I can see the logic but Have I Got News... still feels very wrong at 7.30pm. I think it will rate quite badly - even though I myself am watching it as I type!

Great viewing for BBC execs there. Decent solid film ratings and then powerhouse performances right up until the end of MOTD.

I'm not quite sure what you were expecting - it's the type of line up you'd expect for this sort of show really, especially of this nature, though I agree one or two bigger names amongst them would lift the whole line up. These shows though only need the names to bring them in - once they get going it's how entertaining they are that matters, and fat celebs bombing would soon lose it's novelty value.

Are there three more names to come or have they now made it three heats of four rather than three of five as I'm sure originally they planned to have 15 people.

Yeah theres still three more names to be revealed.

at Miranda and MBB. The real big hits of Christmas. Should both end up with some super figures in the officials.

Those timeshifting figures are very interesting. I think EE will do it this year. I can't see DA catching up. Speaking of EE, back down to 8.2m. I wonder if it will be sub 8m next week proving one week of good ratings is pretty pointless if the viewers don't stick with it after.

This second series of Spy hasn't rated well overall. Including the Christmas special the overnight average for this series has been 196k - without the special the series itself averaged 209k but that still isn't great. It also ended on a low with last Friday's episode only managing 122k.

I know Sky1 mainly look at the officials, and the first 9 episodes of Spy series 2 (the episodes which consolidated ratings are in for) averaged 428k, which still isn't really good enough for a new scripted programme on Sky1. I suspect it won't be renewed. Series 1 averaged 403k in the overnights and 764k in the officials, so it has lost almost half of its audience between series, which is completely unacceptable.

Boxing Day 5-minute breakdown: http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8948/breakdown.png

The breakdown for Doors Open is reminiscent of An Englishman in New York a few years back.

That is surprising. Spy was nominated for some BAFTA and Comedy awards this year and actually won one for Best comedy actor so I thought the big exposure and awards it got wouldve translated into even more viewers this series, but its gone the opposite way!

How has Mount Pleasants ratings been this series compared to last year? They got some bigger name actors this series like Robson Green. 400k for Sky Living is quite good.

Wow. Aren't I allowed to have an opinion without it having criticized ?


I will probably remember it more than other festive seasons in previous years.

2010's was good too, but last year's was pretty unmemorable.

But Its not done yet.

Series 1 of Mount Pleasant averaged 862k (officials) on Sky1 last year, ending on a high with 953k watching the final episode. The switch to Sky Living seemed to hurt series 2 a lot as it only averaged 407k.

However the Christmas special seemed to rate better than the main series, as the highest overnight of this series was 279k and the series averaged 247k, so I guess the Christmas special will get 0.5-0.6m in the officials. It still does quite well by Sky Living's standards but the move has really hurt it.

A few of Sky1's original programmes have dropped recently. Series 2 of Trollied averaged 729k - pretty good but way off series 1's 1.15m. Series 1 admittedly did drop a lot across the run but even it's lowest episode got 876k and it ended with 943k so it dropped further (although at least this series was consistent across the run). Strike Back also dropped from 1.07m last year to 776k this year. Earlier in the year series 3 of Got To Dance averaged 956k - a strong audience but down on series 2's 1.15m. This Autumn's series of A League of Their Own averaged 714k whereas the Spring series averaged 868k. Sky1 haven't had a great year for returning shows with new series of Trollied, Spy, Strike Back, A League of Their Own and Got To Dance all posting significant declines and one of their other original hits, Mount Pleasant, losing over half its audience after moving channels. They'll be hoping that the trend doesn't continue into next year with the return of shows like Stella and The Cafe, and the next series of Got To Dance all starting soon.

Also, does anyone know if they've recommissioned Sinbad or not? It did well overall averaging 1.14m but it dropped a lot over the run, starting with 1.91m and then ending on a low of 875k for the finale. That's still pretty good for Sky1 but with it being so expensive they might have decided it wasn't worth spending a load of money on it for it to potentially continue to fall in a second series.

Thank you score. The Mount Pleasant move from Sky 1 to Sky Living was unnecessary and lost it a lot of viewers. If they do another series it should be moved back to Sky 1. Trollied's 2nd series got better reviews than the first one so even though it rated worse than series 1, the ratings at least were consistent. Got to Dance probably suffered from people getting bored of the format, was that its 4th series? People will eventually get bored if they see the same kind of thing over and over again but Got to Dance are at least changing their judging panel a little this year to bring a bit of freshness back to it.

This might be a good lineup for a filler show on ITV2. Not looking like mainstream Saturday night entertainment to me. A right bunch of forgotten sorts and never known sorts.


I was skeptical about that before I even saw the lineup, anyway. I mean, how much do we really have in common taste wise with Holland when it comes to TV?

Out of mild interest I've just had a look through what tends to rate in Holland and it's more similar to the UK than I envisaged, if I'm honest. The only real out of the ordinary thing I spotted was that The Voice Kids is a massive hit over there, which it simply never would be here. 2.5m viewers for the finale which is equivalent to around 10m over here.

I hope that EastEnders does manage to cling on to top spot.

I agree with you about the long term. I am an EastEnders devotee but tonight's hour long (actually two episodes stitched together) is a case in point about all that is wrong with the show at the moment. Both the main players in the Christmas Day storyline - Max and Tanya - have now "gone on holiday" and there are no other gripping storylines to retain viewers. In fact, after they disappeared at 8.30pm, we had half an hour of filler with not much happening at all. Ironically this was when it clashed with Emmerdale.

As I said, I love EastEnders but I can't see the ratings resurgence lasting for much longer, unfortunately.

Yes well done to her. And also well done to the team at RTE who actually made the show in the first place.


The decision to move Countryfile to primetime was a stroke of genius, given how well it does for BBC1. However there have been many mistakes at C4 so far (axing Gypsy Weddings, move of Countdown to 2.40pm, excessive CDWM, poor scheduling, bad show promos) Also, it looks like C4 will after all lose around £250m in ad revenue next year - http://www.standard.co.uk/business/b...r-8427228.html Not the best start to the new year.

This is from C4's Upfront event earlier in the year;


I wonder why C4 is losing audience share?!

It'll be interesting to see if All Star Family Fortunes drops much from last year's Christmas special, which had over 6m. If there is a huge drop, it'll possibly be down to the whole 'ratings crisis' (which isn't relevant for all ITV1 shows of course - The Chase has managed some spectacular ratings for teatime).

It seems to me that ITV haven't really made a sitcom work well since Mr Bean (in fact I don't think they've even shown one on ITV1 since).

Anyone have any demos for Mrs Brown's Boys? Obviously if they've already been posted or you can't be bothered helping such a lacking poster, that's fine

Perhaps you should get your facts straight before posting
RTE only came on as a co producer on the show after the BBC commissioned it, It's even filmed at BBC Scotland!

It's just as well Sky don't go solely on ratings because the move of Mount Pleasant to Sky Living has meant a ratings drop.Shame as it's a good show, the type of fun ensemble drama that would suit ITV/BBC1 perfectly. Can't explain what's happened to Spy as it deserves bigger ratings. Even better than series 1.

Children 4-15 - 814k (43.8%)
Adults 16-24 - 688k (34.2%)
Adults 25-34 - 776k (29.7%)
Adults 35-44 - 1.35m (37.8%)
Adults 45-54 - 1.78m (40.1%)
Adults 55-64 - 1.34m (33.9%)
Adults 65+ - 2.21m (37.8%)

Thanks so much 16-24s have taste....

Quite. Very interesting read, thanks for that. This part will surely hurt the most:

"Group M will have won the support from clients before embarking on such a radical step as C4 is a key way to reach 16 to 34-year olds."

It's that very dominance with younger viewers that has kept them afloat in recent years. That's very bleak news indeed if advertisers are no longer convinced they can provide a sufficient number of 16-34s or rather no longer feel they need them to reach that kind of audience. But is it any wonder their dominance in that demo is diminishing when it's nearly all lifestyle programming on the main channel now?

What about the 4-15s? No one expected that

Not sure I'd class axing Gypsy Weddings as a mistake. We all saw the drop from series 1 to series 2. It was a shrewd move - it wasn't a sustainable hit, and whilst it may have been tempting to milk it dry for another couple of series they did the right thing and pulled the plug.

They like Celebrity Juice so I'd hold that thought if I were you!

I know I make this point about how obsessed C4 now is with the lifestyle genre all the time, so sorry if that's boring to everyone, but to emphasise my point, it's only the 27th December, we're still very much in the Christmas & New Year fortnight and yet instead of doing something special this evening they began a new series of The Restoration Man at 9pm. That is quite plainly a new season programme which shouldn't be starting until next week. But no, they can't even manage one week without another bloody lifestyle show starting.

The rest of the schedule isn't much better. At 8pm they took over 4Seven's responsibilities for an hour and viewers were treated to a repeat of The Hoarders Xmas Special which didn't exactly capture the interest of the nation when it first aired only 6 nights ago. And at 10pm they have the film Dorian Grey which first went out on the exact same day last year!