I hope they end it next year. Then in 2014 Itv1 can launch a new music talent show in Autumn. BBC One can also move The Voice to Autumn 2014. The viewers will then decide which music talent show they prefer, the new Itv1 talent show which has a lead in from TMO or Voice season 3 which will have a lead in from Scd.

Why can't you use your shift key properly? Seriously!

The site rules state you should try to ensure your posts are relatively typo-free to avoid misunderstandings.

Why would BBC One move The Voice to the Autumn? That would never happen in a million years. Strictly is their big entertainment hitter at that time of year. And we don't even know if there will be a 'season' 3 yet Sam...

It depends on if XFactor ends next year. There will be a big chance for another music talent show to take off in Autumn 2014 and I dont think BBC1 will give up that fight easily by just showing National Lottery gameshows. They might see it as an opportunity to bolster their schedule even more and if Voice UK season 2 rates quite well but not great, maybe they will decide to recomision it and give it a Scd lead in so it gets more viewers? Either they can do that or they could start showing Scd from 7.30 that year in the heart of peak time, with a good old fantasy drama before it.

Strictly does well in the Autumn. BBC1 will only move it if ratings completely collapse.

I don't see any typos. Looks like your career in the grammar police has ended before it had a chance to begin.

Plenty of examples in the past of light entertainment smash hits that reached the end of their natural life.

I'm pretty sure The Generation Game was started to lose viewers when Larry Grayson decided to quit and the revival jumped the shark when they gave the gig to Jim Davidson.

Game For A Laugh collapsed big-time when 3 of the original presenters quit the show and new presenters were drafted in to accompany Jeremy Beadle.

Noel's House Party was a complete mess when it fizzled off our screens and Blind Date was on the way down when Cilla quit live on air. (She probably jumped before she was pushed),

And look at Millionaire and You've Been Framed. Pale, pale shadows of their former selfs. If they were dogs they would have been put out of their misery years ago.

The original Generation Game lasted ten years and was killed off by Game for a Laugh, which only lasted four years and was finished when a Sunday night series was judged to be substandard and seen as downmarket by an ITV that wanted to move itself upmarket. While Game for a Laugh never returned, the Generation Game had a massive comeback in the nineties.
As for Blind Date, it dragged on for 20 years and logically should have gone in 1995. You've Been Framed is another clapped out show that has been around for 21 years but survives because it's cheap.

Site rules also state:

There is nothing to justify. It is in decline and has been for 2 years. All the warning signs were there last year when the rot started to set in, and it needed reinvention this season. Instead, we just got the same.

It's time for an overhaul of autumn Saturday nights for ITV. A revitalised XF would still have a place because it's current performance looks positively stellar compared to the shows that preceed it.

Anyway, Eastenders....

TXF is reaching the end of its shelf life. While ratings are good compared with most other programmes, a drop of 3 million in a year is steep and if it continues next year, then the logical step is to drop the show. Also you know when it's jumped the shark when the redtops turn on it.

Dreadful for The X Factor but the show does have the air of going through the motions; it had no spark to speak of yesterday and the acts are very similar to one another leading to a show which had a load of ballads and not much else. The acts are reasonably talented, to be fair, but they don't have enough about them to attract the casual viewer. The larger loss in demo than overall drop shows that the elder audience are still watching which may explain the sing off being scrapped tonight; they'll want to keep Christopher Maloney until the final to ensnare the granny vote but I don't think they'll want him as a winner.

Saying that, The X Factor itself gets no support from the early evening; at least up to last year it had TV Burp pulling in an audience of over 4m (in it's decline; it was higher than that previously) to ITV1 - instead they now have programmes which can't even hit 3m which means The X Factor is starting on the back foot before it even takes to the air. The Golden Rules of TV should have been pulled as soon as the early figures came to light and replaced with anything...TV Burp repeats would've attracted a better figure. You've Been Framed is classic filler television but may have done better in the 7.30pm slot than Take Me Out managed. Take Me Out needs to move back to it's spring/summer slot next year where it'll benefit from less competition. It's obviously a good show for ITV demo wise but it does not pull in the casual viewer.

They deserved all they get from the I'm A Celebrity... rating. After a very strong series airing the final on a Saturday night was farcical to say the least. A good rating for it all the same but if it had aired tonight it may have boosted the final ten minutes of The X Factor and would have undoubtedly rated much higher than it did last night.

ITV's massive declines deflect attention from BBC One, which has not taken advantage of the obvious weaknesses in the commercial broadcaster's schedule. Maybe The X Factor's decline is affecting the other broadcasters as well as people are not staying in watching other shows before switching over to watch The X Factor?

Channel 5 had an excellent day with the Christmas films and the international boxing performed well for them as well. Star Trek didn't disgrace itself for Channel 4 though BBC Two looks a bit low; I thought previously Saturday's usually claimed an audience of around 2m across the night?

Indeed, and the ratings for kids' shows have never been considered on the total number of viewers anyway, it's always been based on the number of children - Broadcast have always classified their chart like that, even in the eighties and nineties. They'd get even worse ratings on BBC1, they only used to get massive ratings because there were virtually no adult alternatives. And indeed CBBC and Cbeebies always dominate the kids' charts, only Disney seems to get close.


Well, they didn't, but indeed ITV have, even though the BT flatmates are still having their Halloween party, an advert I now know every single word of off by heart, including the terms and conditions.


Yes, I thought this thread was supposed to be biased against ITV according ti some people and yet not one person has mentioned this on Christmas Day ITV even though it seems terribly shoddy. I know it was successful for what it was against 'stEnders and O'Grady is a popular presenter but even when Animal Hospital was in its pomp it would never get anywhere near primetime Christmas Day, it would be teatime or earlier. This is hopeless.

I'm fascinated to see how Call The Midwife fares on Christmas Day since we've hardly had any drama outside 'stEnders and Who on Christmas Day for decades, apart from David Copperfield and The Lost World at the turn of the century you have to go back to the eighties for the likes of All Creatures Great and Small and Miss Marple. I think one reason why they haven't done it since was that Richard Curtis said he watched Miss Marple in 1989 and "Two people died and one was forcibly injected with heroin, and by the end of it we were totally miserable". And I suppose they've never really had the hit dramas that could work on Christmas Day.


Those are utterly atrocious figures for Channel Four, Alan Carr has been getting sub-million ratings for weeks and that umpteenth repeat of a Lee Evans DVD is certainly not primetime fare. And C4's reliance on the same comedians over and over again is a complete contradiction to what they always say about innovation - last week we had a Sarah Millican DVD, who is a BBC personality (and another one who C4 couldn't be arsed finding for a vehicle for, a la Gervais, Amstell and the like), this week it's Peter Kay again and next week, the ten trillionth repeat for Peter Kay Live At The Top The Tower, recorded in 2000! I remember that getting its first screening on Channel Five, at eleven o'clock at night in 2002.


I don't think this deal does much for the FA Cup, I know they get their own show but surely there's more benefit from following Man U and Liverpool highlights than being opposite them. I'd love to see the ratings for The Football League Show at midnight, which is where the FA Cup highlights would have been had they been on the Beeb, I assume they'll be more or less the same as the ITV highlights.


They're not caving in, though, are they, Countryfile, Strictly and Antiques Roadshow is still on, albeit twenty minutes earlier and the documentary about Ancient Rome is at least new and they're already promoting it. And I don't know where else it would go anyway, at eighty minutes long presumably it would have to go on a Sunday.


Well, they only bothered mentioning it on the news when it got to London but on the night of 30th November 2010 it snowed non-stop for hours on end here in the North and all the buses were cancelled, I didn't get any post for a fortnight and the bins weren't emptied for four weeks. It was the worst snow I'd ever seen in my entire life.

Looking at the FA Cup, am I right in thinking four choices will be on television; choices 1, 2 and 4 on ITV1 with choice 3 on ESPN? If so, I think ITV will go with:

Lincoln or Mansfield v Liverpool
West Ham v Manchester United

I think ESPN will pick the repeat of last season's shock:

Brighton v Newcastle

Which will leave ITV with a tricky fourth choice as they have some options - will they go for the struggling big team away to premier opposition (Swansea v Arsenal/Southampton v Chelsea) or the 'magic' of the gap with David at home to Goliath (Hereford or Cheltenham v Everton)? If Hereford get through they may go for that match considering Hereford's history in the competition. But they may decide that Arsenal/Chelsea may bring in more casual viewers.

No, ITV get first and fourth pick and ESPN second, third and fifth pick.

Thanks.

In that case I think ITV will want an all Premier tie as their second choice, so I think it'll go:

1st: Lincoln or Mansfield v Liverpool (ITV)
2nd: West Ham v Manchester United (ESPN)
3rd: Brighton v Newcastle (ESPN)
4th: Southampton v Chelsea or Swansea v Arsenal (ITV) - it'll depend on which of the 'big' teams is in the biggest mess at the time of picking.
5th: Hereford or Cheltenham v Everton (ESPN)

From memory, ESPN seem much happier to air David v Goliath ties than ITV.

Are ITV matches still to be aired Saturday teatime and Sunday lunchtime? Personally, I think it really should be the other way around, with a Saturday lunchtime match followed by a Sunday teatime game but I'm not sure what the deal is.

I'd have thought that ITV would have gone for the West Ham v Man Utd tie, given that it's all premiership & features Man U.

The scheduling I think is usually down to police advice.

ITV must be quite narked that a plum tie like Man U v Liverpool hasn't occured in the third round. I think they'll go for the West Ham, Man U tie as at least their favourite team has premiership opposition.

Don't know what it got last night but The Football League Show normally averages around 1 million, more than double ITV's Cup highlights.

There are no specifications for when the broadcasters get to show their matches, they pick what they want and then decide when's best to show it. Saturday teatime games seem to work better for ITV than Sunday teatime games, and vice versa for ESPN, but it's up to what the clubs and the police say and ITV have happily shown games in every available slot.

I've said it before (and I'll probably say it again ()) but the only reason Call The Midwife is on Christmas Day is because Downton Abbey is on Christmas Day. It's BBC1 being childish.

Very good and it's a logical show to follow MOTD.

Weak ratings for ITV's entertainment shows does not always benefit BBC One in the longer term, as the BBC can sometimes get a bit sharper when faced with competition and then relax and not provide any fresh alternative when ITV stumbles. The decimation to the X Factor's ratings reveals the BBC have no strong competition to pull the ratings from it, the viewers have simply tired of the X Factor and drifted away. Audiences may be solid for Sunday evenings on BBC One but it needs shaken up with new innovative programme ideas away from 20 to 30 year old programmes just because they provide popular ratings.

I agree, a strong ITV is good for the BBC, and vice versa. I don't think it's ever a good situation for the BBC when ITV is weak, it just means complacency sets in.

Not sure what can be really done with The X Factor now. Even though I have watched it from the beginning and consider myself a pretty loyal viewer it really does seem to be just going through the motions. The live shows are a real chore to get through. The warning signs were there for all to see last year. ITV et al chose to do nothing and now they have a show that has lost 6 million viewers in the space of two years. The final will be lucky to break 10 million at this rate and that has to be of real concern to everyone.

It's easy to say 'axe it and commission something new' but we have all seen how ITV's recent slew of entertainment commissions have done i.e. not very well. Maybe if the timing had been different and The Voice came along a little later they could have picked that up as a possible replacement, but I'm not sure what kind of format would work half as well as a replacement.

ITV1 haven't had any opportunity to air Liverpool this season, though, and they pull in big ratings plus there's the potential of an upset. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they did go for West Ham v Manchester United.


I think they'll be relieved to be honest; the last thing they want is one of Manchester United or Liverpool definitely going out in the third round.


If they had held back the highlight package until today and aired it before the MK Dons v Wimbledon match it would've probably at least matched last night's figure if not beaten it. It was never going to do anything opposite a Match of the Day containing matches involving last year's top four plus Liverpool and Everton.


That's exactly the problem - including +1, The X Factor still claimed 8m viewers last night. If it loses 25% on this year's launch for the tenth series it'll still pull in 6.5m viewers including +1. On the face of it, that's horrific but what other new entertainment formats have pulled in those kind of figures for a launch?

The problem is partly of ITV's own making; they should've been trying to launch new entertainment formats off the back of a successful X Factor (and Britain's Got Talent and Dancing on Ice; I'm A Celebrity... is a bit more difficult due to it being in a post-watershed slot) instead of using them to solely line their pockets. Now on of the giants appears to be dying and they're lacking a ready made replacement. And let's not use Red or Black? as an example of ITV using The X Factor lead in - it only got that because it was co-produced by Syco and ITV and it was dreadful format which didn't deserve to see the light of day.