remember So You Think You Can Dance managed to pull out an 8m peak that weekend due to some very poor weather a few years back. It's just after New Year, everyone's broke and BBC1 rarely has much else. If they don't use DOI on the Saturday (and I doubt they will) then the best option might be a family film as a lead-in. It'll be interesting to see how it performs because as far as I know this is it's first test in a major market other than the Netherlands (and I guess the similar German version).

On the drama averages, Call The Midwife and Downton Abbey are the stand out performances. Call The Midwife as the new entry and Downton Abbey for somehow managing to increase just a little bit more and almost hit a 12m average including +1. Bit of a dip for New Tricks in its autumn slot but really good for Sherlock. Aside from CTMW it has been a fairly slow year for new stuff with quite a lot of new launches it seems but many of them falling on the bottom end on the respective channels.

ABC:
8pm - Dancing With The Stars - 12.87m (1.9)
9pm - Happy Endings - 4.87m (1.2)
9.30pm - Don't Trust The B... - 3.20m (0.9)
10pm - Private Practice - 4.14m (1.2)

CBS:
8pm - NCIS - 16.47m (3.0)
9pm - NCIS:LA - 15.06m (2.8)
10pm - Vegas - 10.20m (1.8)

FOX:
8pm - Raising Hope - 3.69m (1.5)
8.30pm - Ben & Kate - 2.52m (1.1)
9pm - New Girl - 4.09m (2.0)
9.30pm - The Mindy Project - 2.69m (1.3)

NBC:
8pm - The Voice - 9.33m (3.3)
9pm - Go On - 6.21m (2.2)
9.30pm - The New Normal - 4.35m (1.6)
10pm - Parenthood - 4.52m (1.6)

NETWORKS:
#1 - CBS - 2.5 - Down 14%
#2 - NBC - 2.3 - Up 21%
#3 - FOX - 1.5 - Down 53%
#4 - ABC - 1.4 - Down 60%

Tvbythenumbers

Tuesdays really are a disaster zone right now. Those ratings for FOX and ABC in particular as ghastly although the year on year comparisons make it seem worse because it was the DWTS finale last year and a special X Factor on FOX. Spanish language channel Univision did a 1.5 average in primetime.

Of most concern for FOX is New Girl because without it they don't have any platform for one hour of comedy let alone two.

CBS still won the night, largely thanks to another hefty decline for The Voice which was down six tenths from last week. NCIS doesn't look quite the force it was - that's just in line with Criminal Minds or Person of Interest.

How did Crickley fall then over the hour?


Old couple exchange messages on Facebook, meet for a cup of tea, have a car chase and crash.

An hours viewing - even Cowell doesn't pad like that!

ITV has CL dead rubber on MD6.

Man C - out
Arsenal - through

Presumably they show Arsenal who have a chance of winning their group rather than Man C trying to make the Europa League.

I assumed they'd hold Splash! back to the spring after DOI finishes, but obviously not. I don't think having two celebrity talent shows airing side by side is a good idea really, especially at a time when ITV are rebranding and trying to recapture some of it's former glories as they could have decent 9pm drama every weeknight but it would be the celeb talent shows on Saturday and Sunday which people associate with the channel.

I think they'll show Dortmund v Manchester City - at least that has something riding on it (City's season in Europe).

I wonder how the Exposure follow up on Jimmy Saville will perform tonight; it was just advertised before the I'm A Celebrity... result.

First 15 minutes: 5.65m
Last 15 minutes: 4.96m

Hard to see what new material will come out. Any new allegations are subject to police investigations, so presumably it will be a largely back slapping, "aren't we fantastic, we exposed the guy everyone knew was a wierdo, scoop of the year, crisis at the Beeb, we did all of that, and we're not letting a 6m rated Panorama take all the credit"...?

Thanks to rzt for the series averages. Very interesting. The success of Downton Abbey is just immense really. Its still growing despite the lead-in been reduced every year. Christmas Day is going to be very exciting to see who comes out top.

the true meaning of Christmas, who wins the Christmas Day ratings battle BBC 1 or ITV 1

In my day Christmas was a time for Doctor Who specials.

It's performing so well ITV are even considering commissioning another series - who'd have thought it.

At least Dortmund are an attractive side to watch and even though they are through I can't see them playing for a draw. It might be fun watching them beat moneybags City albeit in a meaningless game, so the ratings might not be too hopeless.

That second AC MIlan goal by the way - wow. Shame nobody saw it tucked away on Sky Sports extra or whatever it was.

I'm shocked that they are only considering it! Surely it's a no brainer?!

Fox's comedy's are in free fall with only New Girl putting in a respectable figure, ABC has to be concerned about Private Practise that figure is shocking beaten by the abysmal 'Happy Endings'. USTV ratings never cease to astound me.

Back to the UK it's a healthy figure for Last Tango, very unexpected, and I await the ratings for Pointless, now the record jackpot has gone. And how is ITV's afternoon comedy 'Crime Time' performing?

Nobody watches Pointless because of the prize, and if you don't watch it you don't know what the prize is. It's fun if they're playing for one thousand pounds or a hundred and one thousand pounds.

Ben & Kate is performing worse than I would have thought possible to do in such a sandwich, that's how bad it's rating. A 1.1 with shows either side doing 1.5 and 2.0 and nothing else starting at that time on the main networks?! Where are FOX's regular viewers going for that half an hour? It's America's answer to In with the Flynns.

Horror show from start to finish for ABC. Obviously a particularly ghastly figure for Don't Trust... but really there are no positives to take from their Tuesday night performance just now. Some massive changes required next season if they are to become competitive again.

We enjoy the banter between the presenters, it's a fun addictive show and I especially like the fact it's two chances then off.

Was pleasantly surprised to see that 'Breakaway' on Two is equalling the ratings of DOND, when it goes to One the it should be in the 2 million club at least.

That may be so, but I wouldn't overplay that angle personally.

NCIS might be down but so is everything else, so NCIS is still as big a beast relative to all other scripted competition on the night as it always was.

And frankly with two of its main rivals posting declines 3 or 4 times bigger, I don't think CBS has much room for complaint. Especially when nearly all of their new shows are horrible and headed for cancellation.

It's still a big and very successful show but even with other shows declining, I still think NCIS has slipped back into the pack rather than leading it as has been the case when compared to other CBS dramas over the past few years. It is still among the top performers on the network so it'll keep going for a while yet. And to be in this position having been on air for so long is quite remarkable.

CSI is still clinging on after all and with the way things have been at CBS this season I think another run is guaranteed for the original.