That would be bullet proof.

BUT.

The rest of the year would be as weak as a rotten bus.

Ken

In reality it's the BBC who have played the dirty tricks by putting Call the Midwife in a 75 minute slot rather than 60 minutes, meaning ITV had to do something - and in the end they've done the most innocent thing they can do and put the news in the slot to make up the difference. Extending Strictly and CTM to 75 minutes made it quite difficult for ITV to schedule against - based on the original timing I'd have put Emmerdale at 6.30pm and 8.30pm and Corrie at 7.30pm, but that still leaves 30 minutes to fill at 7pm - a shortened POGDOGs perhaps, but not much else they could put there.


Aren't Sherlock, Jonathan Creek and Luther all basically plodding crime pocedurals anyway. ITV have taken many risks in the drama department over the last couple of years, but on the whole they don't seem to pay off - and then people like you (well, just you really) come here the next day, gloat about the poor ratings then say ITV do the same thing all the time. BBC1's drama cupboard isn't exactly full to bursting at the moment either.

The Town did better than I thought it would, it didn't really seem like the normal ITV1 drama fit.

The real flop at 9pm was the Hour, it was never a huge hit before, but seems to have lost half its audience compared to last season.

Indeed the phrase shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic springs to mind.

I believe all four of them are confirmed for the Autumn so that lineup actually seems pretty realistic.

They've got enough returners earlier in the year to keep them going like Scott & Bailey, Vera, Law & Order, Endeavour etc but they seem to be focusing more on new titles in the first half of next year. We'll soon see if it pays off.

So the BBC are not allowed to have programmes of certain length to make it easier for ITV? What piffle! The schedules were perfectly fine as they were. No programme clashed and DA had the prime 9pm slot. It was ITV who forced the move for Midwife!

I do, but it would take a bit of effort to find them and copy/paste them all out as most of them are within 0.2m - from 0.6m to 0.8m to be honest. If you search back through the thread you should be able to find some though.


Tuesday 4th December 2012
Sky Sports 1
19:30 to 22:00 - Soccer Special: 67k (0.3%)
* peak: 140k (0.6%) at 21:40

Sky Sports 2
19:00 to 22:00 - Borussia Dortmund vs Manchester City: 421k (1.8%)
* peak: 696k (2.9%) at 21:00

Sky Sports 4
19:30 to 22:00 - Real Madrid vs Ajax: 53k (0.2%)
* peak: 104k (0.4%) at 20:20

Sky Sports News
19:30 to 22:00 - Soccer Special: 114k (0.5%)
* peak: 217k (0.9%) at 21:35

Combined Sky Sports 1, 2, 4 and News Peak
=> 937k (3.90%) at 21:00
- 696k (2.90%) on Sky Sports 2
- 143k (0.60%) on Sky Sports News
- 54k (0.22%) on Sky Sports 4
- 44k (0.18%) on Sky Sports 1

Wednesday 5th November 2012
Sky Sports 1
19:30 to 22:00 - Soccer Special: 64k (0.3%)
* peak: 131k (0.6%) at 21:40

Sky Sports 2
18:00 to 22:00 - Chelsea vs FC Nordsjaelland: 391k (1.7%)
* 19:30 to 22:00 - 556k (2.4%)
* peak: 733k (3.1%) at 20:20

Sky Sports 3
19:30 to 22:00 - Celtic vs Spartak Moscow: 398k (1.7%)
* peak: 724k (3.1%) at 21:35

Sky Sports 4
19:30 to 22:00 - Manchester United vs CFR Cluj: 502k (2.2%)
* peak: 688k (3.0%) at 21:25

Sky Sports News
19:30 to 22:00 - Soccer Special: 110k (0.5%)
* peak: 277k (1.2%) at 21:40

Combined Sky Sports Peak (excluding F1)
- Sky Sports channels averaged 1.63m (7.0%) from 19:30 to 22:00
=> 2.26m (10.0%) at 21:30
- 721k (3.2%) on Sky Sports 3
- 677k (3.0%) on Sky Sports 4
- 567k (2.5%) on Sky Sports 2
- 198k (0.9%) on Sky Sports News
- 93k (0.4%) on Sky Sports 1

Sorry, but what risks has ITV taken in drama?

Its drama commissions have been virtually risk-free. Downton Abbey may have been a huge financial risk but, content-wise, it was as safe as they come. Scott & Bailey = Cagney & Lacey, Monroe = House, and they even ripped off one of their own untransmitted series (Bombshell) for Homefront.

ITV has always been about getting bums on seats - but, historically, it always managed some innovation as well ... think Rock Follies, Prime Suspect or Cracker. I would love to see ITV rediscover some of its old verve - but I fear the current commissioning team doesn't have it in them ...

over nights are increasing irrelevant

for public funded broadcasters perhaps

The main thing to take away from that is that only around 70% of viewers watch in the 5 metro, meaning including regional viewers overnights should be at least 50% higher. More relevant to Seven and Nine than Ten perhaps, considering Ten doesn't show adverts in regional areas (just the same old tourist promotion clips), Nine has a rotation of about 10 adverts (womens bra adverts are a norm whilst watching cricket or the footy) and even Seven relies heavily on repetition. I'm surprised Tasmania isn't treated as a market, but other than that viewers in regional areas are just not worth the value in money (and one wonders why Ten even broadcasts at all - Imparja which runs Nine's programmes used to be a mix of Nine and Ten, considering the amount of rubbish on both of them a joint venture is probably a wiser idea)

Celtic held up quite nicely compared to the competition there, so may not be a complete disaster for ITV if they get a nice draw, and ITV would probably benefit more if they get the second leg of their game.

Talking of Chelsea anyone know who is broadcasting the FIFA Club World Cup in which they'll play next week?

How dare the BBC show extended specials of their shows at Christmas. It's not like any other channel has ever shown a longer than usual show at Christmas. And it's good to see that ITV haven't responded to these rotten tricks by the Beeb and kept Paul O'Grady's Dogs to it's usual one hour length and Downton is still it's usual two hour length...


Plodding crime procedurals? Dear me.

the regional ratings in Australia are interesting, but this article also talks about all the discussion around overnight figures, vs Consolidated ratings, that dont get in the press as often, and are not always as well discussed in this thread as they should be. Even the much discussed soap ratings, dont have their consolidated ratings discussed in this thread, beyond the (also increasing irrelevant) BBC 3 vs +1 arguement

Given no one has ever seen Bombshell other than, presumably, those at ITV and what not, how the hell do we know it was anything like Homefront? The army connection is the only tenuous link there. Bombshell sounded like Bad Girls army style. I suspect the inaccuracies (and maybe glamorizing?) of army life were borderline offensive going by other Shed productions. But who knows. Scrapping something (with at least one known name) seems extreme so something must have been badly amiss, and I'm not sure it was entirely to do with quality..

And while ITV clearly haven't been innovative, the likes of Mrs Biggs and The Bletchley Circle were at least a bit different. The latter probably deserved better. The usual subject matter (DCI Banks, Scott and Bailey) seem to perform better so it's no wonder these sort of shows keep appearing.

I'd like to see them really branch out and have more fantasy/horror/sci-fi related stuff, but presumably the cost makes the risk so hard to take...

It's the BBC's fault for making Call The Midwife 75 minutes? Erm Downton Abbey is usually an hour long and it is now 2 hours on Christmas Day. Only Fools And Horses was a half hour sitcom until it was turned into a 75 minute show in 1985. TV channels can extend shows if they want.

This makes no sense. None.


PLODDING!?!

They are crime dramas just like ITV have them. What makes them work is how you put them onscreen.

The Hour is a triumph of style over substance. It's not as good as it thinks it is.

Thanks for the ratings DMN.

New daytime quiz announced for BBC One by the way - 'Beat the Pack' presented by Jake Humphrey - filming in February and March.

Also how common is it for shows that have had their debut in a year, get a prime Christmas Day slot the very same year? BBC obviously have Midwife, while ITV have err, the dog show which literally only started a couple of months ago!

I don't blame them for doing it though, I'm not sure what else they're supposed to do so may as well throw a wildcard out there that's been successful in its slot. Although that makes you wonder why The Chase didn't get a go too.

Emmerdale thrown to the wolves I see. But after that the evening will be interesting. Definitely going to see the peaks around the 8.30-8.45 period with all sorts of channel hopping going on. I don't think the news is a bad thing, no one is going to bother with the last 15 minutes of midwife unless they are already watching or turning over for Eastenders (which is likely). If Corrie does a reasonable amount of 7 million plus and many stay for Downton (and I have no idea how that will work, will the Corrie viewers switch for EE or be more Downton orientated?) combined with Midwife viewers switching to Downton, it could still win the night. Then again, will that be too much drama (let's face it, EE is easier to watch) and will most Midwife viewers be EE viewers anyway?

My head hurts thinking about this but at the very least it'll be an interesting night

Couldn't have put it better Georged

Dear me indeed!

I was also going to ask what the hell this was from Christmas Day 2004 (thanks to whoever posted that list of ratings from the last decade):

10 …. 5.88 …. Christmas Night With The Stars (19:10) BBC1

Until I looked it up and realized it was obviously once an established show. But that just sounds terrible beyond belief and the rating isn't great. Was it really that bad? Even nearly 10 years later it's hard to imagine BBC1 going that low in primetime Christmas Day in terms of content and ratings.

Ah! That was actually 2003! Possibly one of the worst Christmas night schedules of recent years. The big comedy that year was Absolutely Fabulous, French and Saunders, The Office and the last OFAH. Only OFAH was on Christmas night with the other comedies on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. 2004 was a pretty good line up:

5.35 Alistair McGowans' Big Impressions
6.05 Film Premiere: Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone
8.25 EastEnders
9.25 The Vicar of Dibley
10.20 BBC News
10.30 Absolutely Fabulous

I've just checked it on imdb...love the user rating. The performer list is wonderfully dire...

Victoria Beckham
Emma Bunton
Busted
Kelly Osbourne

It's like something ITV would have cobbled together in 2005.

I thought the original concept (from what I've read) is that it featured short segments of popular comedies...so what's with the random musical "pleasures"?

why is Pudsey the Dog, mentioned so much in the BBC 1 Christmas trailer?

He's in Mr Stink.