I'd expect it to be down anyway - outside of The Ashes there is absolutely nothing on.

And Samuel

He has been elected Pope or The Queen - forget which

I take certain posters, eg DMN, Steve Williams and rzt, seriously because they make intelligent points and offer analyses that are worth listening to.

But if you're happy watching a load of people twisting facts, and going "nah nah, na-nah-nah" at each other, then fair enough.

Great rating for Big Brother. With 4 people up, I think the eviction could get maybe 1.7 (inc +1).

The posters you mention are highly respected for their analysis and intelligence, but the fun of the thread and forum comes from the whole community of different people.

Take a step back and think about how dull it would be if everyone got on all the time and agreed all the time. The healthy debates would not occur.

It's panto... live with it!

I think the figure reported for Extraordinary People by DS is for Cowboy Traders, as DS has Extraordinary People as being on at 8pm, and Broadcast puts the figure for Extraordinary People as 1.13m inc +1.

Hottest day of the year for the North today and cooling down to low 20s over the weekend.

As others have said there's bugger all on which won't help but Sherlock could suffer. Even up here we're forecast a low of 17 overnight

Point me in the direction of one of those "healthy" and "fun" debates, will you?

Hopeless, Channel 4 really is on a downward spiral. It pains me to say this, being a big fan of the station in the eighties and nineties, but their programmes are complete and utter rubbish most of the time and in the case of DOND and CDWM shown to death. I can't believe they've given DOND another series, bearing in mind its ratings have slumped to 500,000.

Does anyone have a rundown of BBC3 ratings last night?

I wondered how Russell Howard and Live (dead) At The Electric did with Dynamo being on - big cross over in target audiences.

When you look at last night's ratings, 500k in a competitive quiz show hour, in daytime for DOND is very satisfactory.

Channel 4 is in a complete mess, it's fallen behind Channel 5, a supposedly lower brow channel, several times. It's time they got someone in who is prepared to take the axe to DOND, CDWM, Countdown, Hollyoaks and Gok Wan, whose shows are underperforming. What is needed is someone like a modern version of Jeremy Isaacs who made edgy but often popular programmes. Maybe reviving their well liked pop music programming on Fridays would be a start.

Agreed. Some fresh blood and some new programming is badly needed.

What about some comedy on a Friday night again? They had a winning line-up with Friends, Fraiser and Eurotrash in the late 90s/early 00s. Makes a change from Jimmy Tax Dodger, Alan Carr and other random crap on a Friday.

It's been a while since I last made comment about ratings for EE as I felt I was boring the forum with my repetitive comments but I have to say that's one hell of a crap figure.

Newman should resign now and allow a new EP to step in a try to halt the rot.

Jonathan Agnew: "Amazing stat - 800k listening to TMS online, never mind listening on the radio. More than any other BBC TV or radio programme"

More than are watching on Sky!

Also reported that 1.69m followed the Test yesterday by live text on the BBC website. More than watch some primetime ITV programmes!

Jay Hunt (CH4) instinctively plays it middle-brow safe, at the BBC1 she always did and no one should be surprised to see the same behaviour over at CH4

That sort of thing worked to keep Jay Hunt in her BBC job because that's what the BBC are after.

But in the commercial world it's a different story.

My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
Man with Ten Stone Testicles
24 Hours in A and E
One Born Every Minute


- these are the shows that have attracted their biggest viewers and therefore advertising revenue.

Note they are all factual, documentary, human interest. (whatever you think of them)

I think viewers are tired of formats and experts. It was what was popular in the 90s. People aren't as fooled by formats injecting false drama any more.

Bringing back music and comedy on a Friday night is flawed. It does not rate. the target audience are going out. They have repeatedly tried it.

Big Brother. 1.45m and 69k on +1.

In total, BB got 1.52m including +1. Highest 10pm HL of the series.

All Day Shares:

BBC One: 20.9%
ITV: 16.9% approx
Channel 5: 5.1%
BBC Two: 4.9%
Channel 4: 4.4%

Five has been the third most watched channel on three out of four days so far this week, and fourth on the other.

Hmm, you say that, but I recall Broadcast back in 1999 doing a ratings analysis for Friday nights and C4 was actually fifth out of five, a new series of Friends wasn't running at the time, though I think Frasier was, and they were also showing the first series of Spaced which was being beaten by a repeat of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries on Channel Five. So it wasn't always hit after hit although it had a kudos you don't get now, among the target audience of twentysomethings Friday night was always a C4 night. Which they've messed around with thanks to inconsistent scheduling.


Yes, and interestingly Aggers was on Simon Mayo's programme the other day and they discussed cricket now all being on Sky, and Aggers said he could understand why it wasn't on free TV because nobody knows exactly when it's going to finish. Which would be a weak argument at any time really, but especially less than a week after a tennis match on BBC1 overran by nearly four hours.

Would be very fascinating to know how the Ashes would rate if it was FTA and on BBC1/2.

Does anyone have any past viewing figures of home Ashes tests pre-1998?

Alan Whicker R.I.P.

The scary documentary with Haiti's Papa Doc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO_fLp_j-wQ

That theme tune http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xeKQtj0XLA

Monty Python http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn8Pua5rhj4

This is one of the great test matches. Deserves a great audience.

Big Brother eviction is 8/11 Hazel, evens Wolfy, 100/1 bar. I do think interest will decline in the show if Hazel goes tonight (for many reasons!) so fingers crossed it isn't her.

They should go for modern versions of The Word and The Tube. Also in daytime go back to intelligent chat shows and quizzes on the lines of 15-1.