Wrong and wrong again, ITV won the slot.

This was an important measure a few weeks ago, therefore I presume it's all that matters now as well.

Itv didnt win the slot:

New Tricks: 3.53m
Piers morgan: 3.38m

Ouch. Why is The Dumping Ground declining? And 4 O'Clock Club not brilliant either. 100k over an hour isn't good either. Kids viewing habits are hardly consistent. TDG will still end up highest of the week.

I'm always amazed by those who are awe struck by BT's entry to the sports market. Clearly they have taken a gamble, but all these predictions of them annihilating the opposition are a bit far fetched. Those of us with a bit of a memory remember the debacle of BT Global Services and the loss making money pit that turned into, plus the humiliating retrenchment. Also they are having their asses whipped by Sky in the broadband market currently. In my dealings with them they come across as over confident and arrogant with a bit of a BBC condesenction to competitors. Unfortunately for BT they don't have the bbc's cushy funding guarantee, so they can fail big time if the gamble doesn't pay off.

Half term?

I think Andy might be adding in +1, by which method Piers squeaks a win (against the third showing of a 2007 New Tricks episode) by a resounding 50k. Personally I don't count in +1s for head-to-heads though.


Last week's consolidated to 486k (3.25%), but that was a series low.

The downside to this was the disaster called The Premiership, stuck on in a peak time slot with 3 million viewers, when such a rating was a disaster. ITV have never bidded for Prem highlights since.

Still the highest of the week for CBBC I presume.

I'm not sure anyone (in this thread at least) has predicted they will "annihilate the opposition".

I'm certainly not predicting that. Nor am I predicting that they will fail either. I'm not making any prediction on that front one way or the other.

The only point I have been making is that BT's entry is going to push rights prices up (at least in the short to medium term). And that, specifically, the EL is incredibly cheap at the moment.

BT despite their bluster, have taken a huge gamble. remember that on top of the rights, they will have to pay for a huge promo and advertising campaign as very few people are even aware that they have sports rights at all. In the Global Services debacle they priced below cost to take share off others and it took years to clean up the financial mess. That memory is still very alive in the boardroom at BT

Fair points.

But is the downside that great? BT is (at the moment) spending £300m per year on sports rights. OK, to that you have to add:

- Production costs - unknown
- Promotion costs - unknown (but will be joint promotion with other services)

Profit before tax and Free cash flow are both in the region of £2,000m per year. So even if the whole BT Sports exercise was a 100% write-off (ie literally zero incremental revenue generation) it's not that significant. And realistically it's not going to be a 100% write-off.

Not saying they want to throw away £300m to £400m per year - obviously they don't want to reduce profits by 20% just for fun. But it's not that substantial in the overall scheme of things.

I know some people oh here like to go to bat for a channel, but surely they won't go so far as defending the loathesome, smug piece of lying flotsam, that Is Piers Morgan

Strong start for SNT tonight, production values much higher than the nearest competition.

Er, no. You are wrong, wrong, wrong.

As Sam points out:


Piers DIDN'T, DIDN'T, DIDN'T, DIDN'T beat head to head on overnight viewing a 3rd showing of a 5 year old New Tricks.

Now, I dare say the officials will have him ahead. Fair enough. Overnights are irrelevant. But on the only data we have so far, he got beat.

The +1 viewers are also watching the adverts (and sponsors' credits).

It doesn't really matter if you choose to ignore the +1 viewers, the ad agencies will include them when assessing a programme's performance on behalf of their clients. That's what matters to ITV.

Let's Dance looks well produced to me.

It's a bit thin, and suffers as I have said from day 1 from the fact that if you don't know the video behind the song you're just watching celebs prancing about. And its lightweight fluff.

But well produced lightweight fluff.

Is Ant & Dec's Saturday night ad break/dumbed down House Party rip off really that better produced?

Counting from Saturday 9th to Friday 15th, TDG was indeed top, with Dani's Castle in second with 437k (2.6%). In terms of share, the top transmission was the film Madagascar on the Monday morning with 5.5% (344k).

Irrelevant anyway when it's got Ant and Dec fronting it. Hands down the best presenter duo in the business today. They will always be a big draw for viewers.

and they'll still be pretty disappointed that it was down on the opener last year, and just managed to beat, with plus one, a much repeated New Tricks. Still they've got the megastar that is Lorraine Kelly next week

Really?

Better than Bruce and Tess?

Bill and Susanna?

A bold claim. Then again, how many presenting duos are there these days?

I completely accept the commercial value of +1 channels, and that if an ITV programme got 1m on first showing and 6m on +1 (to take a ridiculous example) it would be a hit as far as ITV and the advertisers are concerned. But when we're looking at head-to-heads, the +1 showing isn't 'head-to-head' with the same programme, so IMO it shouldn't be counted.

If that's the case why were its ratings falling last time and why was it rested?

I'm watching but it's very meh so far. Would have preferred to see them try something new/different.

Nah, they're tons better, the reason IACGMOOH, has stayed a ratings topper whilst similar shows have slided.

Not watching myself though, Ant's a ****ing Tory.

I've been trying to start another Twitter war between Piers and Sugar:


.... but nothing doing - so far...

Ian Hyland, who posts here, had a pop at Piers. Good on him.