Well BGT's ratings have held steady and IAC has gained another 2 million viewers after a fall in the late noughties, but they do have a shelf life and if Ant and Dec decide to leave IAC, the show would collapse as the format is only kept going by their wit. Somehow someone like Patrick Kielty would probably kill it as the format is passe.

Noel had his biggest TV hit with House Party in 1991 when he was 42/43.

I can see Ant & Dec signing another contract and continuing with BGT/I'm A Celebrity. Their own shows have never been as big as these shows and the BBC can't do light entertainment well. I just can't see them going to the BBC yet.

I think if these two shows start to fade they might look elsewhere. They were badly rattled by the failure of Red or Black.

DS need to sort their ratings articles out.

Just a though, seeing as Pointless has been in repeats since June, any chance they could ever swap it with Perfection for a while, until new editions return?

Ah, so their 1 celeb edition per series lasted all of 1 series then.


Twofold - firstly in this case it's C4 making a big deal out of something which turns out to be a one off pilot - and secondly although there absolutely is a place for pilot strands on TV, sometimes networks just need to show a bit of confidence and go for it. As you say Chickens was hardly taking a risk - but the fact C4 only commissioned a pilot suggested they didn't have much faith in it, so why should you watch?

Also with comedy especially C4 have very few returning series at the moment (I can only think of Friday Night Dinner and the surely due the axe Peep Show) on the main channel, so adding another full series rather than a series of pilots might be the better risk to take. It's surely cheaper too to commission a 6 part series than 6 individual pilots.

Pilot series are only worth while if they're consistently generating new series - but over the last couple of years they haven't been for C4.

Celebrity Big Brother: 1.64m inc. +1

Nicely up on the 1.46m that watched the equivalent episode last year.

TV gossip etc from Edinburgh Festival
http://www.theguardian.com/media/med...-peter-fincham

Without spoiling the cricket score, the editing team on Cricket On 5 have a very complicated hour coming up
(maybe even more so than the last game in Durham, which finished at 7.40pm).

I do not agree that Casualty is 'wallpaper'. Regardless, any drama that replaced a portion of Casualty's run would almost certainly be more expensive, meaning that not all the gap could be filled. Therefore extra money would be required to fill slots; money the BBC does not have spare at the moment.

Casualty has been a massive success for the BBC since the eighties and I think it adds gravitas to an often banal Saturday line up on BBC One and does provide a more serious alternative to TXF, which 5 million viewers turn to.

Phenomenally exciting isn't it! Don't know if C5's different tapes for each quarter of the broadcast will save them this time - particuarly as they'll be absolutely desperate to show the lifting of the urn.

EDIT: Common sense has been ignored and C5 have been saved.

EDIT EDIT: Though C5 might still have to have the celebrations very close to live.

Not sure why "I Love My Country" is going down so badly in the ratings. Its fairly bland but not a disaster show. Perhaps the format needs changing up but it could succeed given the right slot during the week.

"That Puppet Game Show" may have sounded ok in a pitch to an executive but its delivery is not sharp enough. I think a complete comedy show is needed with a good scriptwriter for the puppets. The games are just pretty pointless and it needs a lot of work to be given another chance.

"Stepping Out" and "The X Factor" are going to be completely unchallenged by any channel.

I don't think the format is the issue. They could have gotten a comedian presenting, and someone better than Jamelia for the house band.

Alastair Cook interviewed by C5 before he gets to Athers on the podium on Sky. Wonder how they wangled that! Interesting. Anyway, C5 came off air at 19:57 and so miss out on the lifting of the urn, but ratings should still be decent as it's still 'new news'.

Could be a change of cast to make the most of it. I would give it a second chance but i'd perhaps reschedule to Fridays.

No need to hide, I agree that their saturday nights are largely poor.


These things are to be honest the easiest things to be fixed and could be fixed in a blink of the eye. I agree the trailers are poor.



BBC One have never been good at this since the dawn of time (Accept for the Grade era) because they are worried about looking to aggressive and when they are aggressive (Or in my opinion being plain fair) they get slated. Basically they get slated ether way. They should schedule where the program is suited.



Errr??? Tricky one. I totally agree with you on Sunday but they do have to have some sort of PSB output and it has always tended to go the way of politics and religious programs on a Sunday. Countryfile and Antiques roadshow are tow very popular programs and I have no problem with them. As I have said more variety at 8pm and moving AR and CF back would be a good shake up.

But millions of people enjoy them and just because We, You or I don't like it doesn't mean it shouldn't be on.


New controller has arrived and this is easy to fix. BBC One I reckon will get a totaly makeover but it would have seemed very out of touch to do that during the hight of the DFQ.


Totally agree. If you look on the face of it and with out the usual hysteria of this thread it's not a disaster. And by the way Charlotte Moore has come across I am confident she can make a few changes.

The only thing she wont be able to do on her own is fixing the state of LE on the BBC. That involves people higher up (Cohen and co. Ooh that has a ring to it!).

Ken

How many new episodes of Antiques Roadshow are commissioned each year? One of the things that does make schedules feel tired, and it is something BBC1 is especially guilty of - notably during daytime - is just never giving shows a break and airing repeats every time they run out of new episodes. To an extent that's fine - but the BBC sometimes push it a little bit too far.

Antiques Roadshow is very popular though, getting 5million+ and shares of around 25pct almost every week. These are fantastic ratings for such a cheap show these days so it's not surprising bbc1 has the Countryfile-Roadshow 7-9pm Sunday block almost every week of the year. It dominates the ratings at a cheap price. No point spending lots more money on other shows in those slots which probably wont get as many viewers.

Pointless to name one. As I mentioned before, they could swap it around with Perfection if they still feel the need to air repeats, or simply have it off air completely when it goes to repeats, and give Perfection a chance in the 5:15pm slot.

I believe Pointless has been in repeats since 24th June.

Pointless repeats gets more viewers than every other game show at tea time, even new episodes of other game shows. So it's not surprising BBC1 is showing it all year round. If BBC1 dropped Pointless for a few weeks, then the ratings in the 5.15-6pm would decline, just as Itv has experienced the last month with Take On The Twisters miserably failing in the Chase's slot. Viewers seem to love Pointless, even if theyre repeats they watch in big numbers. Why get rid of a winning formula?

On the issue of "poor effort" BBC, there is this argument that just because "you" don't like a show is no reason to slag off the BBC. The nature of the BBC is that there will be something for "you" along soon that other people won't like.


A slight flaw in this view... BBC1s schedule is incredibly samey nowadays. If you don't like Monday daytime then you won't like Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday.

It's the same stuff! Extending into weekends quite frequently as well.

Even the evenings are almost identical to each other.

Problem is that it'll lead to burnout. Repeats of The Chase do pretty much as well as the new episodes do as well but ITV have wisely given it a rest for 6 weeks to give viewers a break from it. Take on The Twisters hasn't worked out but it shouldn't put them off resting The Chase every so often. They'll be doing it again later in the year or early next year for a few weeks when The Paul O'Grady Show airs. I think The Chase should air at 5pm for most of the year, just taking breaks for POG (10-12 weeks of the year in total) and 6 weeks in the Summer, although next year I'd just run new episodes of Tipping Point in the 5pm slot during the Summer (maybe with Chase repeats at 4pm), which would still rate well. Tipping Point would stay at 4pm the rest of the time though where it does really well. That way The Chase will stay fresh for longer. If Pointless doesn't get given a rest at some point it'll start to flag.

Pointless may be in repeats, but is obviously doing well because of the weak opposition.

As you know, Take on the Twisters has fallen below a million. The Chase was getting three times that. Pointless is doing well as a result of it's low figures. A bit like when you said The Chase was only pulling in 3 million+ a few months ago because Pointless was off-air for a few weeks.

I think we can agree on the fact that both Pointless and The Chase are popular, and the victories are bound to vary for similar shows that are on at the same time.

Between October last year and January, The Chase consecutively beat Pointless. After the Xmas break, Pointless frequently beat it. Pointless had the benefit of Celebrity editions, 6 days a week (for that two week period in December, Saturdays otherwise).

The thing is all these gameshows will eventually lead to burnout. Maybe Pointless will last a couple years longer if it's not shown every weeek of the year. But look at it from the BBC's perspective: they will get better value for money showing 250episodes of Pointless a year for maybe 5 years of still big ratings rather than 150 episodes of Pointless over a 7-year period. People might think it's better having Pointless shown over a 7 year period than 5 years of high ratings but over the 5 years, bbc would get better value for money due to the sheer number of episodes they'll pack in.

It's like the people saying the bbc ran down The Weakest Link by showing it so much over 10 years. But how many more years would the Weakest Link have lasted at the top if they'd shown fewer episodes per year? Maybe a couple years more? Overall, the bbc made the right decision showing it every weekday for 9/10 years in a row and inevitably, like all game shows it burned out. But they certainly got their value for money from it. When a channel like BBC1/C4/Itv gets a freak-ish daytime hit like Pointless/Chase/Deal Or No Deal, their best way to play it is to pack in as many episodes as possible to build a strong day time schedule. These will all burn out eventually anyway so might as well make the most of them when they're popular for the time being.

Not that the viewing figures for Pointless & The Chase show any signs of burn-out, yet...

As for 'making the most while they're popular', we're not talking about marketing a boyband or something here. It's a quiz show, and really, they can be changed up every now and then to become more fresh. They don't rely entirely on the format or host, more so the intelligence of the contestants and the level of questions. Quiz shows are hardly going to lose popularity on their own. They are only really going to if they are run into the ground on purpose.