But then what if Doc Martin affected and knocked down to 7million on Wednesday from the 9million on Monday, and if Breathless then flops on the Monday, that would be no good too them. I still think Doc Martin will be on the Monday.

SCORE - I've seen the production shots and publicity stills of Breathless. It is VERY Mad Men esque in style and obviously being pitched to a very upmarket audience. If they dont make it soapy like Downton, it will rate average or more like Selfridge. If they have lots of soap esque storylines which is quite simple to follow for an elderly audience, it could do well.

Heavy downpour here - think ratings for tonight will be slightly up compared to previous Saturdays.

That's the risk ITV will take. If doc martin is knocked down to 7m and breathless flops, obviously that's bad. But breathless on a monday night has a far better chance of succeeding after the Coro St oap brigade audience than on a Wednesday following a low rating gameshow. Itv will take all this into consideration and take the risk.

There's nothing to say that two shows in different genres won't have a similar audience to two shows in the same genre.

Just an a random example, New Tricks is going to have a similar audience to Antiques Roadshow than it is to Channel 4 drama Top Boy.

I've never seen why two dramas cant coexist but two different genre shows will always be complimentary.


Good to know Whitechapel is back soon. My favourite ITV drama by far.

They will be hoping it consolidates to 8 million. Id be surprised if there are many 8 million overnights. NT is marginally on the wane and faces a sea change at the end of this series when two main characters depart, having already lost James Bolam.

It does look very slick and stylish like Mad Men does, but the storyline is really quite different so I think it's unfair to call it a rip off. Same goes for CTM, just because it is a medical drama doesn't mean it is a 'rip off' of CTM as the stories and tone of the show looks very different to CTM (Breathless is very much a post watershed show). I think it might do quite well, but doubt it'll be a huge hit.

Last series of Doc Martin in the overnights (2011) (exc/inc +1):

12/09: 8.43m (32.4%) / 8.73m (34.1%)
19/09: 8.81m (35.3%) / 9.08m (36.9%)
26/09: 8.55m (34.5%) / 8.78m (35.8%)
03/10: 8.52m (34.2%) / 8.78m (35.7%)
10/10: 8.54m (34.8%) / 8.80m (36.3%)
17/10: 8.86m (35.2%) / 9.14m (36.8%)
24/10: 8.67m (34.2%) / 8.97m (35.8%)
31/10: 8.69m (34.1%) / 8.95m (35.5%)

Looking through the schedule for tonight, I can see low ratings for the two main channels. ITV's schedule in particular is dire with a double helping of YBF and struggling YFSF.

Weather is awful here too in the Midlands. Frequent thunder and lightning accompanied by bursts of heavy squally rain. Most unpleasant conditions.

Depending on how widespread it is, figures could be a little better than has been the norm recently on Saturday nights.

ITV had a pretty good night. But that share for Emmerdale has got to be it's largest for a long time. It suggests that there were about 16.2m watching at the time. Nice figure for 8 Out of 10 Cats as well.

I would dump YBF for a TV Burp repeat.

ITV being poor should be good for the miner channels such as BBC4 tonight.

I didn't say that. In fact, that was partly my point. No one case is the same.

It's not impossible the two programmes could share a significant crossover, but to me unlikely. Of course there is a more detailed kind of access where you can see precisely how many people who watched a given programme also watched something else, so that must be useful for those better connected than us. Obviously no additional tools are needed to conclude that ITV won't pose any kind of threat on the Tuesday. But as SamuelW has sagely identified, that makes that night more suited to newer unproven dramas than something established.

Even if I reluctantly agree that Monday 9pm was perhaps not the right slot at this time of year given it's one of a very small number of slots that ITV has been consistently winning this summer, I still don't feel Tuesday is the right night. And if you disagree with me that's fine, but it's my opinion and I'm perfectly entitled to express it without being shot down.

Bit of a leap there.

"That bird off Emmerdale and Nadia Sawalha are on All Star Family Fortunes. I think I'll watch John Sergeant on Tracks of Empire instead."

What an impressive share for Emmerdale. Well
deserved, best soap at the moment.

And at the same time awful share for EastEnders.

At one time the only chance ED had of beating EE was if they clashed, and even then they didn't always win. Now ED is getting a higher rating with increasingly regularity. FOUR episodes of Emmerdale have beaten EastEnders this week.

Worrying times for EE, it seems to have been second and now third to its ITV rivals for most of this year. I wonder if the soap is now in terminal decline. We haven't had a major soap slink off and die since Brookside and I wonder if EE is going to do a Brookside.

And that's with this crazy tapechecking (or lack thereof) situation, so Emmerdale's performance can be upgraded slightly on the figures we've got.

Yesterday's would be down slightly tape-checked because you would assume Corrie inflates the last 5 minutes a bit, but Thursday's and Tuesday's up significantly.

Yes excellent share for it, and I agree it's the best soap at the moment. However when praising one soap one must criticise another (preferably Eastenders), it's a DS rule.

The second Corrie would increase as well because the 8:30 episodes usually start maybe a minute early and end five minutes earlier. The 7:30 episodes generally fill more of the slot.

It comes to down airing on Mondays against a popular show in Long Lost Family, which I believe would have some crossover audience with NT, or airing on Tuesdays against very little competition. Tougher competition on Monday or less overall viewers on Tuesdays. Add in the fact that the cast changes to New Tricks might leave it a tad vulnerable and I don't think there's a clear argument either way.


Dan, I tried to clear the air the other day. None of my replies to your posts are personal or aim to shoot you down. I just disagree with you.

Indeed.

Wonder how the Opening Ceremony repeat will do on BBC Three. Hope and think it will average over a million.

Been weird here today, started off raining, ended up with a day full of bright sunshine and blistering heat, now it's clouded over and has begun storming...that's in far the south east.

Should imagine figures will be up, but it's not like it's cooled down, it's still really hot...