ITV have put Friday's Corrie on the itv player. If they don't take it down before Friday it might have an effect on the ratings

Agree that EE should be split. (6:30 & 9:00)

I'd have a 3 hour gap


Tbh CTM was out of place totally it just didn't seem right putting it in that slot. I had to turn it over and watch corrie

EastEnders on xmas day is a must. Despite what 'some' say it does the job very well.

I think this....
2:00pm-Top of the pops
3:00pm-The Queen
3:10pm-Film
4:45pm-News
5:00pm-Animated Cartoon/Short Film (Like W&G)
5:30pm-EastEnders
6:00pm-Strictly
7:00pm-Dr who
8:00pm-Entertainment from the Television centre(Obviously not live but features music,comedy and general entertainment)
9:00pm-EastEnders
9:30pm-Comedy Comeback (Or the Royle family)
10:30pm-Mrs Browns Boys
11:00pm-One Foot In the Grave (1996 special)
Midnight-BBC News 24

Yes, a big refresh of the schedule. It was a boring, uninspired effort from the BBC this year. It was up because CTM forced them to move their two big hitters slightly earlier, that's all. Looking at the ratings they were all fairly lacklsutre for what is meant to be BBC1's biggest day of the year.

It seems pretty obvious to me CTM won't get another Xmas Day outing next year so a good opportunity to play around with the scheduling. Hopefully Downton's under-performance will encourage them to take a couple of risks.

Agreed. It would do better as the big show on Boxing Day, with little competition, than one of several big shows on Christmas Day, against EastEnders, they could promote it as the main event. Though I think having something that isn't All Star Family Fortunes on Christmas Day will sadly be more important to them.

There was no standout figures last year either. Downton's presence has damaged BBC1's ratings potential.


Moving Doctor Who earlier arguably hurt the Beeb's ratings later in the night as Who fans who missed the early start were catching up when they may have been watching another show "live" and caused a domino effect meaning they missed a show they would usually watch on the night and will catch-up instead later in the week. I don't think people should be making rash judgments when some timeshifts could be huge.


I would expect Miranda and MBB to be on Christmas Day next year but I wouldn't call that a big refresh just a natural progression of two shows that have deserved that honour.

People are writing off CTM's prospects of being on Christmas Day 2013, and I for one don't particularly want it there - but:

- we don't know, and won't know, its ratings for another week. It might have got 10-11m viewers, if 3-4m watch it this week

- it threw ITV's schedulers into panic and resulted in them giving Downton a news lead in which inevitably sent 2m viewers to BBC1 at the end of Corrie by default, and gave EE a mammoth advantage over DA which it didn't have last year, plunging DA to a hugely embarrassing all time low, and make it difficult to win the day even if a mammoth record-breaking 4m watch in the next 7 days

- the c7m who did endure CTM live probably didn't have the stomach to watch DA on the night too, thus denting DA's overnights further; so that "worked" too for BBC1

- the c2m who came to BBC1 during the ITV News are presumably not already committed CTM viewers - they either weren't watching or weren't recording (because you wouldn't watch the last 15 mins of a 75 min drama you are recording, would you), so if they liked what they saw, they may be new viewers that get hooked in

Well according to Dancc it was a drag on the schedule Yes dragged it down so much that it was up year on year
I think 3 hours of Eddie Stobart was a bigger drag though.

And for all those slating BBC1's "tired old shows" and "flop" Christmas Day schedule, let's wait for the proper ratings before writing the day off at "half time" - for all we know, BBC1 might land five shows in a row with audiences of around 10m, give or take.

DW did brilliantly at the early time of 5.15, as expected - so that change absolutely worked; it should get the extra 2.4m it needs on consolidation to get to 10m. What else could BBC1 have put on at 5.15 that would overnight at 7.6m and push 10m in the officials?

SCD benefited from being away from Corrie and did fine in that earlier slot, although (as I have been saying for months) the late series finish and mere 2 clear days gap between the Final and the Special I think did it the harm that kept it sub 8m in the overnights.

The Royles obviously went up against TV's biggest drama for the first time - what has The Royle Family had in terms of competition in recent years - Poirot, Midsomer Murders? DA is in a whole different league to those, and to still beat it by a million is fantastic really. It did better than Ab Fab and Macintyre last year against DA, and that's what matters.

Indeed while CTM posted a slightly underwhelming overnight (though only slightly less than SCD last year against Corrie ), it's inclusion gave BBC ONE a lot of room to move things about and boost underperforming parts of the schedule like 5-7pm and boosted BBC ONE in other ways like tiring out the OAP audience before Downton

As for tonight - if Xmas Day disappointed this morning, then I think Boxing Day will too. More big clashes, and a very strong 9pm slot too. BBC1's two comedies were a bit hit and miss - Miranda patchy to be fair, Mrs Brown's delivering a show of two halves - first good, second half a stinker of epic proportions. So I feel less encouraged about their respective prospects!

And of course Boxing Day figures often overwhelm anyway.

My predictions:

BBC1

5.00 HTTYD 3.8m
6.30 News 6m
6.50 Alice.. 3.4m
8.30 EastEnders 8.1m
9.00 Miranda 5.7m
9.30 Mrs Brown's 6.6m
10.00 News 5.4m
10.20 MOTD 4m

BBC2/HD

9.00 The Girl 1.9m

ITV1

7.00 Emmerdale 7.5m
7.30 Corrie 8.9m
8.00 Simon Cowell's That Dog Can Dance BGT Special 4.8m
9.00 Doors Open 4.5m

PVR channel

Call the Midwife 2m
Downton Abbey 3.5m



So, Corrie to convincingly win the night I think. The two ITV soaps have the easiest competition of any show all night and should triumph.

EE will be dented by stupid scheduling (giving Dogs a half hour start and leaving Corrie/EE viewers a choice of entertainment show or last half hour of a film to plug the gap) and a poor film lead in.

I predict the 5pm BBC1 film will beat the 6.30pm one for the second time this week.

Miranda will suffer from the ABC1 audience being majorly split between 1, 2 and 3.

Mrs Brown's will suffer from poorer lead-in than Monday and people simply not knowing there is a new episode on tonight (no trails have aired on BBC1 since Christmas Eve to my knowledge) - plus those drifting away as the laughter ground to a half halfway through.

We must not underestimate the impact of several million homes now having 2 hours of Downton and 1h15 of CTM to watch. It will inevitably dent viewing.

The Last time the BBC split them in the provisions like that ITV came and lobbed a 60 minute Emmerdale into the schedules at 6pm.

Fantasy scheduling is great on here but lets remember that the BBC can't just schedule as they like.

Yeah it was
stupid having EastEnders at 8:30pm it seemed out of the way.
I fully expect Corrie to come out on top, Weaker comp and it's in the usual Wednesday 7:30pm slot

I expect the comedies to record great ratings and ITV to collapse myself but after yesterday I am doubting myself slightly. However, ITV1's 8pm offering looks weak and I can see people switching to BBC One in preparation for EastEnders. I'd say EastEnders itself had easier opposition than Coronation Street - I really think the dog show will flop badly.


I think ITV would blink first in that situation; out of the three soaps Emmerdale tends to be the hardest hit on Christmas Day.

The austerity nature of BBC1's festive schedule is amply demonstrated in the fact films (and animated ones at that...) are taking up prime slots on key days - when last year, and before, they have been pushed right to the margins, with no film premieres at all in primetime slots.

A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Prince of Persia, Up - the fact they are all in primetime, despite being kids films, speaks volumes about the Beeb's lack of financial clout nowadays - they are filling gaps that other programming could have taken by airing films instead.

Or on Saturday, an hour repeating in primetime two episodes of a hit show from earlier the very same week.

It's utterly shameful for Christmas week, and I feel like taking my Radio Times back to WH Smiths and getting a refund...

We'll see...

Do you seriously think Alice in Wonderland offers any sort of threat to Corrie and Emmerdale?

Put it this way - ITV's canine light entertainment spectacular at 8pm will have done more harm to EE than a kids film with just 2 stars in the RT will have done to harm CS and EF.

I think it's safe to say that EE will do more harm to That Dog Can Dance than the other way around. I don't see it rating as well as the O'Grady dog show, potentially quite a bit lower, tbh. So EE, fresh from the death and misery on Christmas Day much favoured by its fans, should do just fine.

I'm not sure the competition for any of the soaps is overly significant in this case. Of course if AiW or That Dog Can Dance come in tomorrow with 7m then there will be some impact on everything due to the sheer size of the audience. But I'd give you spectacular odds on TDCD getting 7m. I think my prediction was something like 3.5m. Remember, the Corrie audience probably disappeared before the endearing bits because they saw Christine Bleakley was hosting.

I can't see Alice threatening the ITV soaps but I can't see dog dance threatening EastEnders either. Now, if ITV had held Downton Abbey back for tonight...

I think that DOG show will have dented EastEnders actually. The BBC didn't really promote that EastEnders was on in a stupid 8:30pm slot. Corrie will be the most watched show of the day as it was in it's normal 7:30pm Wednesday slot

You're acting like it's never been done before.

It did well at 9pm on Christmas Eve. I think people are prepared for scheduling changes over the holidays. People will be watching a lot more TV today, be looking at their EPG's in early evening and be more aware of what's on. Not like a normal night where people might have a more set routine. Plus, if they tune in at 8pm expecting EE then they might just go elsewhere for a while or stick with AiW until 8.30pm. Better to get people in half an hour before it starts than half an hour after it starts!

Yeah but that was No surprise seeing as Merlin was on before hand...Much better lead in and all.

We shall see I guess.

M8 put it this way the bbc won't b worried. Itv on the other hand wel...less said about the low rating night the better.

Just occurred to me that the "dodgy" MBB tonight was in the exact same slot that The Royal Bodyguard debuted in last year.

(Crikey - was it really 12 months ago...!)

Wonder if the ratings will drop off over 30 minutes in the same way they did for TRB?!

I can't see Mrs Brown's Boys dropping 2m viewers in the space of 48 hours. I think you're seriously underestimatng the show's popularity.

Am beginning 2 think you just hate MBB dodgy? Most people seem 2 have enjoyed it.