To me it proves that viewers are liking the unexpected and having a theme in the form of Secrets and Lies has worked. The mistake was branding it Big Brother: Secrets and Lies. You want it to feel fresher without it feeling like a whole new show altogether, and it's possible some viewers initially thought it was some sort of spinoff show and not the main summer run, which would explain why the launch figures were so vastly different to last year and yet the highlights shows and evictions are going to end up comfortably up. I accept the show isn't able to capture as many casuals as it once did for launches, but I still think it should have started a lot better than it did. Fortunately, it's had surprisingly little effect on what followed.

Ratings from DS (exc +1 unless stated)

BBC One (tape-checked)
13:45 - Doctors: 1.12m (19.1%)
...
19:30 - Nigel Slater's Dish of the Day (r): 2.05m (11.8%)
20:00 - EastEnders: 5.24m (28.8%)
20:30 - Athletics: 3.30m (16.6%)
...
22:40 - Would I Lie To You? (r): 2.26m (16.6%)

BBC Two (tape-checked)
19:30 - Athletics: 1.97m (11.1%)
20:30 - Gardeners' World: 1.80m (9.3%)
21:00 - Springwatch: 1.64m (8.1%)
22:00 - The Trip (r): 750k (4.1%)

ITV (not tape-checked)
19:00 - Emmerdale: 6.05m (37.3%), +1: 240k (1.3%)
19:30 - Coronation Street: 6.88m (39.7%), +1: 201k (1.0%)
20:00 - Harbour Lives: 2.82m (15.5%)
20:30 - Coronation Street: 6.29m (32.5%), +1: 205k (1.0%)
21:00 - Doc Martin (r): 3.16m (15.6%)

Channel 4 (not tape-checked)
18:30 - Hollyoaks: 806k (5.6%)
...
20:00 - Four Rooms: 570k (3.0%)
21:00 - 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown: 1.63m (8.1%)
22:00 - Jon Richardson: Funny Magnet: 820k (5.0%)

Channel 5 (not tape-checked)
13:15 - Home and Away: 156k (2.5%)
13:45 - Neighbours: 531k (9.1%)
...
17:30 - Neighbours (r): 815k (7.1%)
18:00 - Home and Away (r): 589k (4.4%)
...
21:00 - Big Brother: 1.66m (8.5%), +1: 122k (0.8%) = 1.78m or 1.79m inc +1
22:30 - Big Brother's Bit on the Side: 829k (6.4%)

BBC Three (never tape-checked)
22:30 - EastEnders: 541k (3.6%)
* no. 5 multichannel rating
...
23:25 - Family Guy: 712k (7.8%)
* top multichannel rating, with the other Family Guy and two American Dads filling the next three places in the table

E4 (never tape-checked)
19:00 - Hollyoaks: 411k (2.5%)

Film4 (never tape-checked)
21:00 - FILM: Taken (2008): 486k (3.6%)
* no. 6 multichannel rating

5* (never tape-checked)
18:30 - Home and Away: 394k (2.7%)

Good for BBC Three to take the top 5 multichannel places.

Sources: DS (1, 2)

New Tricks v Long Lost Family would have been complementary though, no? Drama v factual entertainment, maximising the choice on offer by providing two high quality pieces from different genres. No obvious reason why the crossover would be significant.

When autumn/winter comes around the two channels will think nothing of pitching two new dramas against eachother in that slot. But established drama v established factual is suddenly a no no?

I meant maybe the BBC were wary of Family's strong ratings, rather than its genre. It seems to be a bit of a ratings cockroach for ITV: not enormous, but hard to squash.

New Tricks avoiding Long Lost Family has little to do with complimentary scheduling and more BBC One deciding to avoid one of two shows (other than soaps) which ITV is airing at the moment which can pull in a decent number of viewers.

I don't think BBC and the commercial networks try complimentary scheduling very much. I wish they did.

I don't think it's Long Lost Family BBC are worried about, New Tricks will be running until the start of October, meaning the latter half of the series would have had to face Doc Martin. Same for Sunday, it would have had to face Downton. Two massive dramas airing against each other isn't great at the best of times, but with New Tricks looking a bit weak with the casting changes you can't blame the BBC for airing it elsewhere.

Tuesday imo is the best slot outside those for it to air, apart from maybe Friday but they wanted that for their new comedies.

Emmerdale's share. That's in Coronation Street territory and indeed beat the second Coronation Street though the lack of tape-checking would have benefited Emmerdale and hurt Coronation Street.

EastEnders being below 30% is not good. 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Big Brother didn't hurt each other at all and both recorded strong figures. The Athletics and Doc Martin did ok for what they are. BBC Two had a steady night.

LOL. Interesting analogy! For me whilst LLF is undoubtedly big, it's not big enough that I'd be scared about taking it on with anything of note.

I guess it's just the time of year that has brought about this keenness to spread out the big shows more evenly than tends to be the case usually. I'm sure come September and the start of the peak ratings season things will quickly return to normal!

I'm not sure about Doc Martin. I think ITV would have just moved it back to Thursdays, where it always did well. They moved it to Sundays when they needed something for 9pm in 2009, but when Abbey took off in 2010, they moved Martin to Mondays in 2011 because that was where they had a gap.

New Tricks has always rated best for its new eps on Mondays. It took a bit of a ratings dive on Fridays, and it didn't reach its Monday heights on Thursdays, either, so I'm a bit wary of the Tuesday slot. I think they'd have been better off starting it on Mondays at the end of August, like they did last year.

I remember changing my RPG prediction from 0.8m to 0.9m whilst doing some last minute adjustments. Might have known that would come back to bite me.

This week has been absolutely infuriating due to all the near misses. Must be at least the fifth main where I've only been 0.1m away.

What have ITV got to take the Monday night slot?

I changed my final Athletics prediction from 3.3m to 3.2m at the last minute - six points thrown away just like that.

Well now that New Tricks is going on Tuesdays it'll be Doc Martin! The new drama Breathless will probably be on Wednesdays and then Benidorm and Life Stories will each take one of Thursday and Friday.

Not good at all. I think the programme has improved in quality a bit in the last month or so, but it's been quite meh for big swathes of the last couple of years, so I think the recent hot weather has been a bit of a tipping point for a fair few viewers who had stuck with EastEnders until this summer. They'll have to find some good audience-grabbing storylines in the autumn, and make sure the quality is high afterwards, so viewers don't drift off again.

They had this trouble in 1989. The show fell apart after Den's "death", and the ratings were low by that time's standards for the rest of 1989, and most of 1990.

One week in autumn 1989 revolved around Ethel fainting after discovering a box of willy-warmers.

Is Breathless for the Autumn ? What about Whitechapel, new episodes of Midsomer ?

I expect it'll be a drama, either Doc Martin or something new if they have high hopes for it.

You did really well to get it spot on or nearly spot on. I didn't have a clue with the Athletics so I just left it as it was.

In hindsight my 4.4m punt was overly optimistic. But I struggled with it as very little Athletics on primetime telly these days to compare with and I wasn't sure what effect the "one year on" tag would have.

I do think the actual audience was decent taking everything into account.

Yeah, Breathless and Whitechapel are both for the Autumn, although I think Pizza mentioned that Whitechapel is starting in August. My theory is that Whitechapel will go Sundays & Mondays for 3 weeks (they're 2 part stories) with Breathless on Wednesdays. I think Midsomer may have a couple of episodes for the Autumn, although they've got The Guilty, Vera and possibly Bletchley Circle to fit in this Autumn too so it's going to be quite a squeeze.

If Doctor Who can't get ~8m with a Strictly lead-in to beat one regular episode of X Factor I think that's going to say more about the poor state of DW overnights these days than it will about X Factor. The press tone for XF ratings will be set long before then anyway.

Between Strictly and even Merlin, X Factor usually has some competition to contend with. DW will probably only be a few million higher than Merlin usually was so it shouldn't take too much out of XF that week.


I don't think it has actually been confirmed, has it?


It's basically the theme from series 6 (although they never plugged it as a theme to the same extent). But while I don't watch anymore, BB does seem to be doing very well this series. From years of following the show and its ratings, any upward move is a rare and good thing and even more impressive when things started off so badly.

Does anyone have the BB series averages from the past few years (celeb as well, if possible)?


Slightly concerning I would think that Richardson couldn't hold much more than half the audience from a lead-in show featuring him. C4 do seem to have tried a few vehicles for him which haven't really caught on. Then again, nothing seems to catch on for them at the moment. Four Rooms is quite a neat format too but those are dire numbers.


I wonder if ITV would run the new stuff in the Monday slot where it will be supported by Corrie and put Doc Martin in the Wednesday or Thursday slot where it will guarantee good ratings? We saw last year quite a few ITV dramas struggling on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

As for New Tricks, BBC1 has been doing well with drama on Tuesdays at 9pm for quite a while now, in fact that slot has probably brought more success for them lately than Mondays or even Sundays. It's guaranteed the minimum of competition from ITV and a decent lead-in from Holby.

BBC are making a mistake showing New tricks on Tuesday. Tuesday 9pm is bbc1s best slot for dramas on a weeknight cos it has the best lead in so the Tuesday slot should be given to a new drama. Also now that new tricks is on Tuesday, it can't be used to cause damage to itvs ratings on Monday/Sundays. ITV rate badly on Tuesdays anyways so new tricks damaging potential won't be used to its fullest. Also I'm sure now that BBC have given ITV an open goal on Mondays, ITV will show their call the midwife/mad men rip off on Mondays cos its the best slot of the week in the hope it becomes their next broadchurch. They will end up showing doc martin on wed/thu night knowing it will get a solid 7million in a difficult slot for them.

I'm not sure how to work out Corrie's 8:30pm rating, what would it be roughly tape-checked?

Solid 8million more like

No it hasn't, although the 24th seems to be the date floating around the most. If they do go with that then I think they'll go with Sunday shows from the beginning too. Mr & Mrs finishes on the 11th and I think they might use the Sunday 8pm slot on the 18th (the week before it starts) for some kind of 10 Years of X Factor special (apparently they're doing something although they haven't confirmed if it'll be for ITV or ITV2).

The new format may require two shows per week although they haven't confirmed exactly how it is going to work.


ITV might do that I guess, although 3 weeks of Whitechapel from August 26th (with Whitechapel launching on Sunday 25th out of XF's Sunday launch) and 8 weeks of Doc Martin ties in perfectly with the weeks I'm A Celebrity normally airs in. As does 6 weeks of Breathless and 4 weeks of either Bletchley Circle or Vera on Wednesdays from September 4th. Wednesday isn't a great night for them to launch new stuff but I think they'll want to keep Doc Martin on Mondays. The lead-in should be OK at least (I think it might be Surprise Surprise in the Wednesday 8pm slot with Celebrity Chase on Sundays at 7pm). Thursdays could be some kind of comedy night with the new pre-watershed sitcom Pat & Cabbage at 8.30pm and Benidorm at 9pm. Life Stories on Fridays. X Factor, Stepping Out and Through The Keyhole for Saturdays.

Itv are going to trick the BBC into thinking they're showing doc martin on Mondays so bbc1 end up showing poor rated factual on that night. But mark my words, Itvs Call the midwife/Mad men ripoff will be shown on Mondays this autumn. This project is way too big and important to Itv for them to dump on a Wednesday or Thursday. While with doc martin, they know its its last or penultimate series so a slightly smaller audience of 7m on Wednesday than the 8m it would get on monday won't worry them.

Call The Midwife and Mad Men are quite different shows you know, I'm not sure you can call it a rip-off of both!

They could show Breathless on Mondays I guess. It looks pretty good so far and the cast is impressive. The question is will it appeal to a wide ITV audience?