BBC Two should be doing even better with the snooker next week. It should be good for around a 1m average for the afternoon coverage.

In an interview last week Whately said he'd be up for filming more episodes next year but doesn't want to do any this year. That does suggest that it's him not wanting to do any more although I guess it could be spin.

ITV should be begging him to do more though, even if they don't film them until next year (they could film them in the first half of next year and air them in the Autumn as they won't have Doc Martin next year). It did very well indeed last night and seemed to knock a fair chunk out of the comedies (Miranda in particular).

Might get better weather. They shot one scene last night in a downpour and it never rains in Morse land.

Actually, I didn't much rate last nights. Sanjeev Baskhar? In Morse-Lewis?

I do think the show is now best laid to rest, and the fact they have now got to the "Inspector Morse Gently" 1960s shark jumping phase, says it all.

You know you were talking about bringing back Test The Nation? Well does this new show for Sky 1 seem similar to you? It's called Take On The Nation. I swear it's the same thing.

http://www.applausestore.com/applaus...?id=2215&bid=1

I haven't looked yet, presumably ITV had a really good night last night, if all the posts are one line gags about Splash, rather than 5 pages predicting the downfall of ITV that we usually get if they have a bad night?

Don't know how much to read into it, but at the end of Mr Selfridge on Sunday when they advertised the new series of Lewis, the announcer said it would be the "final season of Lewis starting tomorrow".

Interesting commission from Sky. Although the audience playing along via their smartphones could look a bit naff.

Do you secretly know ITV had a good night and you're just saying this?

With Test The Nation did the audience have buttons to choose their answers?

ITV having a good year so far - I'm sure *someone* will come ahead and spoil it all though

I'm struggling to remember how they did it now !! I liked how the studio audience used to be grouped by profession, that was cool.

Oh. That sounds as though it might be the end of it!

Not great. Corrie miles off 10m, only a few hundred thousand ahead of EE, and Inspector Morse (a one time 18m banker) was beaten by two sitcoms on BBC1, even when you aggregate the figures.

Not the best....

Robbie's eating and will be along shortly.


That's it! And they answered the questions, viewers could play along at home. This is the same show on Sky isn't it?

Indeed, It's the 'Eastenders' of the reality tv world.

The little tinkers!

No wonder it did a bit better than expected!

What desperate ratings grabbing tactics....

Yeah, sounds similar. Although not clear if it's an IQ test type thing or not or some other kind of test and also there's the added bonus of prizes.

Samuel was the one I had in mind

I liked Test The Nation so I'll give this a go.


They're a tag team!

That does suggest it's ending then! Whately seemed unsure although he said he'd consider doing more in the future, although that could just be for the press of course. After last night's ratings you'd expect ITV to be putting a bit of pressure on him to do more though. On a slightly different note, I wonder why they've reduced it from four to three stories this year?

Elsewhere and thinking about comedies again, I notice that the studio recordings of Vicious are taking place quite soon, according to SRO Audiences. With it all being wrapped up by the beginning of March and it being a studio sitcom I can't see them sitting on it for too long, so I guess we'll see that around late-April/May time. I'm hoping it'll be a 9pm show not a pre-watershed series though.

It's worse than that, the ratings posted on here for Corrie were time checked, the second episode of Corrie was even with EE. (8.9m Incl +1 according to ITV PR Lady 8.7m on ITV1 https://twitter.com/jscummins)

Corrie in crisis?

re the footy:

One confirmed so far:

Oldham v Liverpool, ITV1, Sunday 27th January, 4pm.

K

Have we had the ratings for ITV2's new US comedies yet, Ben and Kate and Up All Night? Can't see them doing that well.

Top Gear has been confirmed for the 27th at 9pm, could hurt Ripper Street.

Yes the groups in the studio had touch pads. You could play along at home on the red button or on the website and most of the papers printed an answer sheet for the earlier edition. Test the Nation was great but it did become tired after a while. Some of the later ones were awful though.
Does anyone remember ITV's big rip off version with Gabby Logan and Dr Fox?


Indeed especially as nearly 50% of Ripper Street's audience is male, well done BSI

Lewis probably got reduced because it's very expensive compared to TOWIE or Splash, and got its lowest ever ratings last year when it was trounced each week by The Apprentice.

So it got chopped down to three, then chopped into ITV viewer friendly 60 minute chunks, so it could have some life saving Corrie enhanced resuscitation.