HNY to all, especially the guys that do all the hard work providing and pre-digesting the ratings for us all (you know who you are!)

K

Fair enough m8 and am sorry if you though my post appeared rude.

Happy New Year as wel

whilst the ITV mulitchannels continue to be strong and have really found their voice, im not overly sure ITVs shares can be put down to that.

Im not sure I see the amazing transformation that ITV has apparently had, and whilst you can easily point to improvements, even taken together, they dont seem enough to back up the share price. Is it just that the markets have confidence in ITV now?

Is that up or down on last year?


Get well soon D.M.N. Rotten when it strikes over the festive period.




ITV Studios has had a great year. New shows are being made and recommissioned both here and abroad. Titanic sold to more than 90 countries around the world. They have bought a number of indies (Tarinatalo in Finland, SO Television, Gurney in the US, Mediacircus in Norway) which has bolstered their in house production company some what.

One of the main reasons their share price has jumped is that Channel 4 have failed to agree a new contract with WPP, worth a reported £250m. This has led to WPP increasing their spend with other channels, including Sky and ITV. I think quite a few shareholders at ITV are naive when it comes to knowing how well certain programmes should do. They don't understand the poor performance that some of ITV's programmes give.

Fairly good start for Ripper Street - the BBC could have been a lot kinder to it in scheduling, so 6m is a good result and the breakdown was by no means out of the ordinary for a new drama. That said, I expect to see it comfortably topped by Mr Selfridge next week, which I can see really hitting a chord. Will be interesting to see how it holds up.

Happy New Year to everyone on the thread, and most particularly those who spend so much time on the figures. 2012 has been a bit of a bumper year for number-crunchers - and it's been good to follow those huge events with a good number of incredibly insightful and articulate posters.

Big Fat Quiz Of The Year 2012 wasn't on last year.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (Sorry.)


But seriously.....

BFQOTY 2011 - 3.1m. So down this year.


Happy new year, everybody.

We watched Wild at Heart and recorded Ripper Street.

WAH rounded off the show well but it had a terrible lead in - with a repeat of the over long bombed the previous week Joanna Lumley 'search for the Ark' with her laughable demonstration of the absence of unicorns using nail varnish - followed by a dull show about a cat falling asleep on a piano. Did well to get nearly 6 million after that.

The way it ended means they could easily do a spin off where Danny returns to the UK and sets up an African Disney style theme park. That would remove the problem of flying round the world and retain the success of the show via a new direction.

As for Ripper Street. It was no Garrow's Law. Might give it another go by recording it next week to see if it goes anywhere more interesting but was fairly bored by this first episode. Nor was it at all female friendly, so it is going to have to go some to retain our viewing for another couple of months. Will definitely watch Mr Selfridge live. Be surprised if Ripper gets more than 4 million or so live next week.

Incidentally, after the dire comments on here watched the Dale Winton game show 'pilot'. I thought it was fun and had Ant and Dec presented it could have seen it working. Needed their banter with the families. But it was the closest thing to The Generation Game on TV in ages (certainly much more like that than the lottery travel show mooted on here earlier).

Just digging out my "awards" post from exactly 12 months ago, as I start to gather my thoughts on the past year.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=2293

Makes interesting reading. I predicted "a big year" for BBC1 in 2012 - I'm good aren't I?

However, like everyone else at that time, I didn't know DA would in a few days time end up being crowned the festive ratings winner...

I called SCD the hit of the year - and yet it was 2012 which saw it gaining all the plaudits as TXF tanked. My jaw dropped in 2011 at the TXF ratings plunge - I could never have imagined it would plunge still further this year!

Further thoughts on 2012 from me later....

It's been such a great year for the ratings, Olympics in particular, ratings which we may never see again.

Thanks to all those who provided them.

Here's to 2013 and hopefully it'll be ITV's year.

Interestingly, that was one show I did have in mind as I drudged through Ripper St, continually looking at the clock as I did so.

Whereas Garrow find a niche for what seemed a well intentioned and worthy drama, Ripper will prove too grim, grisly, bloody and violent for the Garrow demographic yet probably just a bit too boring for the younger Twitterati demographic it is so obviously pitched at.

It's a bugger's muddle, and will end up pleasing no-one I suspect.

knew there was a reason I liked it.

I agree, I think Mr Selfridge will top the night next week, then dip the next but not enough for Ripper Street to overtake, then when Call the Midwife comes back, either 20th or 27th, Ripper Street could take over again.

I liked Ripper Street but after watching I can see why it wasn't on NYD, looking forward to Mr Selfridge as well, will probably record it though.

I wonder when The White Queen will air, I think it doesn't finish filming to March, they could rush it and give it a Call the Midwife lead for the first episode or two, but it might be wise to save it until autumn.

I agree it was a muddle. Hard to work out what direction it was going in as a series. Garrow had a purpose and direction to change the law for the better. This just looked like someone had said lets find a way to do a Sherlock Holmes that has more episodes per year and gets those sort of viewers but forgot that you needed great writing, charismatic leads, interplay with the rest of the cast and some sort of direction and focus.

But it got the period and setting right - so it might yet find itself.

I was hoping for something more like a UK version of Murdoch Mysteries. Had it been then it would have been a big hit. Not at all sure it will last now.

'Ratings Awards of the Year' 2012. My awards last year: http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showp...postcount=2060

Hit of the year: Downton Abbey
Flop of the year: ITV1's Winter
New hit of the year: Scott & Bailey
Jaw-dropping rating of the year: Big Fat Gypsy Weddings
Mystifying rating of the year: ???
“So glad that flopped” of the year: Torchwood: Miracle Day
“Such a shame that flopped” of the year: Rock and Chips

And onto 2012...

Hit of the year
- Really simple this year. Olympics 2012, no contest. Always was going to be that. Phenomenal numbers we will not see again in a very, very long time.

Flop of the year
- A range of ITV1 shows, similar to last year.

New hit of the year
- Another fairly simple one for me, Call the Midwife wins by a comfortable margin. The Voice would have won, except it dropped considerably for the live shows.

Jaw-dropping rating of the year
- Olympics 2012: Opening Ceremony. Enough said.

Mystifying rating of the year
- Hmmm. A bit stumped here. There's an argument for the Olympics 2012: Closing Ceremony to go in here given the quality was no where near the opening ceremony.

"So glad that flopped" of the year
- A few ITV1 shows apply here. And a lot of Channel 4's line-up comes into play here as well due to paint by lines shows. Young Apprentice's ratings too.

"Such a shame that flopped" of the year
- no idea. Can't think of anything, at the moment.

The turnaround in ITV's finances is very substantial - look at 5 year record to 2011:

http://ar2011.itvplc.com/resources/financial-record

The most meaningful line is probably Profit before Tax - from approx break-even in 2008 and 2009 to Profit before Tax of £327m in 2011.

NB. Ignore intangible impairment in 2008 which is just an accounting entry. But don't ignore that £108m exceptional item in 2008 - half of that was early write-off of sports costs.

Per Sunday Times someone is forecasting Profit before Tax of £474m in 2012 and £575m in 2013. So that would take ITV from break-even to ANNUAL profits of almost £600m within the space of 4 years.

The reasons are the ones you've given - broadly they've held FAMILY ratings flat - ie multichannel has made up for ITV1 decline. The advertising market has recovered to some degree and then they've made very substantial cost savings (particularly in real terms) and now Studios is moving in a positive direction.

But I think the key is also the broader outlook which is behind some of what has happened but also future prospects. In summary:

- C4 (ie biggest FTA advertising competitor) doing poorly and constrained by PSB obligations

- C5 far too small to compete seriously and not trying to compete really - ie no major increased investment - being run on steady as she goes basis with cost control

- Sky too small to compete in "general entertainment programming" - has tried but very limited success and now signs of going backwards in this area

And finally maybe the most important factor of all - BBC licence fee freeze = 16% real terms cuts = downward pressure on costs across the industry (excluding sport, BT etc).

Crozier has talked about industry cost deflation which is what is enabling ITV to make substantial real terms cost savings without losing out on quality vs competitors as main big budget competitor (ie BBC) is also making cuts and nobody elese (C4 / C5 / Sky) is spending enough to impact ITV's own costs.

Now that makes the official ratings for Christmas Day very interesting indeed.

OK, DMN, here goes, mate, and happy new year:
It came from nowhere and battered an established format award, CTM, which on paper looked like a serious BBC period drama looked like it would fail against the brash DOI. The opposite happened, CTM went 3 million ahead of DOI, which proves people will watch a more serious and better made alternative to disposable LE.
Award for long service and consistently good ratings: IAC logically should be in the reality graveyard with Hells Kitchen and the like as the format is very old now and stripped reality is a bit last decade. Yet the show continues to post excellent ratings and seems to show no sign of stopping, a relief to ITV.
Car crash television that achieved massive ratings: The BBC's coverage of the Royal Pageant was a disaster from start to finish, yet 11.5 million people sat slack jawed through it to see what could go wrong next.
However, BBC redeems itself two months later award: The Olympics, a spectacular that only the BBC seem able to cover and covered it well. Also ratings of a Morecambe and Wise nature are what really interest us on here, though the sport was very good as well.
It beat the Champions League in the ratings award: A 19 year old girl in a white suit, who screams, kicks the hell out of people and wins a gold medal in a sport few people have ever watched( taekwondo) managed to get a million more viewers than the group stages of the Champions League.
The jump the shark award: David Jason after 30 years of massive ratings and excellent shows finally jumped it this year with TRB. Completely, juvenile rubbish that fell week on week. Also closely followed by a live edition of TOWIE that has probably mortally wounded the show.
The Scottish ratings award: Andy Murray for getting 17 million of us to cheer him on in the final sets of his Wimbledon final.
Finally, the completely useless dross that stiffed award: Step forward Superstar( one overhyped bore that struggled around the 2 million mark in July), again TRB, Shipwrecked( revived yet again to complete apathy and mercifully killed off, we hope), The Hunted( Auntie believed its own hype too much with this) and finally ROB( please, please, never again).

I've seen a lot of advertisements for Yes Prime Minister on Gold, wonder if it might break or get 1m? It's used the actors who were in the play version of it a few years back.

Also seen ads for My Mad Fat Diary which is airing on E4 in January, looks good and I imagine E4 are hoping it's good enough to replace Skins which has it final episodes next year.

Ideally this would be more suited to BBC Four, where it has near universal access and could be a grower.

The play of YPM was very good and managed to update the series while keeping what worked so well, I can understand if people are hesitant but the original writers are involved and you can't go wrong with David Haig and Henry Goodman who are both great actors.

Can anyone remember what the devil the BBC2 crime drama was earlier this year which was brilliantly good, a bit like The Shadow Line but wasn't, but which sadly never got the audience it deserved, although I think is back in 2013?

Line of Duty.

It got really good ratings of about 3million I thought? Its coming back for another series.

Line of Duty. Brilliant show

Line of Duty? It got very good ratings. It was BBC2's biggest new drama in 7 years.

Line of Duty did very well, let's hope BBC Two has more drama success in the new year, I think it would benefit from having a few drama series rather than mostly one-offs and miniseries.

The Great British Bakeoff deserves a mention, the show hit highs this year but it has managed to remain on BBC Two for now,