its also worth pointing out that the BBC does already have a political comedy "The Thick Of It", whilst there is nothing to say the BBC can not have two, there is nothing to say it needs two.

Why should the BBC just hand over cash, to someone who apparently has a massive entitlement complex, for a show, they dont need, need, and is possibly duplicating something the BBC already has.

Fair enough if the pilot/script was strong, the BBC can pick it up, but I would rather the BBC make the new series "The Thick Of It" than remake/revival of Yes Prime Minister.

They dont want to write a pilot, let me get my assistant to show them the door, whilst I hunch over my table laughing.

Apart from the final weekend though the Six Nations doesn't run any later than 7pm, and with the last game being France v Scotland I wouldn't be surprised if that's on BBC2. This year's opening early evening game is a 4pm kick-off to, so that leaves the BBC free from around 6.15pm, while two of the next three 5pm games don't feature England so I wouldn't be surprised if they were on BBC2 anyway.

Any news on if Let's Dance is returning?

If BBC One are going to air a double EastEnders bill I'd do it on a Monday rather than a Friday; the younger demographic tend to go out on a Friday night hence the dented 9pm figure. Apollo should have done better considering the lead in. Emmerdale and Coronation Street did ok though Benidorm performed expectedly badly as a repeat. The mash up didn't exactly work for Channel 4 while Celebrity Big Brother would have done better if it wasn't for the additional soap episode on BBC One.


Or ITV1 wondering why they didn't at the very least Dancing on Ice so it could air on Saturday night. If they had split it it wouldn't need to start at the relatively early time of 6.15pm tomorrow night and it would have swept up reading the reviews of Britain's Brightest.

I didn't think Splash was too bad until the phone lines opened and then it was a case of bringing forward the pointless filler. They need to think of something better to fill that slot, though the Bond-theme dive show was pretty good though would have looked better in the studio than on the TV screen. They need more comic presenters than Gabby Logan, as much as I love her; for such a ridiculous format - they need to take the mick out of it. I'm sure it'll rate pretty appallingly while Britain's Brightest will do well; indeed, despite being full of filler I'm sure BBC One will hold up fine as usual.

Not sure what you mean here. The top two in the judges scores went through. The audience vote changed nothing from the judges leaderboard.

Omid was the only one to jump from 10m.

Britains Brightest was actually a well produced and enjoyable show. The two shows before it however were pants.

I would have done this tonight:

5.30 Animal Antics
6.00 Celebrity Mastermind
6.30 Merlin (instead of BBC3)
7.15 Britains Brightest
8.30 Casualty
9.20 The National Lottery Draws
9.30 BBC News
9.50 Film: POTC: At World's End

Secret Service would have been on at 7pm on BBC3.

given that this is the year of Doctors Whos anniversary, some selected Classic Who, could have aired tonight.

As for comparing Lets Dance to Splash, as I recall Lets Dance the act who got the best reception on Lets Dance, were men who dragged up. Not something that can really work on Splash.

The British ability to laugh at a man in a dress, is timeless, and leads too far too many cheap jokes, getting better laughs than they should.

Do we know if the replacements for the 5.30 morning news have rated any better than the news?

Actually a complete rerun of Merlin in the 5.30pm slot would be perfectly acceptable for Saturday nights on BBC1. After all Dad's Army filled it for years, while ITV often air You've Been Framed repeats around that time.

I am tempted to agree, my mother has always been a big Merlin fan, and opted for Merlin tonight.

No because the replacerment is text based promotion of ITV. Not seen the figures myself but not too unsurprisingly the axing of the Morning News is affecting the lead in to the Daybreak newshour and according to someone (and this is unverified) on Wednesday the Daybreak news hour had a zero rating for at least the first part of the hour.

Even though the play this revival is based is pretty good, I think the BBC were right to ask for a pilot because some things don't translate well on screen as they do in the theatre. I do wonder however, where it would ended up had it ended up at the BBC, My guess would be BBC Two or BBC Four,

I bet theres some Dutch TV companies in a bit of a sweat tonight.
Thats two formats that have done amazing on Dutch TV and appear to be failing on UK TV.

The Voice and by the looks of it Celebrity splash.

If Splash does flop surely with money so tight UK companies are going to avoid the dutch formats for fear its not going to translate well?

I would think the production companys would be more concerned that if the UK versions of the show flop, it may make it harder to sell it to the states.

As for will we continue to remake Dutch formats, its been said recently, that the Dutch are very successful in making TV formats, that sell around the world, I dont think Splash will stop ITV from remaking another Dutch format for a UK audience, it will hopefully stop them remaking bad Dutch formats, for the UK audience.

The Voice isn't actually a flop though.

The Voice was the biggest new entertainment hit on BBC1 in a decade with an average of 9.2million viewers so it didnt 'flop' despite what some poeple might like to say. A couple of below par live show ratings maybe, but it wasnt an out and out flop.

Blimey - it was painful watching BBC One this evening. Animal Antics - horrible, lazy television appealing to the lowest common denominator. What was Tim Brooke-Taylor thinking of in signing up for that? A real insult to the viewer. Secret Service was not much better. As we were watching these, my dad said, "So the BBC mustn't have much money left then" - the cheap nature of these shows is blatantly evident. I predict massive flops.

Britain's Brightest is actually quite good - surprisingly, and they have a good host in Clare Balding - but it just feels too worthy on a Saturday night. I predict it won't do much better than a typical Lottery quiz show, a la Who Dares Wins, so 3-4m.

I hate to say it but I suspect itv will have won the night with football and Splash. Yuck.

Haha.

They had him signed up before the allegations. They're now in a position where they can't win. If they cancel his appearance on the show then they're joining the "witch hunt" of a man who remains innocent and hasn't even been charged. If they let him in and 5 days later the police show up to charge him then that's potentially problematic, to say the least.


This would seem to confirm some of my concerns about Splash. And it seems like they're padding it out a bit too much as well. If the typical time per contestant on these shows is 8 minutes then Splash should probably be looking at 6 minutes per contestant and getting at least two in per segment, particularly for the first show.

The more positive stuff - could it be "so bad it's good"? When it seems the opposition might just be deadly dull, Splash might pick up an audience. And it does seem like they're a bit tongue in cheek with some of it.

This is all just from reading on here - but I'm considerably more curious about Splash than Britain's Brightest. Same goes for the ratings - Britain's Brightest will do fine. Splash I could see being well out in front of Brightest or flopping out the gate at 3m.


They have loads of ideas - but most of them are for clip shows and teatime filler. Both ITV and BBC1 have said that they're not getting in big budget ideas for the X Factor/Strictly slots.

Likewise, the diving format has been sold to the US already. ABC is intending to air it between Dancing with the Stars series if I recall correctly, so it failing on ITV won't be too much of a nightmare.

The problem with Splash! in my mind is it took itself too seriously which is the same issue which hurt The Voice at the live stages and The X Factor. People want a laugh from reality TV, not something overly pious. I think Dancing on Ice, in general, has managed to avoid this trap - it's failing last year was more down to the increased competition in my opinion.

Honestly? I watched Splash! tonight and I really don't think it took itself seriously at all, and certainly nothing like The Voice did.

The presence of Jo Brand on the judging panel and the inclusion of comedians like Omid Djalili would indicate that they were going for a tongue in cheek approach. I can perhaps understand what you mean with the other two judges scoring more technically but I think that was balanced out by Jo and the general tone of the show which was very light hearted. It's got a lot of flack online but I think it might surprise a lot of people - it was easy, fun, light entertainment for a Saturday night and in the face of a rather dour looking BBC1 schedule it may just pick up an audience who will come back to it. If nothing else the 'it's so good it's bad' factor should be enough to see it through.

The response to it tonight both on DS and elsewhere online would suggest it did quite well tonight - it generated 46 pages of comment on the DS discussion thread tonight alone which isn't bad going.

Hmm, my issue is with Gabby Logan; strong presenter that she is she gave the show a more serious sporting feel than it needed. Vernon was ok but he's hardly been the presenter of massive hits. IMO, presenting wise it needed a more tongue in cheek approach to match the panel and the dives and that led to a clash which made it feel strange at times - especially when it came to announcing the results.

And it may have performed well tonight but will it sustain an audience next week? I suppose ITV should be thankful of a lack of real competition though come the morning I could be saying the same for BBC One.

I've seen zero promotion for Blandings.

No trails, and a crap slot opposite an established ITV hit (well, former hit now moderate ratings banker).

It's a 24 carat turd, and they are burying it.

Then again, they put 3 turds in prime Saturday evening slots tonight. Perhaps BBC1 has too many turds to bury right now?




Surely the BBC has copyright in Yes Prime Minister?

How is it a case of "offering the BBC first refusal"?

You say that about every BBC show! For such a BBC Fanboy you don't seem to watch much of it.
Yes a terrible slot where Countryfile flopped last Autumn

Also worth remembering that just because something is successful on stage doesn't mean that it will automatically transition to the screen well. Even for studio based sitcoms there's usually a difference between what works on television and what works on stage. Also there's an issue of wider appeal. That you can attract a very specific but also quite limited and small audience for a stage doesn't mean you'll be able to grab the large and broader audience that would be expected on BBC1.


From all reports Doctor Who isn't yet ready so its delay isn't a major issue. And in reality I suspect it might be better to launch The Voice before Doctor Who returns so that you can time Who's return to screens with the start of The Voice's live shows and maybe give the show a bit more support where it struggled to maintain last year. It seems nonsensical to me to have Doctor Who running alongside The Voice auditions and battle rounds which audiences seemed to quite like last year.


On a somewhat related note it would be quite nice to see a political drama land on the BBC or really anywhere on British television at this point. Borgen seems like the glaringly obvious inspiration point for a British series.


Indeed Splash like The Voice has already sold to the US market and if we're being brutally honest I imagine its success (or failure) in the US will be much more important to it as an international format than its success (or failure) in the UK. It was after all the success of The Voice in the US that really catapulted that into a huge international format. And as of right now ABC is hoping that 'Celebrity Splash' (I'm amazed ITV resisted the temptation to stick celebrity in the title of their version to be honest) will be their replacement for Dancing with the Stars. I suspect they'll be bitterly disappointed but it wouldn't be the first time and I doubt it'll be the last.

In general though we should always remember that broadcasters will always need new formats and they'll take them from wherever they can get them. That a Dutch format or two or three hasn't worked in the past won't stop them from buying another one. It might make them enter into a more cautious deal for a new Dutch format but they'll still buy it if they like it or think people will watch it.


The Voice and Splash are two very different shows though so whilst The Voice can afford to take itself a little bit seriously (and arguably needs to) Splash really can't. The format is just ridiculous and the dives are just so terrible that trying to treat it anything other than stupid fun doesn't work. In truth, from the little I watched this evening, it looks to me as if absolutely nobody involved in Splash has any idea of what they want the show to be or how it should be treated.

On the one hand Jo Brand is on the judging panel which suggests overt comedy but on the other hand they've hired a popular Olympic medal winner to be the face of the whole thing and the rest of the panel is made up of some pretty serious people within diving. The whole thing is just so confused which is even reflected in the choice of presenters – Vernon Kay and Gabby Logan. That's almost as weird a pairing as when they had Alan Titchmarsh and Mylene Klass presenting Popstar to Operastar a few years ago. Nobody has quite decided what the tone of the show is supposed to be so half the people involved are taking the whole thing very seriously and the other half are just having a laugh. It makes the whole thing very odd and disjointed.

So maybe the problem isn't so much that it takes itself too seriously but that it just doesn't have a consistent tone so viewers aren't really sure what to make of it.

Splash was a very interesting piece of telly. It did seem ridiculous to me but that was what made it quite watchable. Inevitably it did have a lot of padding, which became tedius (moreso than other talent shows) at times. They ought to have had each contestant do more than one dive really. I think it will premiere reasonably well, maybe 5m average. To be honest anything above 3million would be "usable" ratings for ITV Saturdays right now.

Also was it just me or did the audio become really tinny/off tune during the james bond theme professional diving bit.