Yeah, it's the makers who need to up their game, and somehow regain the magic touch which has gradually evaporated from the show over the last seven or eight years.

A bit of biding time will help, too. The wheels have come off BBC Two and C4 in the 5pm hour (for different reasons), and Pointless and Chase will begin to dip in time, which will provide potential for some viewers to return to Neighbours.

Trying to shoehorn a big catastrophe into the scripts every three months, in order to have an hour-long primetime episode just won't work. It does more harm than good, as Emmerdale discovered years ago when they were having conflagrations to order, to fit dates when ITV wanted to run hour-long episodes against EastEnders. Eventually, a new producer had to come in and gradually return the show to character-driven storylines.

All of which proves how much wasted time is spent on here argueing about whats a flop etc based on overnight ratings which look entirely diffrent when the finals come in.
How many posts have we had about EM beat EE last night based on overnights when in reality the majority of these 'wins' are reversed when the consolidated ratings come in.

BTW I am not pretending EE is in anything but a slump at the moment - it was just an example.

Castaway, Play it Again, The State Within, The Innocence Project, Davina, He's Having a Baby, Only Fools on Horses... He wasn't that good.

I'll be interested to see how this does, it's certainly the biggest unscripted launch in the US this year (and for some time). It has a hint of Red or Black about it in the sense that the focus seems to be on the "live event" feel and the expensive staging. Almost like the name came before the format. The actual format doesn't seem to be anything special. Seacrest should pull an audience though, and it's not a bad time to launch that kind of show either. People coming back to TV but not much TV for them to see before the official season launch.

Pairing with Birds of a Feather would be best, with Feather the first of the double bill, but it depends on whether they'd both be ready.

Vicious has no chance of rating well at 9pm, with a brand new comedy after it.

Cohen knew as soon as he got the job that all he had to do was keep it going. Just as he knows that's all he has to do in his current post and he'll end up the youngest DG ever.

Birds of A Feather will probably end up being shown on Sundays at 8pm sandwiched between Dancing on Ice. It is back in January according to one of the actors and if it is launched on the first Sunday of 2014, it will have 3 weeks of a free run without facing Call the Midwife - bound to get 7million+ in such a good slot. Itv will then hope it can dent CTM a little bit when that returns towards the end of January and BOAF level off at 6m.

I could have seen Job Lot heading to Sky if it wasn't picked up, it's got that Trollied/The Cafe comedy style about it

Is everything in your world about 'denting'? Believe it or not, two programmes can face each other and compliment each other without denting.

Generally when theres one very popular program on BBC1/ITV, it does end up denting the other one on ITV/BBC1. I cant remember many examples recently of two shows being shown at the same time at 9pm which are very complementary and neither being dented in the ratings even a little bit.

If BOAF does end up being shown against CTM, CTM will not rate quite as well as last series because BOAF is tougher competition than All star family fortunes. Also BOAF will rate lower up against CTM than against Antiques roadshow because CTM is about 2-3million viewers more popular than AR.

My theory was "gradually". A few more weeks and E'dale victories over EastEnders will be confined to the hour-long episodes.

Mrs Brown/Miranda and Lewis (Drama v Comedy) as would be if Birds of a Feather faced CTM.

Well yes but you'd expect BBC1 prime time programming to be most watched on Iplayer rather than something more niche

Then considering most of the rest of BBC1's schedule yesterday was either wallpaper factual or repeats, I'd expect EastEnders and Big School to be top almost by default.

This.....1 week left for EastEnders to grab it's LOWEST RATINGS EVER which was so going to happen this summer (well by a few deluded people) let Emmerdale have these close wins because the gap will get Bigger once the summer is over.

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The "told ya so" act is a bit tiresome!

But it wasn't just any old doc about poaching was it, George? It was Poaching Wars....WITH TOM HARDY - a hunky actor who they clearly thought would bring in the crowds.

ITV is 100 per cent ratings focused, as it has every right to be, given that it's a commercially funded channel that has successfully lobbied to get rid of most of its PSB obligations.

Just because it frequently fails to deliver the numbers (because of poor commissioners who incorrectly second guess the tastes of the audience) doesn't alter that fact.

In theory, but Emmerdale has a good few strong storylines in the Autumn (as do EE), so hold your horses.

Dan2008, isnt it a bit embarrassing for Eastenders though, that we're talking about it going ahead of Emmerdale - traditionally the 3rd soap? I mean, come on, Eastenders should be competing against Coro St. as it has been for most of its 28 years, not this dated farming soap.

Daytime shares, week ending 18 August 2013
09:30-18:00, overnights inc +1

BBC One: 21.1%
BBC Two: 7.0%
ITV: 11.1%
Channel 4: 6.0%
Channel 5: 4.2%
Others: 50.7%

This week wasn't entirely typical as there were the Athletics World Championships running in daytime on the BBC.

All-day shares, week ending 18 August 2013
overnights inc +1

BBC One: 21.6%
BBC Two: 7.0%
ITV: 14.9%
Channel 4: 5.6%
Channel 5: 4.1%
Others: 46.7%

All-day shares, year to date
31 December 2012 - 18 August 2013, overnights inc +1

BBC One: 22.1% (down -0.9 percentage point on same period in 2012)
BBC Two: 6.1% (-0.3%)
ITV: 16.4% (+0.4%)
Channel 4: 5.9% (-0.6%)
Channel 5: 4.2% (-0.1%)
Others: 45.35% (+1.6%)

Multichannel continues its slow march upwards. ITV's relative success this year shows through here, although daytime lets them down (particularly at weekends). There's also the lack of Olympics/Jubilee to take into account.

Source: Broadcast

So why on earth did ITV commission Vicious and The Job Lot again, plus keep The Americans in its 10pm slot despite often rating below 1million?

They need ratings to make money, but don't tell me they are entirely ratings foccused. That poaching doc was hardly going to bring in 4million, not many people are going to watch a poaching doc due to the upsetting nature of them. I remember when a Panarama doc of BBC about poaching got something like 1.8million for 30min.

Charlotte Moore has admitted that EastEnders is underperforming, and, she is making it her mission to ensure the new EP makes it Britains best drama once again!

For the record I quite liked Big School.

The obvious thing here is that we are so used to an over reaction and lots of over the top posts from the loudest members here whenever a new ITV show drops from episode 1 to 2, that people feel the need to say the same when it happens to a BBC1 show.


And at this time of year you don't even get much of that as the politicians are mostly on holiday, so that won't help the ratings.

Hey, Andy, a nice 12 weeks off for summer, me I get the grand total of 30 days a year and nada when I was a labourer in a warehouse. However, The Politics Show is dull period, anyone know what its ratings are?

Wonder why the BBC isn't in crisis then.

I think BOAF giving Vicious a lead-in is probably best.

Or even better after The X Factor at 10pm